Apple is on a roll. The Cupertino-based company released updates to its iPad, PC and OS yesterday, several weeks after the big debut of iPhone 6. The iPad Air 2, iPad Mini 3, iMac and Apple Mini may all look alike, but they come with faster chips and much better graphics.

Apple CEO Tim Cook called the latest line-up the strongest the company has ever had and "something only Apple can create." Powering the tablet line-up is Apple's A8X silicon, its second-generation 64bit architecture built with 3 billion transistors. True to "X" form, Apple officials say the SoC has 40 per cent faster CPU and 2.5 time GPU performance than previous versions.

The new iPads also come with Apple's M8 motion coprocessor, faster Wi-Fi at 802.11ac with MIMO, and throughput speeds of up to 866Mbit/s. The tablets are capable of up to 150Mbit/s LTE on 20 bands, and they sport a 10-hour battery life. Apple Pay and Touch ID, a highly requested feature, will also be available in the new generation.

Improved cameras and displays are perhaps the most exciting features on the 6.1mm-thick iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini. The Air 2 has an 8-megapixel camera capable of 1,080p video, with an Apple-designed image signal processor in the A8X chip, as well as improved FaceTime camera. The iPad Mini, on the other hand, is equipped with a 5-megapixel camera. Both are based on a proprietary Retina display Apple created by removing the air gap between the touchscreen and the glass, reducing internal reflection for a sharper image.

Unsurprisingly, the new line-up of tablets comes with a flurry of incremental upgrades. And as with the pre-iPhone 6 release, rumours about what the tablets would bring to the table circulated. And whether or not their features meet everyone's expectations, Apple describes the Air 2 as the most thinnest and powerful iPad ever.

"Three billion transistors [in the A8X] is quite an achievement," Ben Bajarin, principal industry analyst at the market intelligence and research firm Creative Strategies, told EE Times. "When you look at some of the things they want to enable... that really speaks to their developer community. I expect to see some very interesting software that will be spurred by 8X. This proprietary chipset design shows the capability of Apple's developer community."

These new features were rolled out alongside image and video editing programs such as Pixelmator and Relay, with the hopes of encouraging creative professionals to use tablets even more.

"From a tablet standpoint, this is above and beyond what's out there. Not many vendors are focusing on using a tablet as this kind of media centre," Bajarin said. "To accomplish that Retina display, Apple had to design its own display controller, so they put quite a bit of proprietary tech into that. No single vendor will be able to do that."

Apple is also catering to creative artists with a massive update to its Yosemite OS-based iMac, now with a 27-inch "Retina 5k display" featuring 5,120 x 2,880 resolution and 14.7 million pixels—seven times that of a HD television. Bajarin expects the iMac to be extremely successful, with many new games taking advantage of the graphics improvements on the A8X. The iMac runs a 3.5GHz quad-core i7, upgradeable to 4GHz i7, and a Radion R9 M290X graphics card that is upgradeable to M295X.

Additionally, Apple rolled out a Mini Mac with a fourth-generation Intel Core, Iris and HD Graphics 5000, 802.11ac, and two Thunderbolt 2 ports.

The iMac update shows Apple taking advantage of a normalising PC market, and the iPad updates will continue to boost its tablet sales (which have already reached 225 million). Apple will also keep previous generations available at a lower price point to encourage uptake.

"Fifty per cent of sales have been to brand-new iPad owners, and key to keeping that statistic going is a wide range of pricing," Bajarin said. "It's really more about the growth driver coming from getting new people into the iPad family."

Apple did not provide updates for Macbook Pros or Macbook Airs; Bajarin attributed that to delays in Intel's Broadwell chip. Apple will likely have to wait until next year to refresh those items.

The iMac is available to ship immediately, and the Mac Mini is available today. The iPad Air and Mini can be preordered starting Oct. 17.

By: DocMemory
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