iPad Air Plus Release Date, Specs & Price: Is Device Same as iPad Pro?

Alongside those iPhone 7 rumors are talks of a bigger iPad slated for a 2015 release. Is Apple getting on the bigger-is-better race with Samsung?

2014 is marked as the year the Cupertino-based company joined the phablet trend with the release of the iPhone 6 Plus. And now, it appears 2015 will be the year that the tech juggernaut will be releasing their biggest tablet yet, dubbed by pundits as the iPad Air Plus. Others have called it the iPad Pro, which reportedly will have a 12.2-inch screen, according to Tech Radar.

"The rumours come from schematics which allegedly describe the upcoming iPad Pro. The 12.2-inch screen is smaller than the previously rumoured 12.9-inches," the tech news source said. "The leak also claims that the dimensions of the iPad Pro will be 305.31mm x 220.8mm x 7mm. The 7mm thickness again backs up rumours we've previously seen about the iPad Pro being thinner than the iPhone 6 Plus." The upcoming iteration will allegedly be equipped with an A9 processor.

The current models of the iPad have a 9.7-inch screen.

With the possibility of Apple's tablet sporting a larger display, some fans of the brand may see these rumors as a welcome development. There's also the possibility that this size adjustment may affect other product offerings of the company.

"Then again, if there's a range of larger iPads in the works, there's the possibility of Apple downsizing its MacBook Air offerings to just offer these larger slates with removable keyboards," Stuff speculated.

Meanwhile, other observers are not as enthusiastic about this possible release, owing to the fact that "iPad sales and tablets in general are on the decline," Mashable said.

"It's unclear how a larger iPad would help reverse the situation. Perhaps more importantly, it's unclear whether consumers would actually want a 12-inch tablet," the site went on to analyze.

The said information leak was relayed by Macotakara, which culled the sparse details from the January 2015 issue of Japanese magazine Mac Fan.

"The new iPad will hit store shelves between April and June 2015. That matches up with previous reports that stated that the tablet wouldn't be ready until the second quarter of 2015," Yahoo! said.

Tech news outlets, however, agree that Mac Fan isn't exactly a 100% reliable source, so it's best to take these rumors "with a grain of salt."

This doesn't stop us from asking this question, though: What do you think of a bigger iPad Air?