Apple had indeed "a lot to cover" at its San Francisco event today. The company announced the ultra-slim 9.7-inch iPad Air, an updated iPad Mini with a Retina display, it detailed the Mac Pro, updated apps for the Maverick OS and also unveiled  new Haswell-based MacBook Pros with Retina displays.

iPad Air And New iPad  mini

The iPad Air is featuring a 9.7-inch Retina display in a new thinner and lighter design. Engineered to weigh just one pound, iPad Air is 20 percent thinner and 28 percent lighter than the fourth generation iPad, and with a narrower bezel the borders of iPad Air are thinner.

Apple today also announced iPad mini with Retina display, bringing all the pixels from the 9.7-inch iPad to its 7.9-inch screen.

The new iPads feature the and power-efficient Apple-designed A7 chip with 64-bit desktop-class architecture, fast wireless with faster built-in Wi-Fi and expanded LTE cellular connectivity, and the newly-designed iOS 7.

iPad Air is 20 percent thinner and 28 percent lighter than the fourth generation iPad, and with a 43 percent narrower bezel the borders of iPad Air are dramatically thinner. It comes with a Retina display and the new A7 chip, which allows the battery to be even smaller, helping reduce the overall volume by 24 percent from the previous generation while doubling its performance and maintaining its up to 10-hour battery life.

The new iPad mini with Retina display packs all the 3.1 million pixels (2048-by-1536 resolution) of iPad Air into its 7.9-inch Multi-Touch display, for a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch. The 7.9-inch 1080p Retina display of iPad mini is 35 percent larger than screens on 7-inch tablets.

The A7 chip in iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display offers 64-bit desktop-class architecture, advanced graphics and improved image signal processing from previous generations. It offers up to twice the CPU and graphics performance on iPad Air, and up to four times the CPU and eight times the graphics performance on iPad mini with Retina display. The A7 chip’s 64-bit architecture and support for OpenGL ES version 3.0. The new iPads also feature the M7 motion coprocessor that gathers data from the accelerometer, gyroscope and compass to offload work from the A7 for improved power efficiency.

Both new iPads feature two antennas to support Multiple-In-Multiple-Out (MIMO) technology, bringing twice the Wi-Fi performance to iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display at a  data rate up to 300 Mbps. Cellular models also come with expanded LTE coverage to accommodate even more LTE networks worldwide, while continuing to deliver support for other fast cellular technology around the world (DC-HSDPA, HSPA+), all in a single model.

iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display now have a next generation FaceTime HD camera with improved backside illumination sensors featuring larger pixels for better low-light performance. The iSight camera with 5MP sensor and advanced optics, combined with iOS 7 and the image signal processing of A7, further improves still image and video capture on iPad bringing faster auto-focus, up to three times video zoom, five times still zoom, better dynamic range and automatic image and video stabilization.

The new iPads come with iOS 7, featuring a new user interface, redesigned with an elegant color palette, distinct, functional layers and subtle motion. iOS 7 has hundreds of new features, including Control Center, Notification Center, improved Multitasking, AirDrop, enhanced Photos, Safari, Siri and introduces iTunes Radio, a free Internet radio service based on the music you listen to on iTunes.

The iLife suite of creative apps, including iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand, and the iWork suite of productivity apps, including Pages, Numbers and Keynote are now free with every new iOS device running iOS 7, and are also available as free updates for existing users. All apps have been redesigned to match the look and feel of iOS 7, have been optimized to support 64-bit technology and include hundreds of new features.

iPad Air with Wi-Fi models will be available in silver or space gray starting on Friday, November 1, for a suggested retail price of $499 (US) for the 16GB model, $599 (US) for the 32GB model, $699 (US) for the 64GB model and $799 (US) for the 128GB model. iPad Air with Wi-Fi + Cellular will be available starting on Friday, November 1 for a suggested retail price of $629 (US) for the 16GB model, $729 (US) for the 32GB model, $829 (US) for the 64GB model and $929 (US) for the 128GB model. iPad 2 is available at $399 (US) for the 16GB Wi-Fi model and $529 (US) for the 16GB Wi-Fi + 3G model for either AT&T or Verizon.

iPad mini with Retina display will be available later in November in silver or space gray. iPad mini with Retina display Wi-Fi models will be available for a suggested retail price of $399 (US) for the 16GB model, $499 (US) for the 32GB model, $599 (US) for the 64GB model and $699 (US) for the 128GB model. iPad mini with Retina display Wi-Fi + Cellular models will be available for a suggested retail price of $529 (US) for the 16GB model, $629 (US) for the 32GB model, $729 (US) for the 64GB model and $829 (US) for the 128GB model. Additionally, the original iPad mini is now offered at a more affordable price of $299 (US) for the 16GB Wi-Fi model and $429 (US) for the 16GB Wi-Fi + Cellular model for either AT&T, Sprint or Verizon.

