Rumor: iPad 3 Running iOS 6

It was just a few months back when iOS 5 was released. But according to some traffic logs from Arstechnica, they have signs of an iPad 3 running iOS 6. Could this be Apple employee’s testing out the new iPad?; from the traffic log it looks like so, but it just seems to good to be true. Apple has only updated iOS 5 once with a minor bug fix. But it is possible with the huge additions to the iPad 3 that they upgrade the lone device to iOS 6. The media event will be on March 7th, so we will find out officially within the next week.

The photo above includes traffic logs from iPads viewing their website. We see many logs coming in from iOS 5,5.0.1, and 5.1, which doesn’t surprise us, but than we see 2 logs indicating iOS 6! This brings up the question on whether Apple plans to upgrade the iPad 1 & 2 to iOS 5.1, while upgrading the iPad 3 to iOS 6. With the major hardware upgrades expected on the iPad 3 its possible Apple planned to start off fresh on a new iOS version. 

Another photo released indicated Google Analytics outputs, one in which indicated a screen resolution of 2048 x 1536. This screen resolution is expected to be on the upcoming iPad 3, which gives more reason to speculate a retina display. Its also possible the log comes from computer monitor screen with a 2048×1536 resolution, but there is very monitors with that same exact resolution.

Furthering into the investigation, Artstechnica has found that the IP Addresses of the iOS 6 devices have come from Cupertino, where the Apple headquarters are located.

But to add to this discovery, we began looking at iPad user agents coming from Apple’s corporate IP block in Cupertino and discovered that Apple appears to be surfing the Web using iPads running what looks like iOS 6.0. 

We do not believe that iOS 6 will be immediately be released, but it is possible they show it off at the Media Event and release later this year. It would be expected iOS 5.1 would be released at the event.