The three things you need to know about today's big Apple announcement

Since you probably had better things to do today than sit through Tim Cook and company's announcement of the latest shiny Apple products and software, we did the heavy lifting and rounded up three big takeaways.

  • The new Mac OS, Mavericks, is available as a download starting today. It's full of new features, but the most noticeable is improved battery life for laptop users, who should notice an extra hour of juice to browse the web. The best part? The price: free.
  • The fifth generation iPad, which they're now calling the iPad Air, weighs just a pound, is thinner than a pencil, and features an A7 processor and 9.7-inch retina display. It's available starting November 1 and will set you back $499 for a 16GB.
  • The new iPad Mini with retina display sports a 7.9-inch screen and A7 processor, and will ship sometime in November for $399. And the price for the new non-retina 16GB Mini has dropped to just $299.