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Rumor: Apple to hold 'strange' event in Feb. ahead of March third-gen iPad launch

A new Japanese report has clarified earlier claims of an Apple event in February with the cryptic details that Apple will hold a "Strange" event in February and a Special Event to launch the third-generation iPad in early March.

Macotakara claimed last month that Apple would hold an event in February to unveil the so-called "iPad 3" and iOS 5.1, citing both an Asian supplier and a source in the U.S. However, blogger Danbo has now corrected the original claim as only telling a "half-side of truth."

According to him, Apple will indeed hold an event in February, but it will be a "Strange" event rather than a full product launch. The author was unable to provide further details on what exactly a strange event would entail, though he did reiterate to AppleInsider that it would not be a product event.

One possibility is that the rumored February event could contain industry-related announcements similar to how last month's education event in New York City to mark the release of iBooks 2 and iBooks Author without showing off new hardware.

"Special Event for new products will be hold in early March and will release products during March as usual," Danbo continued.

The publication's most-recent corrections put its insider information more in line with other reports that have pegged March as the month that Apple will release its new iPad, similar to last year. Bloomberg reported last month that production for the next-gen iPad was already underway ahead of a March launch. That report also claimed that the device would feature a high-resolution display, LTE compatibility and a quad-core processor. Rumors out of Taiwan have also pointed to March as the time frame for the launch.

The third-generation iPad is generally believed to feature a doubled-resolution display with a pixel density of 254 pixels per inch. Apple is also expected to unveil its next-generation A6 processor alongside the next iPad as it did with the A5 and the iPad 2 last year.

As for iOS 5.1, a beta release of the software provided by Apple to developers appears to contain references to deep Facebook integration similar to system-wide elements for Twitter that the company built into iOS 5.