Yesterday Apple gave a keynote to present its new product range after having revealed a month ago its revamped iPhone models: the new iPad Air as the fifth generation in the company’s line of tablets, iPad mini with a Retina screen, the new 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pro Retina, the long-awaited Mac Pro, and many new features at the software level such as the new desktop operating system, OS X Mavericks, to which existing users can update at no cost.
iPad Air and iPad mini Retina
Without too much overlap with the models that preceded it, the fifth generation of the brand’s tablets has arrived, coming in at 20% thinner than the iPad 2 and with a frame 43% smaller. The heart of its architecture is the 64-bit A7 chip, which also features in the recently presented iPhone 5s. Even still, the battery performance does not suffer, and will keep its 10 hours of battery life even while boasting double the processing power of the previous model. The iPad Air will be available on November 1st in two colors for $499/€479 for the basic 16GB model, and $629/€599 for the cheapest, 16GB model with LTE connectivity.
Next stop, the iPad mini Retina, whose main (and obvious) novelty is the inclusion of a 2048 x 1536 Retina Display screen measuring 7.9 inches. Although this is the headline feature, the real potential undoubtedly lies in the 64-bit A7 processor that this new version incorporates.
The revamped desktop line
The MacBook Pro range has been completely revamped with a new line of both 13- and 15-inch machines that incorporate Intel’s new Haswell processor and improvements in WiFi connectivity and the PCI-e storage system. As with the iPad mini, the structural improvements have done no damage to the battery performance, which reaches 9 and 8 hours in each machine respectively. Prices vary depending on the factory configuration, ranging from $1,499/€1,329 for the basic 13-inch model to $2,199/ €2,629 for the most complete 15-inch version.
All these new machines translate into a drastic reduction in the “old” MacBook Pro line, with only one model remaining on offer, the 13-inch with Intel Core i5 at 2.5Ghz, 4GB of RAM and the Intel HD 400 graphics card for €1,229.
Besides all this, lots more details have been unveiled about the long-anticipated Mac Pro, the beast from Apple for professionals and developers that need a lot of processing power, which will make its debut in December. Its main allure lies in its improved performance, which will allow users to work with 4K videos, and its new Thunderbolt 2 connector.
New OS X and other gifts in the form of software
Now this was unexpected indeed. OS X Mavericks is the new version of the Apple operating system for Apple laptops, available from now at absolutely no cost. The upgrade will allow for improved battery use and a more efficient memory management system called Compressed Memory. New versions of iBooks, Maps, the new Calendar… you’d best just have a look at the official webpage to see all the new features.
Loads of other novelties have also been presented in the software sphere. New versions of iLife for both OS X and iOS. iCloud support for all of them (and for iWorks!), a new update for iOS version 7.0.3 also available from today… this keynote has certainly given us a lot to be excited about.
You can see the full conference here:
[…] Either Google tricked the media, or the media tricked consumers, or consumers tricked themselves because of Google; you can read the situation however you like. What’s obvious is that the Internet blew the whole announcement out of proportion to the extent that average users started to see it as a definitive counteroffensive against Apple to co-opt some of the media hullaballoo after the unveiling of the new iPad and MacBook Pro. […]