Will an extra two inches make any difference for Apple?

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s rumours that Apple may have a 12-inch convertible tablet in its skunkworks, chatter is suggesting the possibility of a similarly sized tablet to join the regular iPad and the iPad mini. In advance of the launch of next week’s upgraded goods, we’re going to go out on a limb and say ‘no way’.

While the Apple of today under Tim Cook isn’t quite what it was under the lamented Steve Jobs, it is still a phenomenal machine. It still has a propensity for innovation, perhaps most recently evidenced by the introduction of the Apple Watch.

Adding two inches to an iPad screen is not innovation. More than that, it is pretty difficult to imagine how such a device might carve itself a useful niche, particularly since we’re of the opinion that tablets and notebooks live happily in a symbiotic relationship.

While tablet sales have slowed, that’s a natural function of a maturing market. Apple’s share remains massive and it is the dominant player; while its big share is under threat, it seems unlikely that a slightly bigger device is the way to inject velocity into the market.

The UK’s The Registerspeculates that the ‘MaxiPad’ (no, they couldn’t help themselves) could see the first evidence of Mac OS and iOS colliding. For our part, we’ll be surprised if any such device sees the light of day.