Macotakara says that Apple is preparing for an iPad 3 introduction in early February. As I noted over at MacRumors, this would make for a roughly one-month wait from introduction to launch if rumors of early March availability are correct, and that’s where they seem to be coalescing right now.

One month is too long of a wait for an established Apple product unless they’re specifically trying to preempt something else with an announcement, and I don’t see signs of that yet. Early February is too early in my opinion, so my gut feeling is that this Macotakara report is off.

For the record, last year Macotakara claimed on February 5 that Apple was likely to hold a late February media event ahead of a March launch for the iPad 2. The media event actually took place on March 2.