Apple launches iPad Air -- 9.7" retina display, 43% thinner

Apple Inc chief executive officer Tim Cook kicked off a product event today at which the company is expected to introduce slimmer, faster iPads in time for the holidays.

Apple Inc chief executive officer Tim Cook kicked off a product event on Tuesday at which the company is expected to introduce slimmer, faster iPads in time for the holidays.

The new tablets would face stiff competition, with Microsoft Corp, Nokia and Amazon.com Inc all plugging rival devices in coming months.

Apple, which jumpstarted the tablet computing market in 2010 with the first iPad, has already come under increasing pressure from cheaper devices from Amazon's Kindle Fire to Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's Note.

Live from the event:

10:40pm: Apple sold 9 million iPhones in the launch weekend, which was the biggest ever: Tim Cook

10:42pm: Tim Cook reviews the iOS 7 and how over 200 million people downloaded the software in just the first week

10:45pm: 1 billion songs have been played on #iTunes Radio since the launch: Tim Cook

10: 47pm: Over 1 million apps in the App Store and over 60 billion app downloads, says Tim Cook

10:50 pm: Cook knocks Windows & Microsoft. "The competition is confused -- they brought you netbooks, now they are trying to make tablets into PCs."

10:52 pm: We have been very hard at work on the Mac, says Tim Cook

10: 54pm: Craig Federighi now up to talk about OS X Mavericks

10:55pm: Mavericks will improve battery life, even on current, says Federighi #Macs

10: 55pm: You'll get more than an hour for web browsing with the update,says Federighi #Mac

10:56pm: OS X Mavericks has been engineered to provide better performance from the hardware you already own, says Craig Federighi

10: 57pm: OpenCL moves intense visual tasks from the CPU to the GPU to provide 1.8x speed enhancements

10:57pm: Improved full-screen management helps provide multi-display support in a far better way #Mavericks

10:58pm: OS X Maps and iBooks provide enhanced desktop utilities

10:58pm: Federighi demonstrates iWork integration with iBooks

10:58pm: Mavericks tags are a really terrific extension - allowing you to enhance Finder with content-specific semantics, says Federighi

10:59pm: Integrated social feeds will allow you to reply to tweets directly from the desktop

10:59pm: You can also subscribe to website notifications, to keep on top of the news without RSS feeds

11:00pm: Federighi is showing how Safari can remember consumer credential details

11:00pm: The Safari "Reader" view is enhanced, offering multi-story scrolling now

11:02pm: It offers faster PCIe-based flash, 60% faster than previous generation 802.11ac WiFi

11:03pm: The previous gen model started at $1499. New generation starts at $1299 for the 13-inch model

11:01pm: New data detectors from Mail integrate with calendars, maps, and more

11:02pm: The maps integration offers directions and travel times

11:03pm: Regardless of whether you're running Mountain Lion, Lion, or Snow Leopard, you can upgrade to OS X Mavericks now, says Federighi

11:03pm: Philip W Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Apple talks about MacBooks

11:03pm: The MacBook Pro offers a 13" and 15" Retina Pro, with major updates for both of them; weighs under 3.5 pounds, just 0.71" thin

11:03pm: The MacBook Pro is powered by Intel Haswell with integrated Iris Graphics -- up to 90% faster graphics

11:04pm: The MacBook Pro will provide up to 9 hours of battery life

11:05pm: Will be available before the end of the year, Schiller says

11:06pm: Mac Pro specs are pretty insane. AMD FirePro graphics, Up to 12GB of DDR5 RAM, Intel Xenon E5 processors, Thunderbolt 2

11:07pm: It can output up to three 4K display

11:08pm: The previous gen model started at $1499. New generation starts at $1299 for the 13-inch model

11:09pm: iPhoto has a whole new look. New photo book creation tools in the app

11:10pm: Fastest memory put in a Mac historically, with 4 channel controller, and up to 64GB memory

11:12pm: It's the first Mac with dual AMD FirePro graphics, with capabilities like up to 7 teraflops of computer power and 528 GB/s bandwidth

11:14pm: The flash used onboard is upgraded, and the Thunderbolt 2 technology and new gen Video powers three 4K display

11:15pm: Apple introduces a new version of FCP X for realtime 4K video editing

11:16pm: Photographers can use a new version of Aperture on this Pro

11:18pm: New Mac Pro starts at $2999 for the 12GB, 256 SSD, 2GB VRAM configuration

11:20pm: Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services talks about apps

11:21pm: Pages has been redesigned for iOS and Mac. New tools and better cross platform document or file support

11:22pm: Roger Rosner now up to show the new Pages poster feature

11:25pm: Apple is adding collaboration to iWork for iCloud

11:26pm: iLife, iWork and Mavericks all free.

11:28pm: Tim Cook takes the stage again

11:29pm: "We are turning its industry on its ear," Cook says about its free apps and software.

11:29pm: Cook taking a knock at those who didn't think the iPad would be big. "Who remembers netbooks?" Now everyone seems to be making a tablet. Even some of the doubters are making one, says Tim Cook

11:30pm: The iPad is used more than any of the rest. It is used more than 4x more than the other tablets put together, says Tim Cook

11:30pm: Over 475,000 apps for iPads. "Those are designed for the iPad, not this stretched out smartphone app like our competitors are doing."

11:31pm: Phil Schiller now up to talk about the new iPads