New theory on iPad Mini release emerges

A new theory on when the could-it-be-or-not iPad Mini surfaced Thursday, with tech journalist John Gruber weighing in on why releasing the petite tab on the same day as the iPhone 5 would be a big blooper for Apple.

He also offered a tenable timeline for when the Cupertino company unleashes the 7.85-inch touchscreen slate on the world.

"I don't think Apple would want reviews of both a new iPhone and new-size iPad appearing at the same time," Gruber wrote on Daring Fireball.

"Why share the spotlight? Why have another Apple product battling with the iPhone for the top spots in news coverage?"

Gruber is notoriously well informed with inside sources, so he could very well know what he's talking about.
He goes on to call the iPhone "too big, too cool," taking up too much attention no matter how big a stage Apple sets for it. Any other device would not only get pushed to the sidelines, the glow around the handset itself would diminish.

"It's in Apple's interest to keep that attention undiluted."
Best-case scenario

It behooves Apple, Gruber continued, to hold two separate events for the next-gen iPhone's launch and the iPad Mini's delivery.

In fact, Gruber even came up with a timeframe for the launches.
"First, an iPhone event, focused solely on the new iPhone and iOS 6," he envisioned. "Then, the iPhone ships nine days later, and there's another wave of iPhone-focused attention as the reviews come in.
"Then, in the first or second week of October, Apple holds its traditional 'music event,' exactly along the lines of the events at which they've been debuting new iPods for the last decade."

It's at the second event, Gruber postulates, that Apple will introduce the smaller iPad.
'iPad Air'

Interestingly, Gruber never called the "new-sized iPad" the "iPad Mini" in his post but refers to it as the iPad Air.

This device, he wrote, would be a smaller, thinner and cheaper iPad. He hypothesized the tablet could debut at the music event (or, rather, an "iTunes event") next to a new iPod touch - "just an iPhone without the phone" - along with a new or updated iPod music players.

The thread that ties this event together, he wrote, could be consuming iTunes media content.
Backup

Apple journalist Jim Dalrymple, who reposted part of Gruber's theory on The Loop, gave the writer's theory a nod by responding, "Oh that Gruber is a smart fellow."

Dalrymple's apparent approval of Gruber's guesswork is fueling even more speculation that Apple could indeed hold two events within a month or so of each other, giving ample attention to each without pulling the public and media in two different directions.

Whether Gruber and Dalrymple know something the rest of us don't is highly possible, so we wouldn't be surprised if, as the days unfold, we look back at Gruber's hypotheses and wonder if he had a crystal ball all along.