Apple has unveiled a new, thinner, lighter tablet called the "iPad Air" along with a slew of new Macs ahead of the holiday shopping season as it faces growing competition from rival gadget makers.
The Cupertino, California-based company made the announcements Tuesday at an event in San Francisco. The iPad Air weighs just 0.45kg, compared with 0.64kg for the previous version. Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller called the tablet a "screaming fast iPad." He said it is eight times faster than the original iPad that came out in 2010.
The iPad Air will go on sale November 1 and start at $US499 ($NZ586) for a model with 16 gigabytes of memory, while the iPad 2 will continue selling at $399. A new iPad Mini, meanwhile, will be available later in November starting at $399 for a 16-gigabyte model.
The iPad's market share has been eroding compared with cheaper rivals running Google`s Android operating system. Research firm Gartner Inc. estimates that Android tablets will end 2013 with a 50 per cent share of the worldwide market versus 49 per cent for the iPad. Just two years ago, the iPad commanded a 65 per cent market share compared to 30 per cent for Android tablets.
Apple sold 14.6 million iPads in the June quarter, down 14 per cent from the same time last year. It was the first year-over-year decline in iPad sales. Nonetheless, Apple CEO Tim Cook touted that Apple has sold 170 million iPads since the tablets launched three years ago.
