Mobile application analytics company Flurry thinks it's found evidence of Apple's rumored tablet ahead of the company's January 27 special media event. According to Flurry, about 50 units have been identified so far, and they all appear to be on Apple's Cupertino campus.
"Because Flurry could reliably "place" these devices geographically on Apple's Cupertino campus, we have a fair level of confidence that we are observing a group of pre-release tablets in testing," the company said on its blog. "Testing of this device increased dramatically in January, with observed signs of life as early as October of last year."
According to the company's data, about 200 different applications have been showing up in what looks to be part of the pre-launch test phase for the tablet device. It also appears that the tablet will support iPhone and iPod touch applications.
Based on the types of apps that are showing up most prominently, the tablet may be geared more towards consumers instead of enterprise users. The statistics so far lean heavily towards games, followed by entertainment apps along with news and book apps.
Travel, finance, weather and even social networking apps ranked at the bottom of Flurry's data set.
Despite the fact that there isn't any hard proof yet that Flurry is tracking an Apple tablet device from the in-app data it collects, the company is still fairly certain that's exactly what it is seeing.
"If this were an iPhone we were looking at, the hardware would tell us when we ask it via the software. So we can rule out that this is an iPhone," said Peter Farago, Flurry's vice president of marketing. "Also, we already see verified iPhone devices testing OS 4.0 and these leave Apple's Cupertino, CA campus, whereas this device does not. This makes sense given the secrecy around the new tablet device as the launch event nears."
The data Flurry has collected, however, isn't proof positive that Apple is planning on releasing a tablet in the coming days. Thanks to the company's policy on not commenting on unannounced products, the public is still waiting for some form of confirmation from Cupertino that the tablet launch really is imminent.
Apple will be hosting a special media event on Wednesday, January 27, in San Francisco where the company is expected to introduce its rumored tablet device. Be sure to check in with The Mac Observer for our product announcement coverage.