New custom-designed polyurethane Smart Covers for iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display will be available for $39 (US) in a range of colors, including blue, green, pink, yellow, black and (RED). iPad Air Smart Cases and iPad mini Smart Cases are completely redesigned in an aniline-dyed leather available in six colors, including beige, black, blue, brown, yellow and (RED) for a suggested retail price of $69 (US).

Starting on November 1, iPad Air will be available in the US, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, China (Wi-Fi models only), Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macao (Wi-Fi models only), Macedonia, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

New Mac Pro

The new Mac Pro made its first appearance last month at Apple's conference. Designed around a unified thermal core, the Mac Pro features the latest Intel Xeon processors with up to 12 cores, dual workstation-class GPUs, six Thunderbolt 2 ports, PCIe-based flash storage and ultra-fast ECC memory. The all-new Mac Pro starts at $2,999 (US) and will be available in December.

The all-new Mac Pro is architected around a unified thermal core that allows the system to efficiently share thermal capacity across all the processors. Apple claims that the fan draws in air efficiently and makes the new Mac Pro as quiet as a Mac mini. The result is a high-performing pro desktop packed into a design that is just 9.9-inches tall and one-eighth the volume of the previous Mac Pro.

The new Mac Pro features 4-core, 6-core, 8-core or 12-core Intel Xeon processors running at Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.9 GHz that deliver double the floating point performance of the previous generation Mac Pro. Two workstation-class AMD FirePro GPUs with up to 12GB of video memory provide up to seven teraflops of compute power and up to eight times the graphics performance of the previous generation Mac Pro. OpenGL and OpenCL are optimized in OS X Mavericks to leverage the full computing power of the Mac Pro CPU and dual GPUs.

The new Mac Pro features PCIe-based flash storage that delivers sequential read speeds up to 1.2GBps and is up to 10 times faster than conventional desktop hard drives. ECC DDR3 running at 1866 MHz, with a four-channel memory controller, gives the new Mac Pro up to 60GBps of memory bandwidth, twice that of the previous generation Mac Pro. The  power and bandwidth of Mac Pro means you can edit full-resolution 4K video streams and play them in real time.

Featuring a six Thunderbolt 2 ports, each with up to 20Gbps of bandwidth per device, the all-new Mac Pro completely redefines desktop expandability. Thunderbolt 2 ports support up to six daisy-chained devices each, giving pros the ability to connect up to 36 high-performance peripherals-from external storage devices, to multiple PCI expansion chassis, to audio and video breakout boxes. Thunderbolt 2 uses existing copper or optical Thunderbolt cables and is completely backward compatible with existing Thunderbolt peripherals and cables, and also supports the latest 4K displays.

A new self-configuring IP over Thunderbolt software feature in OS X Mavericks provides a fast link between Thunderbolt-enabled Macs.

The new Mac Pro provides power for Apple's professional apps, including Final Cut Pro X, Logic Pro X and Aperture. Final Cut Pro X has been optimized to support dual GPUs for improved real-time playback performance, faster rendering, quicker export, and 4K video monitoring through Thunderbolt 2 and HDMI. Flash storage makes importing and exporting thousands of high-resolution images faster with Aperture. Logic Pro X takes advantage of flash storage for fast project load times and Thunderbolt 2 for a high number of channels of ultra-low latency audio I/O without the need for add-on PCI cards.

The new Mac Pro ships with OS X Mavericks. Mavericks is the 10th major release of the Apple's operating system and is available for free from the Mac App Store. In addition to more than 200 new features, Mavericks introduced features for power users including Finder Tabs, Tags and enhanced multi-display support, as well as new core technologies such as Compressed Memory to keep your Mac fast and responsive. Mavericks also delivers significant performance enhancements for systems with dual GPUs through optimized OpenGL and OpenCL.

