iPad Air 2 & iPad Mini 3 officially announced

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CUPERTINO, CA—Apple has officially announced its new iPad Air 2 at today's media event on its campus at 1 Infinite Loop. The iPad Air 2 was inadvertently outed yesterday in an iBooks listing for the iPad user guide.

The new device is only 6.1 mm thick, and Phil Shiller told the audience, "In every iPad, there's been an air gap between glass and display. Now they've been bonded together. There's no air gap. Makes it thinner, and the images sharper."

"The screen also has an anti-reflective coating," Shiller added, which "reduces reflections by 56 percent."

The iPad Air 2 boasts an A8X chip and a GPU that Apple says is 180 times faster than the original iPad. The device will also include a new M8 motion co-processor, which "tracks motion, calibrates sensors, has a barometer, " Apple said. The company said that the iPad Air 2 has a 10-hour battery life.

The device will also benefit from the addition of a TouchID fingerprint sensor, a feature that was first introduced in the iPhone 5S last year. TouchID can be used to unlock devices and confirm App Store purchases and, as of iOS 8, it's also available to third-party developers to use when their apps require authentication. Apple Pay, the company’s latest foray into mobile payments, will be supported on the new iPads, as expected, but no NFC chip will be included (so no trying to touch your tablet to a checkout station in McDonalds).

Apple also said that the iPad Air 2 will come with an 8MP iSight camera with an f/2.4 aperture capable of 1080p HD video. The camera will also allow improved face detection, Burst Mode, time lapse video, and "burst selfies." The company added that the iPad Air 2 would come with an updated FaceTime camera with a new sensor, along with dual microphones to get better audio quality.

Apple noted that the iPad Air 2 will also have improved Wi-Fi capabilities, supporting 802.11ac with MIMO, which allows a theoretical 866Mbps (up from 300Mbps last year). The company also said that its LTE-capable iPad Air 2s will also come with 20 LTE bands, supporting up to 150Mbps.

Apple also announced its iPad Mini 3, which will start at $399 comes in gold. The iPad Mini 3 includes TouchID. The footnote-status that the iPad Mini 3 received at the Apple announcement suggests that the smaller device may not be too different from its earlier version.

Both devices will be available for pre-order on October 17, and they'll be shipping "by the end of next week," according to Apple.

Schiller said that the iPad Air 2 will come in space grey, white, gold and will start at 16GB for $499, with 64GB and 128GB upgrades available for $100 and $200 more for Wi-Fi versions. LTE versions will be available too, with the 16GB version pricing at $629, the 64GB version pricing at $729, and the 128 BG version pricing at $829.

Older iPad Air and iPad Mini 2 pricing will also be slashed by $100. The original iPad Mini will now be $249.

"We've sold more iPads in the first 4 years than we've sold of any product in our history,” Tim Cook told the crowd, noting that Apple has sold over 225 million of the devices total.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/10/apple-announces-6-1-mm-thin-ipad-air-2/

 

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ah too expensive..i can only fantasize at this point.

Same here. As an Android user, I don't care about it.