On Thursday Apple held its second product release event in six weeks. This time the news was mostly incremental. Here, in considerably less time than it will take you to re-watch the event, is what you need to know:
The iPad Air 2 is really skinny. Apple has gone to the time-tested strategy for updating a computer: it has made it thinner. The new device is only 6.1mm thick, thinner than the new iPhones by almost 1mm. It runs on a 64-bit chip, the A8X, that Apple says has 40 percent faster CPU performance. The device also gets a new 8 megapixel camera that can do time-lapse and slow motion for the first time.
There’s also a new iPad Mini. It’s called the iPad Mini 3.
The new tablets come in gold. Also come in silver and space grey, so you can match with your iPhone 6 and 6 plus.
Preorders start Friday. The new tablets cost the same as last year’s versions. For the iPad Air, that’s $500 to $700, depending on memory for WiFi versions, with cellular versions coming with a $30 price premium. The iPad Minis cost $400 to $600, with the same price bump for cell versions. Last year’s iPads will remain on sale with $100 price drops.
The new tablets can read fingerprints. A year after the iPhones got a fingerprint scanner, Apple’s tablets get it as well. This allows users to unlock their devices and log into apps using their fingerprints. It also allows them to use Apple Pay for online payments. The iPads can’t be used to make payments in physical stores, mercifully sparing everyone the experience of standing behind someone in the grocery store who insists on tapping his tablet against the cash register.
Apple Pay goes live on Monday. Apple’s payment system allows people to bump their phones to pay for items in the 220,000 stores that have NFC readers, as well as paying for items in apps by using the fingerprint scanner on Apple’s newest mobile devices. Mobile payments have been possible for several years, but haven’t caught on yet. Apple’s ability to get the credit card networks and many merchants walking in lockstep should help. Among the stores and services where it will work next week: Staples, Walgreens, Whole Foods, Uber, OpenTable, and StubHub.
Developers can start working on Apple Watch apps next month. Apple CEO Tim Cook remained vague about when the company’s smart watch will be on sale, saying only that it will be early next year. But the company is releasing WatchKit, software that will let developers begin to work on apps for the devices.
The new iMac has a really nice screen. The newest version of the 27-inch iMac has a 5K retina display—that’s one more K than the new high-end televisions! At $2,5000, it costs significantly more than the existing $1,800 27-inch iMacs. The company also dropped $100 from its Mac Mini.
New Mac OS is now available. The main distinction of the new software, called Yosemite and which was shown off at Apple’s developer conference earlier this year, is that it makes Macs work more closely with Apple’s mobile devices, with people able to start tasks on one device, then continue it on another one. Tim Cook ended the event by talking about what he thinks is the main advantage of Apple’s product line: a whole range of devices that adds up to more than the sum of its parts.
