Apple today announced iPad Air, the latest generation of its popular
tablet, featuring a 9.7-inch Retina display in a new thinner and lighter
design.
Precision-engineered to weigh just one pound, iPad Air
is 20 percent thinner and 28 percent lighter than the fourth generation
iPad, and with a narrower bezel the borders of iPad Air are dramatically
thinner—making content even more immersive. Apple today also announced
iPad mini with Retina display, bringing all the pixels from the 9.7-inch
iPad to its 7.9-inch screen, delivering razor sharp text and detail in
the same amazingly thin and light design. The new iPads feature the
powerful and power-efficient Apple-designed A7 chip with 64-bit
desktop-class architecture, ultrafast wireless with faster built-in
Wi-Fi and expanded LTE cellular connectivity, and the newly-designed iOS
7 featuring hundreds of great new features.
“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 with its 9.7-inch Retina display weighs just one
pound and packs the incredible performance of iOS 7 running on a 64-bit
desktop-class Apple A7 chip, and delivers all-day battery life in the
lightest full-sized tablet in the world.”
Precision-engineered to weigh just one pound, iPad Air is 20 percent
thinner and 28 percent lighter than the fourth generation iPad, and with
a 43 percent narrower bezel the borders of iPad Air are dramatically
thinner. iPad Air’s Retina display makes web pages, text, images and
video look incredibly sharp and realistic, and the new power-efficient
A7 chip allows the battery to be even smaller, helping reduce the
overall volume by 24 percent from the previous generation while doubling
its performance and maintaining its up to 10-hour battery life.¹
The
new iPad mini with Retina display packs all the 3.1 million pixels
(2048-by-1536 resolution) of iPad Air into its 7.9-inch Multi-Touch™
display, for a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch. The 7.9-inch Retina
display of iPad mini is 35 percent larger than screens on 7-inch
tablets, and is the only small tablet to deliver the full iPad
experience, now with razor sharp Retina quality. Images are crisp, text
is crystal clear, movies play at full 1080p HD-resolution and the
475,000 apps designed specifically for iPad work automatically.
The
A7 chip in iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display offers 64-bit
desktop-class architecture, advanced graphics and improved image signal
processing from previous generations. With up to twice the CPU and
graphics performance on iPad Air, and up to four times the CPU and eight
times the graphics performance on iPad mini with Retina display, almost
everything you do is faster and better than ever, from launching apps
and editing photos to playing graphic-intensive games—all while
delivering all-day battery life. The A7 chip’s 64-bit architecture and
support for OpenGL ES version 3.0 unlocks game console-like visual
effects. The new iPads also feature the M7 motion coprocessor that
gathers data from the accelerometer, gyroscope and compass to offload
work from the A7 for improved power efficiency.
Both new iPads
feature two antennas to support Multiple-In-Multiple-Out (MIMO)
technology, bringing twice the Wi-Fi performance to iPad Air and iPad
mini with Retina display at a blazingly fast data rate up to 300 Mbps.
Cellular models also come with expanded LTE coverage to accommodate even
more LTE networks worldwide, while continuing to deliver comprehensive
support for other fast cellular technology around the world (DC-HSDPA,
HSPA+), all in a single model.
iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina
display now have a next generation FaceTime HD camera with improved
backside illumination sensors featuring larger pixels for better
low-light performance. The iSight camera with 5MP sensor and advanced
optics, combined with iOS 7 and the image signal processing of A7,
further improves still image and video capture on iPad bringing faster
auto-focus, up to three times video zoom, five times still zoom, better
dynamic range and automatic image and video stabilization.
The
new iPads come with iOS 7, featuring a stunning new user interface,
completely redesigned with an elegant color palette, distinct,
functional layers and subtle motion that make it feel more alive. iOS 7
has hundreds of great new features, including Control Center,
Notification Center, improved Multitasking, AirDrop, enhanced Photos,
Safari, Siri and introduces iTunes Radio, a free Internet radio service
based on the music you listen to on iTunes.
iPad customers have
access to the revolutionary App Store, which now offers more than one
million apps to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users in 155 countries
around the world, and more than 475,000 apps are designed specifically
for iPad. More than 60 billion apps have been downloaded from the App
Store, which offers customers an incredible range of apps in 24
categories, including newspapers and magazines in Newsstand, games and
entertainment, kids, education, business, news, sports, health and
fitness and travel.
The iLife suite of creative apps, including
iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand, and the iWork suite of productivity apps,
including Pages, Numbers and Keynote are essential to the Apple
experience and are now free with every new iOS device running iOS 7, and
are also available as free updates for existing users, so more iPad
users now have access to these great apps. All apps have been redesigned
to match the look and feel of iOS 7, have been optimized to support
64-bit technology and include hundreds of new features.
Pricing & Availability
iPad
Air with Wi-Fi models will be available in silver or space gray
starting on Friday, November 1, for a suggested retail price of $499
(US) for the 16GB model, $599 (US) for the 32GB model, $699 (US) for the
64GB model and $799 (US) for the 128GB model. iPad Air with Wi-Fi +
Cellular will be available starting on Friday, November 1 for a
suggested retail price of $629 (US) for the 16GB model, $729 (US) for
the 32GB model, $829 (US) for the 64GB model and $929 (US) for the 128GB
model. iPad 2 is available at $399 (US) for the 16GB Wi-Fi model and
$529 (US) for the 16GB Wi-Fi + 3G model for either AT&T or Verizon.
iPad
mini with Retina display will be available later in November in silver
or space gray. iPad mini with Retina display Wi-Fi models will be
available for a suggested retail price of $399 (US) for the 16GB model,
$499 (US) for the 32GB model, $599 (US) for the 64GB model and $699 (US)
for the 128GB model. iPad mini with Retina display Wi-Fi + Cellular
models will be available for a suggested retail price of $529 (US) for
the 16GB model, $629 (US) for the 32GB model, $729 (US) for the 64GB
model and $829 (US) for the 128GB model. Additionally, the original iPad
mini is now offered at a more affordable price of $299 (US) for the
16GB Wi-Fi model and $429 (US) for the 16GB Wi-Fi + Cellular model for
either AT&T, Sprint or Verizon.
New custom-designed
polyurethane Smart Covers for iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display
will be available for $39 (US) in a range of vibrant colors, including
blue, green, pink, yellow, black and (RED). iPad Air Smart Cases and
iPad mini Smart Cases are completely redesigned in a beautiful
aniline-dyed leather available in six rich colors, including beige,
black, blue, brown, yellow and (RED) for a suggested retail price of $69
(US). Smart Covers and Smart Cases are available through the Apple
Online Store (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and select
Authorized Apple Resellers.
iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina
display will be sold through the Apple Online Store (www.apple.com),
Apple’s retail stores and through AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon
Wireless and select Apple Authorized Resellers. Starting on November 1,
iPad Air will be available in the US, Australia, Austria, Belgium,
Bulgaria, Canada, China (Wi-Fi models only), Croatia, Cyprus, Czech
Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong,
Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macao (Wi-Fi models only), Macedonia, Montenegro,
Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Singapore,
Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. At Apple
retail stores in these countries, iPad Air will be available beginning
at 8 a.m. local time on Friday, November 1.
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