Last year Apple used a pencil to illustrate how thin the iPad Air was. This year the company showed the same pencil but implemented a high-powered laser to shave a bit off the side, illustrating that the iPad Air 2 is around 18 per cent thinner than its predecessor.

It's also lighter, at less than 450 grams, and has been upgraded to include an iPhone-6-like 8 megapixel camera, more powerful processor and Apple's Touch ID for fingerprint recognition.

Apple's now selling three different kinds of iPad Minis

The new iPad Mini 3 is barely an upgrade over the existing iPad Mini with Retina Display. The former comes with Apple TouchID, but if you're not interested in that you'll soon be able to grab the latter (which has been renamed iPad Mini 2) at a discounted price (starting at $369).

Interestingly the original iPad Mini, which does not have a retina display, will remain on offer too, starting at the (relatively) budget price of $299.

A look at the bottom line

With two different new iPads, each available in three colours, two connectivity types and three levels of storage, there are a lot of big choices to be made, and for many cost may be a significant factor. So how much will you pay for one of these new iPads?

The three colours are space grey, silver and gold, which do not affect the price. iPad Air 2 with Wi-Fi starts at $619 for the 16GB model, $739 for 64GB and $859 for 128GB. Adding 4G capabilities adds $160 to each model. An iPad Mini 3 with Wi-Fi will set you back $499 for the 16GB model, $619 for 64GB and A$739 for the 128GB. Again, add $160 if you want to use mobile data.

The upgrades to the iMac and Mac Mini are substantial

With a crazy 5120 x 2880 resolution which Apple is calling Retina 5K, the new iMac packs 14.7 million pixels into a 27-inch screen. Inside the standard model is a 3.5 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of memory and a 1TB Fusion Drive. The new iMac is available today and goes for $2999.

Meanwhile the Mac Mini has also seen a much-needed revision, with big improvements to the processor, integrated graphics and networking. There are three models available, the cheapest of which features a 1.4GHz i5, 4GB of memory and a 500 GB hard drive for $619. The beefiest model costs $1249 and approaches the specs of the new iMac with 8GB of memory and a 1TB Fusion Drive.

All Macs benefit too from the improvements in the newest desktop software OS X Yosemite.

The Camera Roll is back in iOS 8.1

Next week Apple will release the first major update to its mobile software, just in time for the new iPads to hit stores. Chief among new features is the return of the Camera Roll, which was inexplicably absent in iOS 8 and caused confusion for users unable to find photos taken more than 30 days ago.

Also new, at least in the US, is Apple Pay. This function lets users tap a compatible device (the iPhone 6 or either of the new iPads) to pay for purchases in place of an NFC-enabled tap-and-go bank card. The feature is yet to be announced for Australia.