In an odd twist, Apple's Developer pages erroneously announced the shipping of iPadOS 17.4.1 for March 26, a full five days after its actual release on March 21. Detected by AppleInsider, this discrepancy appeared in the Apple Releases RSS feed, which uncharacteristically declared the forthcoming dispatch of iPadOS 17.4.1 at 5 PM GMT on March 26, despite the update already being available alongside iOS 17.4.1 and visionOS 1.1.1 since March 21. This anomaly was further compounded by the Apple Releases page, which echoed the incorrect release date but maintained the accurate build number, 21E236, identical to that of the previous week’s rollout. In contrast, Apple's Restore Images page correctly reflects the March 21 release date, adding to the confusion.
Despite this, the reason behind the mismatched dates remains speculative. It might simply stem from an inadvertent error, easily rectifiable by Apple. Another hypothesis suggests a potential planned re-release of the update on the cited date, though there’s little to substantiate this need. Alternatively, the anticipation of new iPad models could theoretically justify an update, but the absence of evidence supporting an imminent hardware launch weakens this theory. With no solid grounds for an immediate iPad launch or update re-release, it’s plausible that this mix-up is nothing more than a clerical error awaiting correction.