The all-new Mac Pro will be available in December. A version with a 3.7 GHz quad-core Intel Xeon E5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.9 GHz, dual AMD FirePro 300 GPUs with 2GB of VRAM each, 12GB of memory, and 256GB of PCIe-based flash storage is starting at $2,999 (US); and with a 3.5 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon E5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.9 GHz, dual AMD FirePro D500 GPUs with 3GB of VRAM each, 16GB of memory, and 256GB of PCIe-based flash storage starting at $3,999 (US).

Configure-to-order options include faster 8-core or 12-core Intel Xeon E5 processors, AMD FirePro D700 GPUs with 6GB of VRAM, up to 64GB of memory, and up to 1TB of PCIe-based flash storage. Additional technical specifications, configure-to-order options and accessories are available online at www.apple.com/mac-pro.

OS X Mavericks Available Today Free

Apple also announced that OS X Mavericks desktop operating system is available for free from the Mac App Store. With more than 200 new features, OS X Mavericks brings iBooks and Maps to the Mac, includes a new version of Safari, enhances multi-display support, introduces Finder Tabs and Tags and delivers new core technologies.

OS X Mavericks introduces new features, including:

• iBooks, which gives you instant access to your iBooks library, more than two million titles in the iBooks Store, and works across your devices;
• Maps, which brings mapping technology to the desktop and lets you plan a trip from your Mac and send it to your iPhone for voice navigation on the road;
• a streamlined Calendar that estimates travel time between appointments, and provides a map with weather forecast;
• a new version of Safari with Shared Links, which helps you find what's new on the web by consolidating links shared by people you follow on Twitter and LinkedIn;
• iCloud Keychain, which safely stores your website usernames and passwords, credit card numbers and Wi-Fi passwords and pushes them to your trusted devices so you don't need to remember them;
• enhanced multi-display support, which makes using multiple displays easier and more powerful, with no configuration required;
• interactive Notifications, allowing you to reply to a message, respond to a FaceTime call or even delete an email without leaving the app you're using;
• Finder Tabs, which help unclutter your desktop by consolidating multiple Finder windows into a single window with multiple tabs; and
• Finder Tags, a new way to organize and find your files located on your Mac or in iCloud.

Mavericks also includes new core technologies that boost performance and improve the battery life of your Mac. Timer Coalescing and App Nap intelligently save energy and reduce power consumption. Compressed Memory automatically shrinks inactive data to keep your Mac fast and responsive. Maveriks also delivers significant performance enhancements for systems with integrated graphics through optimized OpenCL support and dynamic video memory allocation.

OS X Mavericks is available today for free from the Mac App Store. Any Mac capable of running OS X Mountain Lion can also run Mavericks. You can upgrade to Mavericks for free directly from OS X Snow Leopard, Lion or Mountain Lion. OS X Server 3.0 requires Mavericks and is available from the Mac App Store for $19.99 (US).

MacBook Pro with Retina Display Updated with Latest Processors

Apple also updated MacBook Pro with Retina display with fourth generation Intel Core processors, the latest graphics, longer battery life, faster flash storage and next generation Wi-Fi. Starting at a new lower price of $1,299 (US), the updated MacBook Pro with Retina display features a stunning high-resolution display and a thin and light design. Apple today also announced that both iWork and iLife are now free with the purchase of every new Mac.

At 0.71-inches thin, the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display features fourth generation dual-core Intel Core i5 processors up to 2.6 GHz with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.1 GHz. New integrated Intel Iris graphics deliver up to 90 percent faster performance than the previous generation MacBook Pro with Retina display. The 13-inch model can be configured with faster dual-core Intel Core i7 processors up to 2.8 GHz with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.3 GHz.

The 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display features fourth generation quad-core Intel Core i7 processors up to 2.3 GHz with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.5 GHz. The 15-inch model includes Intel Iris Pro graphics or Iris Pro and GeForce GT 750M discrete graphics with 2GB of video memory. The 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display can be configured with faster quad-core Intel Core i7 processors up to 2.6 GHz with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.8 GHz.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display delivers up to nine hours of battery life, two hours more than the previous generation, and up to nine hours of iTunes movie playback. The 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display delivers up to eight hours of battery life, one hour more than the previous generation, and up to eight hours of iTunes movie playback.

