Apple makes a plethora of huge announcements at its iPad launch event

Apple’s much-anticipated launch event went live in Cupertino on Thursday, with a plethora of announcements that will undoubtedly leave Apple fans drooling. At the event, Apple unveiled the iPad Air 2, the iPad Mini 3, a new 5K 27-inch iMac, an upgraded Mac Mini, and officially launched OSX Yosemite, which is currently available as a free download.

The iPad Air 2 was the most expected announcement at the event. The successor to the iPad Air that was released in 2013 is 18% thinner than its predecessor at 6.1 mm thick, so thin in fact that Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, claims that two of these new iPads stacked atop each other are still thinner than Apple’s original iPad.

The new tablet will be powered by the all new A8X processing chip with around 10 hours of battery life, according to Schiller. It’ll also come equipped with the Touch ID fingerprint reader that Apple’s iPhones already have, as well as numerous other iPhone features.

Pre-orders for the iPad Air 2 will start today at $499, as well as for the iPad Mini 3 at $399. Both models will be available in silver, space gray, and gold. The two new additions to the iPad family are expected to breathe new life into Apple’s tablet business, which has been declining recently.

The Mac line also received some big announcements, the first of which was the new 27-inch iMac with a retina 5K display that boasts 700% more pixels than a high-definition television. While Apple hasn’t tipped its toes into the television market yet, as many analysts predict it will, the company did say that the iMac’s display is just as good as high-end televisions.

The second, albeit much smaller, announcement for the Mac line was the upgraded Mac Mini. The miniature desktop computer now comes equipped with a much faster processor. The new Mac Mini will sell for $499 while the new iMac will cost a whopping $2,499 minimum.

Hardware wasn’t the only thing that Apple had announcements for, however. Yosemite, the latest version of Apple’s operating system, officially launched on Thursday and is now available as a free download. Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, also announced that Apple Pay will officially be launching on Monday alongside iOS 8.1.

Read more about the story at The Washington Post.