San Francisco, CA—Apple announced iPad Air, featuring a 9.7-inch Retina display in a new thinner and lighter design. Engineered to weigh just one pound, iPad Air is 20% thinner and 28% lighter than the fourth generation iPad. And with a 43% narrower bezel, the borders of iPad Air are dramatically thinner to make content more immersive.
Apple also introduced the iPad mini with Retina display, bringing all 3.1 million pixels from the 9.7-inch iPad to its 7.9-inch screen.
The new iPads feature faster built-in Wi-Fi, expanded LTE cellular connectivity, the newly designed iOS 7, and the most power-efficient Apple-designed A7 chip yet, with 64-bit desktop-class architecture.
Photo features have been improved due to the new specs. iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display employ the iSight camera with a 5 megapixel sensor and advanced optics, combined with iOS 7 and the image signal processing of the A7 chip, to further improve still image and video capture. This is said to result in faster autofocus, up to 3x video zoom, 5x still zoom, better dynamic range, automatic image and video stabilization, and faster photo editing. And, iPad also uses a next-generation FaceTime HD camera with improved backside illumination sensors featuring larger pixels for better low-light performance.
“iPad created an entirely new mobile computing experience, and the new iPad Air is another big leap ahead. It is so thin, light and powerful, once you hold one in your hand you will understand what a tremendous advancement this is,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.
iPad Air’s Retina display “makes web pages, text, images and video look incredibly sharp and realistic,” added Schiller, and the new power-efficient A7 chip allows the battery to be even smaller, helping reduce the overall volume by 24% from the previous generation, while doubling its performance and maintaining its 10-hour battery life.
The new iPad mini with Retina display packs the 3.1 million pixels (2,048×1,536 resolution) of iPad Air into a 7.9-inch multi-touch display, for a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch. The Retina display of iPad mini is 35% larger than screens on 7-inch tablets, and movies now play at Full HD 1080p resolution. In addition, the 475,000 apps designed specifically for iPad work automatically.
Both new iPads feature two antennas to support Multiple-In-Multiple-Out (MIMO) technology, to bring twice the Wi-Fi performance to iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display at a data rate up to 300 Mbps. Cellular models also come with expanded LTE coverage to accommodate more LTE networks worldwide, while continuing to deliver support for other fast cellular technology around the world (DC-HSDPA, HSPA+).
In related news, Apple released the iLife suite of creative apps, including iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand, as well as the iWork suite of productivity apps, which includes Pages, Numbers and Keynote. These releases are free with every new iOS device running iOS 7 and are available as free updates for existing users. All apps have been redesigned to match the look of iOS 7 and have been optimized to support 64-bit technology.
iPad Air with Wi-Fi models will be available in silver or gray starting November 1, for a an SRP of $499 for the 16GB model, $599 for the 32GB model, $699 for the 64GB model and $799 for the 128GB model. iPad Air with Wi-Fi + Cellular will have the following SRPs: $629, 16GB; $729, 32GB; $829, 64GB; and $929, 128GB.
Available later in November in silver or gray, iPad mini with Retina display Wi-Fi models will have SRPs of: $399, 16GB; $499, 32GB; $599, 64GB; and $699, 128GB. iPad mini with Retina display Wi-Fi + Cellular models will retail for: $529, 16GB; $629, 32GB; $729, 64GB; and $829, 128GB. apple.com
