It’s official now: Apple’s (AAPL) newest product will be unveiled Wednesday, Jan. 27, in San Francisco.

The e-mail invitation, sent at noon on Monday, reads in full:

Please join us for an invitation-only event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco on January 27 at 10:00 a.m. Registration begins at 9:00 a.m. Please arrive early. RSVP to rsvp_media@apple.com.

The event will mark either the worst-kept secret in Silicon Valley — the unveiling of the tablet computer about which rumors have been swirling since 2002 — or a set-up for the biggest let-down in the company’s 32-year history.

For a brief history of the product’s development, see The Week’s comprehensive rumor timeline. For an intriguing summary of Apple’s tablet-related patents, see Patently Apple’s The Tablet Prophecies.

See also:

• Tablet: Big iPhone or thin MacBook?
• 5 reasons iSlate will succeed/fail
• On the trail of Apple’s iSlate
• Apple tablet: $340 in parts?
• AAPL hits record high on tablet rumors
• Jobs “extremely happy” with tablet

[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]