Apple Inc. (AAPL): Is There Room for an iPad Grande?

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is one of those tech companies that certainly can pay attention to what consumers are wanting nowadays. There was a time that consumers loved their computers to get smaller and smaller. Cellular phones have gotten smaller, thinner and lighter. Computers have gotten more portable, and then smaller and smaller to where they could fit in a purse or small travel bag.

But customers are also fickle and can change their minds. Or they can decide that there is a limit to how small things should get, and now it’s time to get bigger. There was the iPhone by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was a small phone that fits in most pockets. Then the iPad came along which presented a portable version of a laptop or desktop. But then, the iPhone started getting bigger and the iPad got smaller with the introduction of the iPad Mini. But in the middle there, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. launched the megaPhone market by releasing the Galaxy Note, the tweener between a full fledged tablet and a smartphone.

And now we have rumors swirling that Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK) is working on its own megaPhone, a 6-inch, Windows-based device. So we see that the trend on smartphones is now to go bigger; does that same idea hold true for tablets, even in the recent evolution of the small-tablet space?

Rumors out there say it is possible. And it is possible that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) just might be at the forefront of that evolution. The latest  rumors that is now circulating is suggesting that Apple may well be working on a large-format iPad – we’ll call it the iPad Grande – that is essentially geared toward notebook users, of which are mainly college students.

There seems to be a demand growing for larger screens thanks to the ability to stream video content through Hulu, YouTube, Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) and the rest. The talk is that this larger iPad would be 33 percent larger than the iPad, boasting a 12.9-inch screen – maybe good for Retina HD resolution? – compared to the 9.7-inch screen on the iPad. The rumors are also suggesting that this device could launch sometime in the first half of 2014.

Could this be one of those “game-changing” devices that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Tim Cook has talked about that were in the pipeline?