Apple Unveils the iPad Air 2 - Their Thinnest Tablet Yet

In a move that surprised nobody, mostly because we all saw it coming, Apple has unveiled their latest iPad: the iPad Air 2. It's the new thing you need to buy, naturally.

The iPad Air 2 is, of course, even thinner than the original Air - 6.1mm, to be exact. It also uses a special anti-reflective coating to reduce reflections, which Apple claims has never been done in a tablet before. Touch ID will also be available on the new iPad, and it'll ship with iOS 8.1, but you're probably more interested in performance and such.

The tablet will use an all-new A8X processor, which (at the moment) will only be available in the iPad Air 2. The result is 40% faster CPU performance, and apps that can run over twice as fast - up to 180X faster than the original iPad. It's also got a 10-hour battery life, which is decent I suppose.

The iSight Camera has been updated as well, with 8 MP, 1080p HD video, and the ability to take all sort of fancy shots - slow-mo videos, 43 MP panoramas, burst photos, timelapse, and dual microphones. There's also an improved Facetime camera for the front that allows for improved facial detection and burst selfies (hurray?).

The online features have been improved as well, with faster wifi (up to 866MBps) and faster LTE (20 LTE bands).

The iPad Air 2 starts at $499 for 16GB, $599 for 64GB, and $699 for 128GB for the wifi models. There's also going to be a new iPad Mini 3, with a 7.9" Retina display, a 5MP iSight camera, 1080p HD video recording, the improved FaceTime camera, Touch ID, and the improved wifi (802.11n with MIMO). Both new iPads will be available for preorder starting tomorrow and they'll ship by the end of next week.