iPhone 5 and iPad 3 may come with quad-core processors, iOS 5.1 beta reveals

Apple is undoubtedly already working on the next generation iPhone and iPad, which we'll call iPhone 5 and iPad 3 even though Apple may choose to release them under different names. In the past few days, we've seen many rumors about the next iPad, but none of those said anything about its processor. This bit of leaked info, though, may prove to be very good news for would-be buyers of Apple's next-gen mobile hardware. 9to5Mac found references to a quad-core processor in the latest iOS 5.1 beta's processing-core management software. The references come thanks to a hidden panel that describes cores which are supported by iOS devices. In the image above, “/cores/core.3″ almost certainly refers to a quad-core CPU architecture. That's because references to Apple's dual-core A5 processor are “/cores/core.1″, and single-core CPUs are referred to as “/core/core.0″. Those are the existing naming conventions within Apple's processing-core management software. Therefore it's quite clear that Apple is at the moment testing a quad-core device with iOS 5.1. What makes this more interesting is that if the iPad 3 is to launch in March, as we keep hearing, than it's clearly being tested right now with Apple's software. Which, you guessed it, would make this the device with the quad-core processor. And following last year's logic, when the iPad 2 first got the dual-core processor that eventually made it to the iPhone 4S, it's probably not a stretch to think that the next iPhone will sport a quad-core CPU too.

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