Apple: OS X Yosemite On New Retina iMacs, iPads With Touch ID, iOS 8 With Apple Pay Coming Monday

Apple Thursday unveiled its new line of iPads, released its Retina 5K iMacs running on OS X Yosemite, and said it will release Apple Pay Monday on iOS 8.1.

As expected, both the iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3 made their debuts at Apple's launch event held at the Town Hall auditorium at the company's Cupertino, Calif., campus.

The iPad Air 2 will sell for $499 for the 16-GB model, $599 for the 64-GB model and $699 for the 128-GB model. It has an improved 9.7-inch Retina display and runs on Apple's powerful A8X processor. It has 10 hours of battery life and a new 8-megapixel iSight camera. The company said the new camera takes far more detailed photos and 1,080p HD video. Users can take time-lapse and slow-motion videos in addition to panoramic photos the same way they do on an iPhone.

Related: Apple's Next Smart Move Could Be Adding Touch ID, Apple Pay, To OS X Yosemite

The FaceTime HD camera on the front of the iPad Air 2 has a burst mode with single-shot HDR photo capabilities with improved face-detection software for portraits.

The iPad Air 2 is 18 percent thinner than the previous model at 6.1mm and the display is 56 percent less reflective, Apple said.

The iPad Mini 3 is smaller version of the Air 2 on a 7.9-inch display. The new iPad Mini 3 sells for $399 for the 16-GB model, $499 for the 64-GB model and $599 for the 128-GB model.

Pre-orders for both models will begin Friday before they ship at the end of next week.

Apple will sell the previous models of both iPad lines for $100 less.

Both models of the new iPads feature Touch ID, allowing users to take advantage of Apple Pay, which some Apple partners have said will make waves in the mobile payment platform's e-commerce capabilities.

"We didn't expect to see a big change in the display size of the new iPad, but we are overly excited for Touch ID on the whole mobile platform," said Raul De Arriz, national government sales manager for Small Dog Electronics, Waitsfield, Vt., a top Apple specialist. "It's an enabling thing for people in their everyday lives. In this day of security issues with credit cards and everything else, it's terrific. Touch ID is a fabulous technology that will go hand in hand with Apple Pay. The iPad is the No. 1 shopping platform in the United States, so having that technology on there will allow Apple to make great advancements in transaction capabilities and security capabilities in the mobile space."

Apple CEO Tim Cook started off the event by unveiling the launch of its mobile payment platform, saying it will be available to more than 220,000 retailers in the U.S. alone.

"We believe Apple Pay is going to be huge," Cook said. "It's going to change the way we pay for things, and I'm excited to announce today we are going to begin on Monday."

The launch of OS X Yosemite, first demonstrated at the World Wide Developers Conference in early June, will include Connectivity and Handoff, the feature Apple touts for its seamless communication with other Apple devices. Handoff allows users to bring up a document on a mobile device from their Mac and vice versa in real time. Connectivity allows users to get alerts and push notifications from their iPhone onto their other Apple devices, allowing them to answer texts, take or make calls or get an important reminder.

To run on the new operating system, Cook unveiled a new iMac, featuring a high-resolution 5K Retina display. Apple said the new screen uses 30 percent less energy and will be ideal for those who work with photos and editing videos, as the 27-inch model features a resolution of 5,120 x 2,880, the highest resolution ever on an iMac. The new 27-inch iMac is still 55mm thin like the previous model, but inside is a 3.5GHz quad-core i5 processor and 8 GB of storage.

The new iMacs are available for now; pricing starts at $2,499.

PUBLISHED OCT. 16, 2014