Apple will webcast Oct. 16 iPad event

Apple will live webcast the Oct. 16 news conference where it's expected to introduce new iPad tablets, launch the OS X Yosemite operating system and perhaps tout refreshed Macs.

Early Friday, Apple inserted a notice of the upcoming event on its home page. That notice led to a page with the brief message, "Join us here at apple.com/live on October 16 at 10 a.m. PDT to watch our special event live."

This will be the third year running that Apple webcasts its fall iPad introduction, following the unveilings of the iPad Mini in 2012 and the iPad Air in 2013. Webcasts, while not rare, are unusual for Apple, which does not publicly broadcast all of its product launches.

Apple has to hope that the Oct. 16 webcast goes smoother than the last time it streamed an event: The Sept. 9 iPhone 6 introduction was plagued by a host of problems, including interruptions, black screens, failed audio, color bars, repeated segments, and a Chinese translator talking in the background for almost a fourth of the webcast.

As it has done in the past, Apple will limit the webcast to those using Safari on OS X or iOS, or through its Apple TV peripheral. Windows users will be out of luck unless they have a virtual machine running OS X.

:story: Computerworld