New Apple Showcase Debuts iPad 'Air'

Showcases Fresh 'Air'

APPLE CEO TIM COOK hosted APPLE's big Fall Showcase by introducing a brand new iPAD, the iPAD Air, which is lighter, smaller and faster than previous generations. APPLE execs also announced improvements in the iPAD Mini, their apps and Maverick software.

iPads Thinner And Faster

The iPAD Air offers a 9.7-inch Retina display with a smaller bezel than ever -- 43% thinner -- is 7.5 mm thin -- 20% thinner -- and weighs just one pound, down from 1.4 pounds. Yet there's faster app loading, faster WiFi and graphics are 72 times faster than gen one iPADs. It has up to 10 hours of battery life, a 5MP iSight camera, a 1080p HD video camera and dual mics.
It starts at $499 and comes in silver, white, gray and black.    

The mini will also have Retina display with the same resolution as on the Air. Its A7 chip makes the CPU up to four times faster and graphics up to eight times faster. It also has 10 hours of battery life, with a 5MP camera. Coming in silver, white, gray and black, It'll go for $399.

All told, APPLE will have four iPads on shelves this holiday season, with prices starting at $299 -- which is what the previous iPAD generation will go for.

The Books On Mac

COOK also cited improvements in the MAC BOOK Pros. The 13-inch Pro is lighter and thinner, with a HaSwell chip and INTEL Iris graphics that's to 90% faster than the last generation. With up to nine hours of battery life, the new model starts at $1,299, which is $200 cheaper than the last gen. The 15-inch Pro is powered by an INTEL Crystalwell chip, with Iris Pro graphics. It will get up to eight hours of battery life and starts at $1,999, which is also $200 cheaper than the last generation.

The high-end MAC Pro has a next-gen INTEL Xeon e5 at four, six, eight or 12 cores; an AMD FirePro with dual 384-bit memory buses and up to 12GB of GDDR5 VRAM, with 1866MHz DDR as well. It has an HDMI 1.4 for HDTVs, with four USB 3.0 ports  and six ThunderBolt 2 ports. It uses up to 70% less energy, and its price points start at $2,999. APPLE execs made a big point in noting that the Pro is made and assembled in CALIFORNIA.

Apps Aplenty And iTunes Radio Growth

They also took time to describe improvements of many of the over 20 Apple apps being updated today. There are now more than 475,000 apps in the App Store custom-designed for the iPAD, sales of which just crossed the 170-million mark

COOK also offered new numbers on their recent offerings. More than 20 million users have now listened to iTUNES RADIO, listening to over a billion songs, while 200 million devices upgraded to iOS in five days. Nine million of the new iPHONE have been sold, although COOK didn't cite specific numbers for the 5C and 5S.

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