Apple has made an unusual blunder ahead of its Thursday press event; the company has accidentally revealed both of its new iPads: the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3. An official user guide for iOS 8 in the iTunes Store has apparently had its screenshots updated ahead of schedule; both new iPads are pictured, and the images reveal each will have a Touch ID fingerprint sensor. Aside from the addition of Touch ID, it seems these latest iPads will look nearly identical to their predecessors. 9to5Mac first spotted the premature iPad screenshots. The full-resolution image is still sitting on Apple’s servers.
It’s expected that Apple will improve the performance of each iPad with the help of an updated chipset, likely the iPhone 6’s A8 or a slightly more powerful A8X processor. What’s not clear is whether the iPad mini 3 will match the larger iPad Air 2 spec for spec. Last year, Apple essentially put both tablets on equal footing, but the company may revise its strategy to put more room between them. The user guide hints that one new feature for iPads — burst photography mode — will be available on the iPad Air 2 with no mention of the mini 3.
Regardless, if you were hoping for major design changes, the iTunes document all but confirms they’re not coming this year. Here’s what else to expect from Apple’s big event, and with clear mentions of iOS 8.1 in this guide, another update to Apple’s mobile OS and the launch of Apple Pay are now almost certainly on tomorrow’s agenda. Notably, the iTunes mixup comes on the very same day that Google announced its own brand new tablet, the Nexus 9.
