Apple to launch iPad mini with Retina display on November 12?

When Apple took the wraps off its new iPad mini with Retina display last month, it wouldn’t provide a concrete launch date beyond ‘later in November.’ Some have speculated that it would hit store shelves just before Black Friday weekend.

But according to a posting on Apple’s GSX (global service exchange) site for service providers, we may see the tablet as early as tomorrow. In the post, Apple says that it plans to launch the tablet in the US and other countries on November 12…

Here’s a screenshot of Apple’s internal tool posted by Twitter user PuntoMac (via MacRumors):

release

There’s obviously a few things worth noting here. The first is that such a quiet launch seems odd for such a highly-anticipated product like the Retina mini. But this isn’t unprecedented, and could be related to reports of severe supply constraints.

Next, it’s already past 12:00 pm on November 12 in Australia and well into the day in other countries, and we have yet to hear anything about the new minis going on sale. We can’t remember the last time Apple launched a product later in the day.

The consensus thus far is that this was a mistake by a system or its administrator, but 9to5Mac is reporting that it can confirm that this note did originate from “an official internal Apple system,” so there’s still a possibility the launch date is legitimate.

Obviously, we’ll update this post as soon as more information becomes available.

Update: it’s out!