Following yesterday's iPad event, Apple has, as promised, placed the new iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 up for pre-order in the Apple Store. They'll begin shipping next week.
The Air 2, the company's thinnest iPad ever, is priced at $499 for the 16GB, wifi-only version, $599 for 64GB, and $699 for 128GB. The iPad mini 3, which is similar to the mini 2 apart from the addition of Touch ID, comes in silver, space gray, or gold, with a base, 16GB model selling for $399.
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If there's one thing I've learned about Apple's dealings with SIM cards in the past seven years, it's that Apple gets what Apple wants.
The little gold-plated circuits - which identify you as a subscriber on a particular carrier - plug into phones, tablets, and basically anything else with a cellular radio. Customers of GSM carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile have been using them since time immemorial; CDMA carriers like Sprint and Verizon have started using them since switching to LTE. Apple hates SIMs, and has hated them for as long as the iPhone has existed: it is known to have explored the use of embedded, non-removable SIMs in the past.
Fin …
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Apple's latest desktop operating system, OS X Yosemite, is now available to download from the Mac App Store. It's a free update, and it delivers a whole host changes, most notably a revamped visual style that's a lot more colorful than the OS X you're used to. In fact, the Yosemite makes your Mac's operating system look a lot more like iOS than traditional OS X, and it brings the two operating systems together in a few more ways too.
One of the biggest features in Yosemite is the ability for it to let you move your work between your Mac, iPhone, and iPad and then pick up exactly where you left off on another device. It also adds a few small …
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Apple's iPads with built-in cellular antennas have long let you hop between carriers just by swapping out the SIM card, something Apple seems to have solved with one SIM card that can hop onto whatever carrier you pick from a list inside iOS. The new technology, called Apple SIM, is only available in the new iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3, and limited to some carriers in the US and in the UK. It potentially paves the way for the company to include the same technology in the iPhone so it could just sell one device to people for them to set up with their carrier of choice later on.
In terms of the initial carriers, Apple says its new SIM technolo …
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Just about all of the announcements from Thursday's Apple event leaked out in advance, and the event felt somewhat subdued compared to last month's iPhone 6 announcement. A phone call with Stephen Colbert and a torrent of dad jokes livened the mood somewhat, but the bulk of the event focused on hardware. Just in time for the holidays, here come the iPad Air 2, the iPad Mini 3, and a gorgeous new iMac with a Retina display. On the software side of things, OS X Yosemite arrives today as a free update, and iOS 8.1 - which will enable Apple Pay on the iPhone 6 and 6+ - is coming Monday.
Here's a recap of the most important details from today's …
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When Apple finds a formula it likes, it sticks with it. So the outer design of the iPad mini hasn't changed in any appreciable way since it was first introduced in 2012. The iPad mini 3 is still an excellently built tablet with a metal back case and a 4:3 display. It's still a bit too wide to hold in one hand, but much more portable than the iPad Air, with bezels around the screen that are just a little larger than is ideal.
The iPad mini 3 is thus not much of a change. Apple has added TouchID and an alternate gold color option and… not much else. The camera, processor, and everything else inside the device is exactly the same as last year' …
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I just spent some time with Apple's new iPad Air 2. As all the leaks suggested, it looks almost exactly the same as the original iPad Air, although it's a bit thinner, has an optically-bonded display, a much-improved camera, a new A8X processor, and a TouchID sensor in the home button.
The story here is really how thin this thing is - the original iPad Air was already such a dramatically smaller package than the iPad 4 that the iPad Air 2 feels like there's almost nothing left to take away. Apple's obsession with thin devices is on full display here; holding the Air 2 feels like you're holding a screen and nothing more.
One thing that is d …
Apple accidentally hinted at a "Mid 2014" Mac mini earlier this year, and now the company is finally ready to refresh its miniature Mac. While the Mac mini hasn't been updated for two years, today's refresh improves on the specifications significantly. The new Mac Mini includes fourth-generation Intel Core processors, two Thunderbolt 2 ports, and Intel Iris and HD Graphics 5000 options. "It's the world's most energy efficient desktop computer," says Apple's Phil Schiller. Apple's latest Mac mini ships today and starts from $499.
Apple is shipping its new Mac mini in three standard models. There's a 1.4GHz dual-core Intel i5 model with 4GB o …
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Apple has announced a new version of its iMac desktop computer complete with a high-resolution Retina display. The new model has what Apple says is the "world's highest resolution display", at 5120 x 2880 pixels on a 27-inch screen. Prior to this, the highest resolution iMac was the 27-inch version, which has a 2560 x 1440 pixel display. Apple notes that it has seven times as many pixels as an HD TV, with 14.7 million in total. It's also 67 percent more pixels than 4K displays, and Apple is calling it a Retina 5K display.
Despite the higher resolution screen, the new model retains the 5mm thick profile of the current iMac, and Apple says th …
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The third-generation iPad mini is here, and yes, it's got a Touch ID fingerprint sensor built in. Apple just (very quickly) introduced the iPad mini 3 during an event at its Cupertino headquarters. Looking at the device straight on, you'd be hard pressed to spot any major differences between Apple's latest 7.9-inch tablet and the iPad mini with Retina display that was released last year. Aside from the Touch ID home button, it's identical: a Retina display up front, chamfered edges, and an aluminum rear shell. (Like the new iPad Air 2, it too now comes in gold.)
It starts at $399 for 16GB in Wi-Fi only and runs up to $729 for a 128GB + LTE …
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