A US research company claims to have detected up to 50 devices that could be the new Apple tablet PC being tested at the Apple Cupertino campus.
Using embedded code that reports hardware, software and GPS location characteristics, Flurry Analytics claims that it has detected approximately 50 devices that fit the description of the tablet, which Apple is tipped to launch on Thursday Australian time.
The researchers claim that unlike other notebooks, these devices never leave the Apple offices, which they claim is consistent with the high-level of secrecy surrounding Steve Jobs’ latest project.
Based on the data it has gathered, Flurry claimed the following:
Testing of the devices, first spotted in early October, increased dramatically in January.
They are running a special version of the iPhone operating system labeled OS 3.2 (iPhones currently use OS 3.12), not a version of Mac OS X.
Testers have run approximately 200 different pieces of software on the device.
Games are the No. 1 category of software being tested, suggesting that the tablet is intended more for play than for work.
There was no evidences of the kind of industrial apps run on most current tablet computers.
There was a strong trend toward news, books and streaming music and radio, leading Flurry to speculate that the new Apple tablet will “focus heavily on daily media consumption”.
Across all applications detected, there was a “strong theme of sharing and/or social interaction including social games, social networking, photo sharing and utilities like file transfer applications”.
Good news for developers: “From the testing we observed,” writes Flurry, “it appears that Apple wants to leverage the 130,000+ applications already available in the App Store on day one.”
