Apple Inc. has unveiled the new thinner iPad Air tablet and a faster MacBook Pro with sharper ‘retina’ display on Oct 22,2013.
Going on sale from November 1, the new iPad Air is about 20 percent thinner than its previous generation of, weighs one pound and price starts from $499.
The iPad mini with “retina” high-resolution screen starts at $399. The new iPads will be launched simultaneously in the United States and China.
The debut of the iPad Air repeats a pattern of recent Apple launches, aimed with improvements in existing lines rather than launching new products.
Apple said that the upgrades to Mac OS and iWork software suite will now be available for all MacBooks and Mac computers.
Apple is competing with Microsoft’s Office suite that offers Excel and Word. By offering free applications and OS software upgrades on phones and tablets, Apple is looking to compete with Microsoft’s Windows.
Analysts said that Apple may be looking to play safe on mobile software market since Microsoft is bringing its Windows-powered Surface Pro tablet that runs Word or Excel.
The tablet market is flooded with tablets running on Google Inc’s Android software where Microsoft is slowly becoming a bigger threat than Android. The iPad Air will be competing with Microsof’s Surface Pro.
As per Gartner’s estimates, Apple’s global share of tablet market will slip to 47.2% in 2014 and Microsoft tablets will grab 3.4% of the market which is double of 1.7% forecast for 2013.