Recovered from Apple’s huge iPhone 6 event in September yet? Good, because Re/code’s John Paczkowski is reporting that Apple has another major event set up for October 16th and this time the company will be talking about its iPad line of tablets. It’s widely expected that Apple will use the event to announce its next-generation iPad Air model and Re/code is also reporting that Apple will unveil new iMacs and will also launch OS X Yosemite.
While this obviously won’t be as hype-fueled as the iPhone 6 launch, it still promises to be a major event that will see Apple try to reignite demand for its iPads, which have seen their sales decline year-over-year. According to the latest rumors, Apple only plans to launch a next-generation iPad Air at this event and will likely save the launch of the next-generation Retina iPad mini and the huge so-called “iPad Pro” tablet until next year.
Among other things, we expect that the new iPad will integrate the Touch ID fingerprint scanning system that Apple has been using in its iPhones since the launch of the iPhone 5s. Apple is now trying to spark widespread adoption of its Apple Pay mobile payment platform and there’s no better way to do that than by putting Touch ID onto as many devices as possible.
Paczkowski has been the go-to reporter this year when it comes to accurate information on Apple events, as he was the first to report that the date of Apple’s iPhone 6 launch and the first to confirm that Apple would indeed be showing off its Apple Watch at the event.
