Hi, this is Gary with MacMost Now.
On today's episode let's take a look at today's Apple announcements.
Today's announcements were pretty much what you expected from all the rumors.
We got a new iPad Mini.
We also got a new iPad and we got new iMac, Mac Book Pro, and also a new Mac Mini.
Let's take a look at some of the new products.
So, the next 13" Mac Book Pro basically follows the existing 15" Mac Book Pro but adding a
retina display.
That is its main change.
But of course we also have in it flash storage so it has a solid state drive instead of a
traditional hard drive.
It will be faster performing and of course lighter and less battery consumption.
And the optical drive is gone just like in the 15".
We finally got a refresh today of the iMac.
The new iMac is even thinner than before.
It seems like every generation of iMac gets thinner and thinner.
This one is much thinner than the previous generation.
To do this it gets rid of the optical drive as well.
It still is a standard display not a retina display.
It still comes in the same two screen sizes.
The 21 1/2" and 27".
In addition you can get an SSD drive or a hard drive or something new called a fusion
drive which combines the two.
Its got basically a small SSD drive and a regular hard drive and automatically, seamlessly,
puts the most used items on the flash drive and puts the least used items on the hard
drive.
It is all seamless to you.
It just seems like one big hard drive as far as you are concerned and it is called the
fusion drive.
We also got a refresh to the Mac Mini line with new specs across the board for that.
Now just about six months after the release of the iPad third generation we now have the
iPad fourth generation.
It is pretty much the same.
It looks the same as the third generation iPad.
It is the same screen with the retina display but it has a faster processor in it and in
addition to that it also has the lightening dock connector at the bottom instead of the
old style dock.
Of course the most anticipated announcement was of a new version of the iPad called the
iPad Mini.
That is what it is officially called.
It is a 7.9" screen as opposed to the almost 10" screen of the regular iPad.
So it is thinner, it is lighter but it keeps many of the same features.
The screen ratio is the same.
It is not a retina display but the size for apps is the same and it includes all the different
things that you would normally find on an iPad.
For instance front and back cameras.
There is a WiFi only version.
Also a version for LTE.
It comes in both black and white and various memory sizes as well.
But this new smaller iPad starts at only $329.
Now the one app that was talked about today is the iBooks app for the iPad and other iOS
devices.
It is going to version three.
Version three is going to include letting you scroll through texts as well as to flip
through places as well as sharing features and more language features.
To match that there is a new iBooks author update for the Mac software that allows textbook
creators to create books for the iPad.
There is some features in that like some new widgets, the ability to do mathematical equations,
things like that in there.
So you can find all the details for pricing and releasing at the Apple store.
They are going to start preorders for the iPads both the fourth generation and the iPad
Mini on October 26 and then you will be able to get them, the first people to get them,
will be on November 2.
Other ones like say the new Mac Mini will be available for order today whereas the new
iMac will be shipping later in November.
Interestingly, Apple still is going to sell some of the older products.
For instance the iPad 2 will still be available for a while at $399 and also older Mac Book
Pros will be for sale for a few hundred dollars less than the new retina equivalents.
I hope you found this useful.
Until next time this is Gary with MacMost Now.