On Oct. 16, Apple sent out invitations for its next event on Oct. 23 in which the Cupertino-based company is expected to reveal its much-awaited iPad Mini. Rumors indicate that on Oct. 23 the iPad Mini will share the stage with a new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display and a Mac Mini.

Apple will hold the event at the California Theater in San Jose starting at 10am California time.

In June 2011, Apple released a redesigned 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display. "It was reported that the redesigned laptop will land on stores first because of apparent issues with its 13-inch counterpart. In fact, the company was not able to introduce its upcoming notebook at this year's Worldwide Developers Conference due to low-yield rate and greater assembly difficulty," reported AMOG.com.

"Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI shared in a note with AppleInsider on Thursday that he expects Apple to ramp up production of a 13-inch next-generation MacBook Pro with Retina display in September. That would allow the product to hit stores in early October, in time for the holiday shopping season," reported MacRumors in June this year.

The new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display is expected to features a thin chassis just like the original 13-inch MacBook Pro, an all-flash storage no disk-drive), and the device is expected to include Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics.

The new 13-inch MacBook Pro is speculated to feature a 2,560 x 1,600 pixels resolution display compared to the 2880 x 1800 pixels resolution of its predecessor. The 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display is currently priced at $2199. The existing 13-inch model with no Retina Display costs $1199. Consumers will hope that the new 13-inch model with Retina display to cost slightly over the current model

The countdown to the highly-awaited Apple event has started. Time will tell what devices are revealed by the tech giant in one of the most-anticipated events of the year.