ZOMG! iPad 2 discontinued at Target! What could this mean?

It seems that every little tidbit of news related to Apple is amplified, magnified and distorted beyond all recognition by the blogospheric echo chamber.

Take this piece over on TiPb which says that Target has marked the 16GB iPad 2 3G on both Verizon and AT&T as being discontinued. This, of course, must mean that the iPad 2 is not long for this world and that the iPad 3 is inbound.

Here's what the 'source' has to say:

That implies that we will not be ordering more, which implies a new iPad is forthcoming rather soon (October-ish, say). Either that or Target's exiting the iPad business, which seems unlikely. A lot of the cases have gone clearance too.

So, the iPad 2 is not long for this world then, right?

Maybe not ...

What's interesting is that Target only has the 3G models marked as discontinued, with the WiFi-only models still in stock. What's more likely than Apple getting ready to pull the plug on the iPad 2 and launch the iPad 3 is that Target is going to stop selling 3G iPads and stock only the WiFi models.

This 'iPad 3 is coming this fall' is nonsense. It was nonsense kicked off by John Gruber over on Daring Fireball back before the iPad 2 was officially announced. Want a laugh? Here's the reason that Gruber gave for predicting an early release for the ipad 3:

HP today announced their answer to the iPad: the TouchPad - a name that, not coincidentally, is drawn from those of two best-selling iOS devices. The hardware is very iPad-like - similar dimensions, similar basic gist. The software looks impressive: tasteful and well-designed, with a gesture-based interaction model. Way more appealing, and more cohesive, than what we've seen of Motorola's Android-based Xoom.

So it was the HP TouchPad that was going to shock Apple into releasing two iPad versions within the space of a year ... yeah, the now-dead TouchPad! Are you laughing? I'm laughing hard here, so hard I feel like I'm going to burst.

But there's more ... with hindsight these comment are also laughable:

The RIM Playbook looks genuinely interesting, and, supposedly, is coming soon-ish.

Given that Gruber was so way off when it came to the HP TouchPad (dead) and RIM's PlayBook (on life support after having only shipped - not sold - 200,000 over the last quarter), what's to say that he isn't just as way off with his iPad 3 prediction? I've already said that the iPad 3 (or iPad HD as some are calling it) isn't coming this year, but people still refuse to accept this (or maybe they're just churning the same nonsense because there's nothing else to talk about).

There's absolutely no reason for Apple to release another iPad this year. The competition is in disarray and the iPad is wiping the floor with the competition.