CUPERTINO, California: Apple Inc introduced a faster, slimmer iPad Air 2 on Thursday, tacking on modest improvements such as a fingerprint sensor to its mainstay tablet in time for what is expected to be a hotly contested holiday season for mobile devices.
Marketing chief Phil Schiller, calling the tablet the world’s slimmest, described several new features such as an anti-reflective screen and confirmed the inclusion of the “Touch ID” sensor, already available on the latest iPhones.
Apple said the iPad Air 2 was 18 percent thinner and 40 percent faster than the last one, a surprising change -- and a bit of an engineering feat -- because Apple made the previous version thinner and faster just last year.
Essentially, the new iPad Air is thinner than a pencil. The new iPads will be available from Oct. 24.
"It's unbelievably gorgeous and look how thin it is. Can you even see it?" said Apple chief executive Tim Cook, holding the new iPad in front of an audience of members of the news media and Apple employees at the company's Silicon Valley headquarters.
The camera in the iPad Air 2 has been improved and it has a display designed to reduce reflections. The tablet has 10 hours of battery life, same as the previous version. It has a starting price of $500. The iPad Mini 3 starts at $400 - but it's not thinner than the last version.
Apple may struggle, however, to arouse the same passion for tablets as in past years, among consumers faced with an abundance of hand-held, touch-screen devices.
Modest rise
Tablet sales are set to rise only 11 per cent this year, according to tech research firm Gartner, compared to 55 per cent last year, even as smartphone sales continue to soar and personal computer sales are waning.
Tablet sales for Apple, which defined the category with the iPad just four years ago, have fallen for two straight quarters.
Investors remain focused on the iPhone, Apple’s main revenue generator, but a prolonged downturn in iPad sales would threaten about 15 per cent of the company’s revenue.
The new iPads will go up against recently-introduced tablets from Amazon.com Inc and Google Inc in coming months.
Apple Pay, iOS 8.1
Apple also said it will launch its new electronic payments service on Monday, after the iPhone maker signed up another 500 banks to support a feature that competes with eBay Inc’s PayPal and other online systems.
Apple said iOS 8.1, the next update for the software that runs Apple's mobile devices, would also be available Monday.
Apple also added gold as a color option for the new iPads.
Apple has made big changes to its iPads more quickly than it has with other Apple products, like the iPhone, which in the past has been redesigned every two years.
Why the difference? For one, an iPad gives Apple's engineers more physical space to tinker around. And from a business standpoint, Apple has to do more with the iPad to maintain healthy sales.
In the second quarter, Apple's iPad sales declined 9.3 percent compared with the same period a year ago, according to the industry analysis firm IDC. And the worldwide market for tablet sales is starting to cool. While shipments of tablets exploded from 18 million in 2010 to 207 million last year, they are expected to increase just 11 percent this year, according to another research firm, Gartner. Last year, shipments had increased 55 percent.
But the iPad is still Apple's second-biggest moneymaker, accounting for about 10 percent of its profit. That is a long way from the iPhone, which accounts for about 70 percent of its profit, but still important.
Yosemite, Watch
Also at the event on the company's campus, Apple released its new Macintosh operating system, OS X Yosemite, which it introduced this year.
The software system, which is a free download, has a new design with new icons and more vibrant colors.
A key feature is called Continuity, which makes it easier to juggle content across different Apple devices. For example, a user can be making a presentation on a Mac, and then swipe up from the corner of an iPad to resume working on the same presentation.
Cook said developers were also beginning to design apps for its upcoming Watch.
The company said WatchKit, a tool kit for software makers to use in developing apps for its coming smart watch, would be released next month.
The company’s entry into the rapidly expanding wearable computing arena will be available only from 2015.
The Apple Watch, demonstrated last month, is still on track for a release early next year, according to Cook.
Apple Watch, is its first new device since the iPad in 2010.
Shares of Apple edged down 0.3 per cent to $97.21 early Thursday afternoon.
