Windows 8 may get a boost from iPad announcements

Usually when Apple makes an announcement, everyone else is doomed for while.

They’re breathing a sigh of relief at Microsoft today, because Apple’s new iPad Air and iPad Mini are far from Windows 8 tablet killers. In fact, they leave Microsoft a good-sized opening to make potentially serious inroads into the tablet market.

The new iPad is named the iPad Air because it is 20% thinner than the previous iPad and weighs 1 pound, down from 1.4 pounds. It’s powered by the same 64-bit A7X processor that powers the iPhone 5s. And Apple says that its Wi-Fi is twice as fast as that in the existing iPad, although this is much less important than it seems, because it can only get those speeds if it connects to a similar high-speed Wi-Fi router. At the moment, there aren’t plenty of those around.