Apple "Special Event" announces new Macs, iPad mini, and iBooks update - as expected

As it becomes harder and harder for Apple to muzzle its huge supply chain, it also becomes harder to spring new products at its press events.  So the announcements today were pretty much as expected by anyone keeping up on the rumors.

But that doesn't make them any the less impressive.  The boys and girls at Apple have really been busy.

• Upgraded 13" Macbook Pro with Retina display, thinner and lighter
• Upgraded iPad (iPad 4) with 2x performance in CPU and Graphics
• Upgraded iMac with enhanced performance in a smaller enclosure
• New iPad mini with new engineering and 7.9" display
• Enhanced iBooks and iBooks author with many enhanced features, including iCloud sync
• New "hybrid" Solid State Device (SSD) and Hard Disk combination that combines the both technologies into a single drive, and automatically moves the most frequently used applications to the SSD (named Fusion)

A lot of details were released, all available on Apple's web site.

A couple things that worth noting, which were not emphasized, are:

• USB 3.0 support in the new Macbook Pro and iMac - Apple's first use of this technology 
• Both of the above Macs have shed the optical device as Apple pushes more content to the cloud
• Mini connector on more devices (was previously on iPhone 5 and iPods)
• iPad 4 is the second device running the new, Apple designed, A6 chip (although interestingly enough, the new iPad mini uses the older A5)