Re/code reports that Apple will hold its October event, featuring iPads, on October 16th. According to John Paczkowski, the event will feature updates to Apple’s iPad line, OSX 10.10 Yosemite as well as the new Retina iMacs that we reported on earlier this week. Mac mini updates would be nice too.
The event will also feature Yosemite, assumedly the OS will be released soon after the event, if Apple follows historic patterns.
In contrast to September’s Apple Watch announce/iPhone 6 launch, the October event will be more subdued taking place on Apple’s campus at the much smaller Town Hall venue. This means the invite list will also be much shorter than the 2000 or so people invited to Apple’s Watch and iPhone 6 announcements.
Hopefully, Apple’s friendly home confines won’t have the same streaming problems this time around …
The rumor mill surrounding Apple’s upcoming announcements has been much quieter this time around, presumably because Apple has less to talk about. Aside from the Retina iMacs, the iPad update is expected to be minor — likely adding a gold option, Touch ID and an anti-reflective coating on the screen. We also haven’t heard much about the split-screen multitasking since it was left off the initial iOS 8 release.
A ‘big’ wild card would be the 12.9-inch iPad Pro which has long been rumored for early 2015 but as we know from the Apple Watch, Tim Cook isn’t shy about announcing new categories early.
The new iPads will also feature Apple Pay functionality, but are unlikely to include NFC, so proximity-based payments may be off the cards.
For Yosemite, Apple will announce the final release date at the event, potentially timing the release of OS X 10.10 for later the same day.
It is also worth noting that Apple has sometimes synced the timing of its earnings calls with OS X releases. This year, Apple will announce Q3 earnings on October 20th.
