John Paczkowski, writing for All Things Digital, says that the rumored Apple event will be on January 27 instead of January 26.

The gathering is to be held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, a space Apple often uses for media events like this. According to other sources, it will occur on Wednesday, Jan. 27, not Tuesday, Jan. 26, as had been rumored.

The Wall Street Journal’s Yukari Iwatani Kane and Geoffrey A. Fowler report that Apple will announce a tablet at the event that will have a 10 to 11-inch screen and will be shipping in March.

Regarding the material used for the device:

Apple was working on two different material finishes for the device, one of these people said, though it was unclear whether the Cupertino, Calif., company was just testing the finishes or planning to come out with multiple versions of a tablet at different prices.

Much like John Gruber, I find it very odd that they are so certain about the ship date but are uncertain about the finish. Then again, if this announcement is going to be on the level of the first generation iPhone announcement, it wouldn’t surprise me if the tablet team is split up, those working on software and those working on hardware. If that’s the case then it is entirely possible that someone in the company could know about a release time frame but not know many details regarding the hardware.

Previously:
12/28/09: Apple Tablet May be Announced in January
10/7/09: Apple Tablet Coming in Q1 2010
8/24/09: Steve Jobs Has Been Focusing on the Tablet

Update 1/6/10: John Martellaro shares his knowledge of Apple’s planned leaks:

Often Apple has a need to let information out, unofficially. The company has been doing that for years, and it helps preserve Apple’s consistent, official reputation for never talking about unreleased products. I know, because when I was a Senior Marketing Manager at Apple, I was instructed to do some controlled leaks.

He says that this recent Wall Street Journal report has all the signs of a planned leak. Seth Weintraub of 9 to 5 Mac takes it one step further and points out that Yukari Iwatani Kane has had a part in many of the recent “likely leaked stories.”