Update: It turns out Apple won’t have a booth at BEA, but will instead be there to speak with publishers in private, according to TUAW.

According to TUAW, Apple is will have a booth at BEA next week, extremely surprising news given Apple’s general secrecy and its typical avoidance of trade shows in recent years.  According to TUAW, different sources speculate Apple will be there merely to promote iBooks, or, more interestingly, to announce some kind of promotion tied in with the 10th anniversary of its retail stores (which seems unlikely, given that iBooks is digital and the retail stores are brick-and-mortar.  Either way, look out for Apple’s booth (where surely there’ll be a couple of iPads to play with) somewhere near Random House, Disney and Macmillan.

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