Apple Unveils IPad Air, IPad Mini With Retina Display

(RTTNews) - Apple Inc. (AAPL) on Tuesday unveiled two new iPads-- iPad Air and the new iPad mini, in time to tap the big spending holiday season.

At a company held event in San Francisco, Apple revealed its fifth-generation iPad, renamed iPad Air, which is now thinner and lighter. The tech giant also revealed the second-generation iPad mini, which now boasts of a retina display.

The prices for the new devices starts at $399 for a 16 GB iPad Mini model and $499 for a 16GB iPad Air model. The company also dropped the price of the original iPad Mini to $299.

The iPad Air features the 64-bit A7 processor chip-- Apple's latest processor similar to the one used in iPhone 5S, 10 hours of battery life, two antennas to improve the WiFi speed.

The 9.7-inch iPad Air weighs just one pound, which Apple claims to be 20 percent thinner and 28 percent lighter than its predecessor. The device also has a 43 percent narrower bezel, just like its smaller counterpart. Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, called the iPad Air "the lightest full-sized tablet in the world."

The second generation of the 7.9-inch iPad mini now boasts of high-definition retina display with a resolution of 2048 X 1536 pixels, the latest A7 processor chip and two antennas for faster WiFi speeds.

Apple's tablet market share has been on a downward slope recently compared to its rivals, who offer cheaper tablets that run on Google's Android platform. Demand for tablets in the second quarter slipped 9.7 percent to 45.1 million from previous quarter, mainly attributable to the absence of a new iPad.

Apple's iPad saw a lower-than-predicted shipment of 14.6 million units in the second quarter, from 19.5 million in the first quarter. However, during the event, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said, "I can't think of another product that's come so far, so fast." Cook also claimed that Apple has sold more than 170 million iPads till now.

Meanwhile, research firm Gartner Inc. expects Android tablets to end 2013 with global tablet market share of 50 percent, higher than the 49 percent anticipated for Apple's iPads.

iPad Air will start shipping November 1 in 42 countries, including the U.S, Australia, Canada, Germany and the U.K. iPad mini with Retina display will be available later in November in silver or space gray.

Apple also updated its computer series, with new MacBook Pros and Mac Pro, the high-end desktop computer targeting professional users. The company also has made its latest computer operating system Mavericks available for free.

AAPL closed Tuesday's regular trade at $519.87, down $1.49 or 0.29%, on the Nasdaq. The stock gained $0.08 or 0.02% in the after-hours trade.