Apple might be planning 128GB iOS devices - report

Apple might be working on new devices that support 128GB of internal storage. The latest beta of iOS 6.1, which was seeded to developers on Saturday, features a new 128GB system partition key. The change was first reported by iDownloadBlog, which, following a tweet by hacker and developer, Neal, investigated the development by extracting iOS 6.1 beta and comparing the SystemPartitionPadding values with that of the older 6 firmware. The blog found that iOS 6.1 featured a new 128 field, which was not present in iOS 6.

While this doesn't confirm the presence or development of new devices, it's worth noting that the maximum storage option that Apple currently offers for iOS devices including the iPhone and the iPad is 64GB. With the average app size increasing (especially after the launch of the Retina display iPad), apps are taking up a large part of storage space, which implies that space for user data is shrinking. So it makes sense for Apple to introduce devices with increased storage space.

Earlier this month, it was also reported that developers are seeing presence of new iPhone hardware and iOS 7 in their usage logs. The report had claimed that developers were seeing a new 'iPhone6,1' identifier, powered by a device running iOS 7, in their app logs, with the app requests originating from an IP address leading to Apple's Cupertino campus. It would be interesting to see whether Apple will launch new storage options for current devices or would keep it for devices introduced in the next refresh cycle.

(Image Courtesy: iDownloadBlog)