MacBook Pro with Retina display now features PCIe-based flash storage with up to 60 percent faster read speeds than the previous generation. Next generation 802.11ac Wi-Fi delivers wireless performance that is up to three times faster when connected to an 802.11ac base station. Dual Thunderbolt 2 ports deliver up to 20Gbps of bandwidth to each external device, allowing users to connect to multiple displays and high performance devices, and an HDMI port offers quick connectivity to HDTVs and projectors.

The updated MacBook Pro with Retina display ships with OS X Mavericks.

MacBook Pro with Retina display is available today. The 13-inch MacBook Pro is available with a 2.4 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 2.9 GHz, 4GB of memory, 128GB of flash storage, and Intel Iris graphics starting at $1,299 (US); and with a 2.4 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 2.9 GHz, 8GB of memory, 256GB of flash storage, and Intel Iris graphics starting at $1,499 (US); and with a 2.6 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.1 GHz, 8GB of memory, 512GB of flash storage, and Intel Iris graphics starting at $1,799 (US). Configure-to-order options include faster dual-core Intel Core i7 processors up to 2.8 GHz with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.3 GHz, up to 16GB of memory and flash storage up to 1TB.

The 15-inch MacBook Pro is available with a 2.0 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.2 GHz, 8GB of memory, 256GB of flash storage and Intel Iris Pro graphics starting at $1,999 (US); and with a 2.3 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.5 GHz, 16GB of memory, 512GB of flash storage, and Intel Iris Pro and NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M graphics starting at $2,599 (US). Configure-to-order options include faster quad-core Intel Core i7 processors up to 2.6 GHz with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.8 GHz, up to 16GB of memory and flash storage up to 1TB.

Next Generation iWork and iLife Apps for OS X and iOS

Apple's latest iWork productivity apps, Pages, Numbers and Keynote and iLife creativity apps, iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand have been completely redesigned to take full advantage of OS X Mavericks and iOS 7. All apps have been updated to 64-bit, are integrated with iCloud, and are loaded with new features.

An all new iWork for Mac and iOS makes creating, editing and sharing documents easier than ever. iWork introduces a new, unified file format, delivering perfect document fidelity across Mac, iOS and iCloud, and the iWork for iCloud beta now includes support for real-time collaboration. Now you can create your document on iPad, edit it on your Mac and collaborate with friends in iWork for iCloud, even if they’re on a PC. A new UI makes iWork even simpler to use, yet provides all of the  tools you need to create documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

iPhoto for Mac and iOS are now 64-bit. Inspired by iOS 7, iPhoto for iOS sports a clean design. New tools and effects let you create more dramatic images in both color and black and white. Now you can also share your favorite images as custom slideshows that you can pause, rewind and fast forward using gestures, or order them as professional-quality prints, including panoramas, and as gorgeous hard cover books that you create using Multi-Touch.

iMovie for Mac and iOS have been redesigned to make it easier to browse your video library and instantly share your favorite moments. iMovie for Mac includes simplified editing tools that let you quickly improve the look of your movie, add fun effects, and speed up or slow down your video. iMovie for iOS brings desktop-class moviemaking to your iPhone and iPad, so you can create split screen and picture-in-picture effects or  audio edits in just a few taps. And with iMovie Theater, you can watch your shared clips, movies, and trailers on all your Apple devices, even your Apple TV.

GarageBand for Mac has received its biggest update ever with a fresh new look, all new Sound Library, and new features, like Drummer and Smart Controls, giving you everything you need to easily make a great-sounding song. GarageBand for iOS has been updated to match the look and feel of iOS 7 and taps the power of 64-bit to bring musicians a full recording studio with up to 32 tracks. With iOS 7 Inter-App Audio you can record third-party music apps right into GarageBand, and AirDrop allows you to wirelessly share your song projects with other iOS users so you can work on songs together. iCloud helps keep your song projects up to date across your devices, and users can start a song on iOS and pick up where they left off using GarageBand for Mac.

iWork and iLife for Mac come free with every new Mac purchase. Existing users running Mavericks can update their apps for free from the Mac App Store. iWork and iLife for iOS are available for free from the App Store for any new device running iOS 7, and are also available as free updates for existing users. GarageBand for Mac and iOS are free for all OS X Mavericks and iOS 7 users. Apple is offering additional GarageBand instruments and sounds for a one-time in-app purchase of $4.99 for each platform.