Apple unveils iPad Pro, Apple TV

Faced with a 19 per cent drop in the sale of its iPads, within the same period last year, Apple has unveiled new products in efforts to reinvigorate sales.

Apple yesterday unveiled a larger iPad tablet, a TV box with its own app store and new iPhones that can detect how firmly their screens are being pressed.

The firm suggested the iPad Pro was suited to work tasks, video games and both editing and watching movies.

Sales of the company’s earlier iPads had been on the decline.

Apple said the “3D touch” feature of its new phones “transformed” the experience of using them by making it easier to use and switch between apps.

Huawei demonstrated its own version of the feature – which it called “force touch” – at its own launch event last week.

The iPad Pro has a 12.9in (32.8cm) display, making its shortest edge the length of its earlier iPad Air 2’s height.

Apple sold 19% fewer iPads between the start of October and the end of June as it did during the same period a year earlier.

One expert suggested that the new model could reinvigorate sales.

Apple said the new tablet offered similar processing power to 80% of the portable PCs that were sold over the past six months.

Read also: Apple may be planning to make cars

The iPad Pro will be launched alongside an optional magnetically-connected keyboard – which resembles a similar accessory for Microsoft’s Surface tablet.

In addition, the firm announced a stylus called the Apple Pencil, which has sensors in its tip to help mimic the effect of using a real pencil on paper.

The announcement is notable since the firm’s ex-chief executive Steve Jobs said in 2010: “If you see a stylus, they blew it.”

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