Apple Inc’s new faster, slimmer iPad comes with modest improvements, such as a fingerprint sensor, but some analysts say it offers few other features to wow consumers ahead of a holiday shopping season expected to be swamped by mobile devices.
At a launch event on Thursday, Apple chief executive Tim Cook called the new line-up, which includes a new iMac computer with a “5K retina” or high-end display, the company’s best ever.
However, analysts say Apple might struggle to arouse the same passion for its tablets as in past years among consumers faced with an abundance of handheld, touchscreen devices.
“I’ve got to be honest and say, the only impressive thing was the 5K retina display on the iMac,” Gartner Inc analyst Van Baker said, while attending the event at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California.
Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller called the larger tablet the world’s slimmest, and described several new features such as an anti-reflective screen.
He also confirmed the inclusion of the “Touch ID” sensor, already available on the latest iPhones.
Pre-orders started yesterday for the larger iPad Air 2, priced at US$499 and up, with shipping beginning next week.
The smaller iPad mini 3 is thought to be about US$100 cheaper.
The new iMac, which sports the new “Yosemite” operating system, is priced at US$2,499.
Tablet sales are set to rise only 11 percent this year, according to tech research firm Gartner, compared to 55 percent last year, even as smartphone sales continue to soar and PC sales are waning.
Tablet sales for Apple have fallen for two straight quarters.
Investors remain focused on the iPhone, Apple’s main revenue generator, but a prolonged downturn in iPad sales would threaten about 15 percent of the company’s revenue.
The new iPads face competition from recently introduced tablets from Amazon.com Inc and Google Inc in the coming months.
Apple shares slid 1.28 percent to close at US$96.26 on Thursday.
Apple also said it plans to launch its new electronic payments service on Monday, after the iPhone maker signed up another 500 banks to support a feature that competes with eBay Inc’s PayPal and other online systems.
Cook said developers were designing apps for its upcoming Watch, which was introduced last month and is its first new device since the iPad in 2010.
The company’s entry into the rapidly expanding wearable computing arena is not scheduled to become available until next year, but Cook said software development kits for the device would be available from next month.
“It is disappointing, particularly to enterprise buyers, that there wasn’t a 12.9 inch iPad model,” Forrester Research analyst J.P. Gownder said. “We’ll have to wait until 2015 to see if Apple addresses this issue.”
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