Philip Elmer-DeWitt, writing for Apple 3.0:

Apple has moved up by two days its final quarterly earnings call of fiscal 2016 due to what Apple Investor Relations calls a “scheduling conflict.”

What’s the conflict? Why Tuesday Oct. 25 and not Thursday Oct. 27? Apple didn’t say, and reporters’ inquiries (including mine) were met with silence.

And, among the rumors encountered for the change:

The best guess for the date shift, in my book, was also the most popular:

A launch event for new Macs

Just food for thought, here are the October events since 2010:

• Oct 20, 2010, Wednesday – Back to the Mac
• Oct 4, 2011, Tuesday – iPhone 4s
• Oct 23, 2012, Tuesday – iMac, iPad 4th Generation, iPad mini, Mac mini and MacBook Pro 13 inch
• Oct 22, 2013, Tuesday – iPad Air, iPad mini with Retina display
• Oct 16, 2014, Thursday – iPad Air 2, iPad Mini 3, 27-inch iMac

Notably, there was no October event last year.