Apple Obscures Future Device Hints in iOS 5.1 Beta 2 with Fake References

Many Apple fans are interested in discovering hints of Apple's future iOS devices in various configuration files in each beta and public version of iOS. Such references provide essentially no information on the new devices themselves. Most of them simply appear in the form of "iPhone4,1" that meant the iPhone 4S as one example, but they are carefully watched as hints of what devices Apple is likely to be testing with the software at the moment and perhaps how many variations of an upcoming device there might be.

But today Apple has tried to obscure that information having released 5.1 beta 2 with numerous fake references within configuration files. For example, USBDeviceConfiguration.plist has listed about two dozen different device variants.

As discovered by 9to5Mac's Mark Gurman, that list has now ballooned to well over 100 such entries as Apple has seeded it with dozens of new fake references to such future products as "iPad10,1", "iPhone11,3", "iPod11,1", and "AppleTV8,3".

Apple has made more difficult to identify new product, though the change does not shut out examination of the evidence entirely, as unaltered listings are still visible in other locations.