iOS Leak Reveals 'Massive' New Apple Device

Massive leaks are now common for every technology company, no matter how secretive. But it isn’t often that the leaks are literally for something ‘massive’…

And yet this is exactly what app developer Steve Troughton Smith discovered buried deep inside Apple AAPL -0.19%’s iOS 9 preview: a iOS keyboard specifically designed for a much larger device than anything that currently exists.

How big? Right now it is impossible to say, but the keyboard can only be seen by using developer tools to set a virtual screen size in excess of even the iPad Air / iPad Air 2’s 9.7-inch 2048 x 1536 pixel display. This means an iOS device closer to the size of a laptop than a tablet.

Read more – Apple iOS 9 Vs iOS 8: What’s The Difference?

#iPadProConfirmed

Mischievously Troughton Smith uses the hashtag #iPadProConfirmed with his discovery and this does seem the biggest likelihood. Much like the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, a large ‘iPad Pro’ with a screen of 12.85 inches has been rumoured for a number of years.

But could all this be coincidence – perhaps a glitch in Apple’s iOS 9 beta software?

It seems highly unlikely. For starters the larger iOS keyboard has specific changes to capitalise on its bigger size. Most notably several enlarged buttons, additional function keys like redo and tab and a whole new narrow numerical row which can be toggled between numbers and symbols. So that would be some accidental coding error.

Furthermore Apple has history here.

Bigger iPhone Leaks

The beta of iOS 6 actually had a preview of a larger iOS keyboard for the then-unannounced jump to a 4-inch display with the iPhone 5. iOS 8 betas also had key UI elements at higher resolutions in preparation for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

So could this be Apple potentially milking some free publicity? It’s possible, but I think it is equally likely that the company wants developers to have time to quietly test their apps at larger resolutions. Of course it may well be both – which is a win/win.

So when can we expect a possible iPad Pro to launch? There are obvious clues…