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Delayed iPhone 5SE, iPad Air 3 release dates as Apple moved rumored intro to March 22?

| Feb 26, 2016 08:43 PM EST

Apple iPhone 5s

Apple has reportedly moved its scheduled March 15 event a week later, which likely could delay the planned release dates of both the iPhone 5SE and the 9.7-inch iPad Air 3. Reports from Asia indicate that Apple employees have been instructed of the pushed back rollout. 

From March 15, the rumored 5SE and new iPad unveiling will instead be staged March 22, suggesting too that the earlier reported commercial debut of both devices three days after will be delayed as well. In relation to the upcoming event, "Apple employees have been asked to keep the days around March 22 free," Apple Insider reported.

The news story was sourced from Japanese blog MacOtakara, a blog site known for providing mostly accurate leaked information on Apple products and services.

The same report reiterated too that mass production of the new 4-inch iPhone is already underway and there was no mention of manufacturing glitch that could be the cause of the slight delay. But speculations are rife that the iPhone 5SE has yet to reach the final cut stage.

From the various schematics that leaked out in the recent days, the smallest of the iPhones appear to look exactly the iPhone 6S save for a few modifications. But another set of drawing surfaced afterwards, which indicated that the next iPhone is more like the soon-to-exit iPhone 5S, in terms of design and build.

There were talks too that the newest of the iPhones will take the official name iPhone SE, as carried by a recent MacRumors story, to differentiate itself from its 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch siblings.

And with the possible delay attending the 5SE debut, it highly likely as well that the mid-sized iPad Air 3 will not come out as earlier thought. The latest talks on Apple's upcoming tablet also floated the likelihood that when unboxed, the new tablet is more of a scaled down version of the 12-9-inch iPad Pro than a third installment of the iPad Air series.

The device will have built-in support for the Apple Pencil stylus that was introduced with the iPad Pro and other features that are optimized for productivity. And like the iPhone 5SE, the iPad Air 3 on release date is set to debut with iOS 9.3 that Apple has boosted with upgraded security features and Night Shift mode as among the highlighted feature bumps.

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