Apple to Delay Production of Larger iPad Till September: Report

Production on the bigger tablet had been scheduled to begin this quarter, Bloomberg cited one of the people as saying.

The Bloomberg report also adds the larger iPad is part of Apple CEO Tim Cook's "effort to reinvigorate the iPad product line, where sales have declined for four straight quarters. iPads are also facing competition from larger iPhones, which were introduced in September and helped Apple deliver record profit in the latest quarter."

The report also claims that "a larger iPad could also bolster Cook's initiative to make Apple's products more appealing to business users," pointing to Apple's recently announced partnership last year with IBM to "create mobile software for businesses and for IBM to help sell iPads to corporate customers."

The larger iPad tablet has been variously tipped to be named iPad Pro, or iPad Air Plus. The most recent report claimed the tablet featured a 12.9-inch display, was just 7mm-thick and weighed less than 700 grams. The larger size tablet was also to fit a larger battery, rumoured to be 11000mAh and roughly 1.5 times bigger than the iPad Air 2 battery.

Slightly earlier reports pointed towards a stylus for the 12.9-inch iPad Plus that can additionally work with iPad Air models. It was tipped as an optional accessory for the iPad Pro, as a stylus bundled with the tablet would make the package too costly.

Written with inputs from Reuters