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This article titled “Apple iPad 2 ‘to be unveiled on 2 March’” was written by Josh Halliday, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 22nd February 2011 19.23 UTC

Apple is to unveil its second-generation iPad on March 2, according to the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital blog.

The iPad 2 is likely to be shown off at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center in little over a week, according to the usually-reliably-informed Kara Swisher. In which case, we expect our invite shortly.

Apple could not be reached for comment when contacted by the Guardian (but its likely response would have been: “We don’t comment on speculation.”)

Apple’s stock was down almost 3% at last glance, as rumours about a delay to the iPad 2 began to take a foothold.

The Taiwanese brokerage firm, Yuanta Securities, said in a leaked note that the next version of Apple’s popular tablet computer would come out in June, two months later than expected, due to a bottleneck in its production. Vincent Chen, the head of downstream tech equities at Yuanta, said in the note: “Our checks suggest new issues are being encountered with the new production process and it is taking time to resolve them.”

However, Reuters later reported a “person familiar with the matter” saying that a delay in production was “simply not true”. Apple launched the iPad in April last year.

The iPad 2 is expected to be slimmer, lighter, have a better resolution than the first model, and have front- and rear-facing cameras.

The optimists in us expect more light to be shed on production schedules at Apple’s annual shareholders meeting on Wednesday.

Tim Cook, the company’s chief operating officer, is expected to take centre stage at the meeting in place of chief executive Steve Jobs, who last month began an indefinite period of medical leave.

Cook will likely answer questions on its succession plan, given Jobs’s third medical leave of absence in seven years, and there may be something on Apple’s new cat-among-the-pigeons subscription policy. Apple’s execs may also face questions on how it is addressing Chinese workers’ grievances over chemical poisoning at some of its suppliers.

Either way, meet us back here on Wednesday for more.

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