Apple’s Fall event is usually when the company announces the good stuff before the major holiday season (AKA shopping season) kicks off. Apple had already unveiled the iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s over a month ago but the new iteration to the iPad, iPad Mini and MacBook Pro was eagerly awaited. Apple came out firing on all cylinders and here is a round-up of all devices announced at the Apple event.
iPad Air
What was the new iPad going to be called. Apple has had some mixed up naming convention, like after iPad 2 came the New iPad which was technically iPad 3. The new name suits it well and its called iPad Air (obviously borrowed from MacBook Air).
- This tablet is light as in it weighs only 1 pound (0.45 kgs).
- The display screen is 9.7 inch and support resolution of 2048 x 1536 and over 3.1 million pixels. It is with retina display.
- It will run on the A7 chip and support 64-bit architecture, which will be a first for iPad.
- iPad Air camera will take 5 MP photos with 1080p HD video recording and the front facing camera takes 1.2 MP photos with 720p HD video.
- It will be available in space grey and silver. The device will also be available in WIFI only and WIFI+Mobile versions.
Pricing
The iPad Air Wifi with 16 GB storage is available for $499. The price of the iPad Air Wifi + Cellular with 16 GB storage is available for $629.
iPad Mini with retina display
iPad Mini with retina display has been hotly debated. With Google unveiling a powerful Nexus 7 (2013) earlier in the year, it was no surprise to see iPad Mini get the retina display tag. iPad Mini with retina display will be released in November.
- The iPad Mini with retina display packs the 7.9 inch display screen while supporting 2048 x 1536 resolution.
- It will run on the A7 chip supporting 64-bit architecture.
- iPad Mini camera will take 5 MP photos with 1080p HD video recording and the front facing camera takes 1.2 MP photos with 720p HD video.
- The device will be available in grey, silver, white and black colours.
Pricing
The iPad Mini with retina display like the iPad Air will ship in two varieties. The iPad Mini Wifi with 16 GB storage will cost $399 and the Wifi + Cellular with 16 GB storage is priced at $529.
What happens to the older version of iPad and iPad Mini?
The older iPad Mini will still be around and sold at $299. The older iPad 2 will be sold at $399. Both prices are for devices with 16GB memory. This is a good idea by Apple as it gives it basically 4 tablet devices out there in the market.
MacBook Pro
The MacBook Pro lineup has also been refreshed. The new 13-inch and 15-inch display screen MacBook Pro laptops will ship with retina display. The 15-inch MacBook Pro without retina display has been discontinued. The device will ship with the newly released Mavericks OS X.
- The MacBook Pro laptops will run on Intel Haswell chips. The 13-inch device will pack a 2.4 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor. The device will ship with 128 GB, 256 GB and 512 GB storage variants.
- Similarly the 15-inch MacBook Pro will run on 2.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor for the 256 GB storage variant and 2.3 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor for the 512 GB version.
- MacBook Pro laptops will contain 2 USB 3.0 ports, HDMI port. The battery for the 13-inch MBP will last for 9 hours and 8 hours for the 15-inch MBP.
Pricing
The pricing of the 13-inch MBP with 128 GB storage is $1299 and for the 15-inch MBP for 256 GB storage is $1999. The MacBook Pro laptops should be available right away.
OS X Mavericks released and for free!
Apple’s big announcement was the release date for OS X Mavericks. The new OS X version is already available for Mac users. Most importantly Apple is releasing this update free of cost. That means every user will probably save $20 that it took to buy the new update.
Read the full article by Vibin on OS X Mavericks being free and some issues with the update.
The free upgrade this time around means that most future upgrades will also be given away free. That is a big challenge for companies like Microsoft who depend on selling new OS updates as a business.
Complete Tech Specs
2 Comments
Hi Aditya,
This is a large revise.
I really like the direction that Apple is taking OS X recently, much more than iOS, personally.
I am not sure about OS X personally as I do not use a Mac. I have some colleague who do and some are happy, some do not find much of a difference. I think general consensus is that Mavericks has made their devices run faster.