By Alex Brooks iPad Air 2 with Touch ID | Image from video of dummy model
Unlike Apple’s September it sure feels like the October 16 event that Apple has planned has snuck up on us all. This has nothing to do with the fact that Tuesday this week has sailed past and the event is in fact being held on a Thursday, a very rare occasion indeed (Wednesday’s are common for iPad events, Monday the default for WWDC but Thursday I’ve never known). In fact it’s fair to say that neither the rumour mill or the general public is hyped up about tomorrow’s Apple event, so will they in fact sneak in any big surprises?
Information so far would suggest not. Apple has however used the phrase “It’s been way too long” on the invites it sent out to the media, so this does pique interest a little. Here’s what we know so far.
Invite send to media from Apple featuring original Macintosh rainbow logo colours
iPad Air 2
There’s no escaping the inevitable, the main show will be dominated by the updated iPad Air, and it’s such a dead cert that Apple even accidentally announced the product and its basic hardware features more than 24 hours ahead of the show—an accident of course.
The new full-size iPad will be much thinner than previous models and pack in the new Apple A8X, indicating that the iPad will likely pack more power than the iPhone 6. Alongside a considerably faster processor it seems that the new iPad will include 2GB RAM, an upgrade from the 1GB currently in the iPhone 6 and original iPad Air.
As confirmed by Apple, accidentally, the iPad will finally get Touch ID fingerprint sensor, which ties in nicely with the imminent launch of Apple Pay. Along with this inevitable upgrade, expect a gold colour option and storage options between 16 and 128GB.
With less certainly the iPad may also pick up some of the camera improvements that made their way into the iPhone 6, with an expected upgrade to an 8-megapixel camera. It’s always difficult to tell ahead of the launch what kind of aperture will feature, and whether the lens with have digital or optical stabilisation.
There have also been rumours surrounding the display, the discovery of image assets in the iOS 8.1 beta labelled ‘3x’ has led to rumours that the iPad Air 2 will feature a so called “Retina HD” display, something that would catch Apple up with some other tablet competitors on the market. The display could also feature an anti-reflective coating which could make outside usage easier.
A long standing software based rumour suggested that iOS 8 would bring split-screen multitasking to the iPad, if this is to debut then this event would be the place to do it.
Retina iPad 2
Unsurprisingly the upgrades to the new iPad mini with Retina Display are going to be very similar to that of its big brother, although details are fairly sparse.
Guaranteed is an upgrade of the home button to include Touch ID, other updates such as the inclusion of the Apple A8X and 2GB of RAM are less likely and less known. It’s worth remembering that the iPad mini usually lags behind its bigger sibling in terms of hardware upgrades due to space requirements and battery limitations.
For the above reason it’s unlikely that the rumoured boost to the resolution of the iPad Air 2 will make its way over to the mini.
All in all it looks like this is a very minor update to the smaller iPad.
Retina iMac
21.5- and 27-inch iMac (late 2012) | Image courtesy of Apple
An update to a Mac, could this be what Apple is alluding to when it says that it has been too long? Apart from a few minor updates earlier this year, it sure has been a long time since Apple let a Mac take centre stage. However, Thursday’s event looks set to change that.
We’ve had a retina MacBook Pro on the market since later 2012 and been used to the super high pixel goodness on our tables and phones for some time. It now looks like it’s time for desktop computers to get the same treatment.
For a retina iMac to get to market, there were a few technical jigsaw pieces that had to fall into place. Way back in 2012 bloggers were furiously crunching numbers in an attempt to work out what would count as retina when applied to an iMac. But as Marco Arment points out, in 2012 the graphics cards aren’t up to scratch to push that many pixels and more notable there’s no connection that can carry enough data. Fast forward to modern day and we have DisplayPort specification 1.3 which is capable of pushing about 26Gbps of uncompressed video, allowing for computers to drive 5K displays (resolution: 5120 x 2880) and plenty of graphics power knocking around.
Rumours suggest that Apple will pack 5K resolution into the 27-inch iMac, whilst keeping the 21-inch model at a modest 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution.
Other than this and a suspicion that the new iMac will get upgraded to Intel’s Haswell range of processors, it’s unknown what else will change with the iMac.
It’s been way too long
Apple is hosting an event on October 16 at 10:00 AM Pacific Time at its own campus headquarter in Cupertino. Apple will offer a live stream of the event starting at the following times:
10:00AM – Pacific
11:00AM – Mountain
12:00PM – Central
1:00PM – Eastern
6:00PM – London
7:00PM – Paris
9:00PM – Moscow
2:00AM – Tokyo (Friday 17th)
4:00AM – Sydney (Friday 17th)
Source: World of Apple
