5 things to expect from Apple's Oct. 22 event

New iPads, OS X Mavericks details, and more? Our look at the odds of each being announced.

FORTUNE -- Apple (AAPL) faithful, get those credit cards ready. On Tuesday, the company is holding an event in downtown San Francisco that will almost certainly mean the unveiling of all-new iPads. But what else will Apple trot out? New Macs? New iPods?

We won't know for sure until 9 am Pacific/12 pm Eastern tomorrow, but here's what we can probably expect:

iPad 5

Last year, Apple bucked its own tradition of updating the iPad once a year, when it introduced a new iPad model just six months later. That model included an A6X chip with twice the speed but kept the look of its predecessor. This time around, a redesign is a no-brainer. Rumors and purported leaked images point to a casing that's much more in line with the slimmer, first-generation iPad mini, introduced last year, with thinner borders on the side. Also, expect another hardware bump, this time with a processor similar to the one A7 chip in the iPhone 5s.
Odds: Slam dunk

iPad mini 2

Two words: Retina Display. Last year's 7-inch iPad received generally positive reviews, but its comparatively low-resolution display, though serviceable, trailed far behind the sharpness of its larger sibling and the competition. Apple will almost certainly fix that this year, as well as introduce a minor speed bump with upgraded parts. 
Odds: Almost certain

MORE: Employees really want to use their personal devices at work

New iPods

Though the dedicated music player is no longer the headline-churning product it once was, Apple has sold hundreds of millions of them since its introduction in 2001. As a revenue stream, demand remains undeniable, and the company should roll out refreshed iPods, accordingly.
Odds: Very likely

OS X Mavericks

Sure, Apple technically unveiled the latest desktop software update at an event earlier this year, but chances are audience-goers tomorrow will learn even more about OS X Mavericks, named after a famous Northern California surfing spot, including a firm price point and launch date. Given last year's Mountain Lion update retailed for just $19.99, we expect Mavericks to follow suit. 
Odds: Almost certain

New Macs

When Apple refreshed its bestselling MacBook Air line earlier this year with Haswell, Intel's latest processor line, battery life skyrocketed: reviewers saw charges well north of 10 hours with the 13-inch model. In my own review, the 11-inch model lasted 8.5 hours with web browsing. So updating the MacBook Pro line in the same fashion is a no-brainer. More compelling than the MacBook Air's now undeniably impressive battery life will be how those more power-hungry MacBook Pro Retina notebooks benefit from the inclusion of the new energy-sipping processors.
Odds: Likely

Video: Walking the iPad mini line at Apple's Fifth Ave. store

We counted 550 customers two hours before doors were due to open

FORTUNE -- Apple (AAPL) pushed back the launch of the iPad mini in waterlogged New York City to 10 a.m. to give staffers extra time to get to work. But they neglected to tell the customers who were all queued up and ready to go at the company's flagship Fifth Avenue store by 8 a.m., when we shot this YouTube video:

See also:

• Live from the launch at the Fifth Avenue Apple Store
• First iPad mini launch videos

How The iPad Mini Is Defining Tim Cook's Apple

At the start of the month I discussed five key features of the iPad Mini launch that would define Tim Cook’s Apple and illustrate the strategic direction that Apple would be taking in 2013 and beyond under his leadership. Now the details are confirmed, let’s revisit them.

Before I do, a quick thought. There’s no doubt in my mind that short-term the iPad Mini is going to be a hit, sell by the millions, and be the must have gadget for Christmas 2012. But selling lots of devices is the result of a strategy, not a strategy itself. Apple’s long-term health is just as important as the sales figures on the new hardware.

 

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  Five Key iPad Mini Features That Will Define Tim Cook's Apple

  Ewan Spence Contributor

Historically the decisions and choices that eventually damaged weakened companies like Nokia, Kodak, and Sony all took place while sales were good and the corporate outlook was optimistic. Will Apple continue to grow and innovate? That’s what I want to look, rather than quantifying the upcoming success of the iPad Mini.

Allure: Tim Cook Doesn’t Have A Distortion Field.
How well did Apple sell the iPad Mini to the world? To be honest not very well. They trash talked the competition and specifically attacked  the Nexus 7. They talked about the delight and wonder of retina screens before arguing you didn’t need one on the new iPad. And they updated March’s iPad for a new model, breaking an unspoken covenant that the iPad would be updated once per year.

More importantly, everyone noticed all this and wrote about it in relatively scathing terms. The mystique and power that made you want an Apple device simply because the man on stage told you… that’s all gone.

Aggression: Pricing Is Set To Remain High
Apple has traditionally priced their hardware at a higher point than the competition, but they always balanced this out by providing better hardware, more capability, and a better return on investment. The pricing of the first iPad was not a case of “how much is that tablet” but “how cheap!”

The situation is now reversed with the iPad Mini. It’s a smaller resolution screen, with less memory, and a larger physical footprint than the Nexus 7. Yes it has a stronger ecosystem but is that enough to justify almost double the price of the competition? Part of the presentation should have been to justify this luxury positioning, and I don’t think ‘thin’ is a long term strategy you can count on.

Acknowledgment: What about Maps?
Did I blink and miss the explanation of the issues around maps in iOS 6? I was hoping Tim Cook would have taken clear leadership of this issue. Instead it was airbrushed away as if it never mentioned – apart from everyone on Twitter pointing out that the iPad Mini and the Nexus 7 side-by-side comparisons failed to compare mapping, which is probably one of the key smartphone battlegrounds of the next few years.

Agility: There Was No Oprah Moment Of Shipping
The iPad Mini will reach stores at the start of November. Unless you’re looking for a 3G enabled version, in which case you have another month to wait. The same goes for the other hardware on show. Compared to a few years ago, that’s a fast turnaround, but the aura of announce and then ship? That’s gone.

Affection: Is The Focus On Flair Or Figure
Tim Cook’s strength was in logistics. If you wanted a spreadsheet, he was the man to go to in Apple. Line up all of Apple’s hardware in separate columns on a spreadsheet and there was an obvious gap for a low-end iPad… so Cook has filled that. Rather than squeeze the iPad 2 down in price and retaining the classic form factor, the decision was made to go for a smaller screened device.

Why? My guess is that there’s another mythical spreadsheet marked ‘competition and how we compare to them’ and there is a gap in the 7″ ‘tweener’ market. Which has been promptly filled.

That’s a great way to maximise sales and income, and the bottom line from those efforts will be amazing, I’m not disputing that. What it doesn’t show is any flair or fashion. This is a route that Apple has already walked down, and Tim Cook is taking them down it once more to earn some more money.

But every time you walk down the same road, part of the competition catches up and some of them pull further ahead. You cannot rely on it indefinitely. Apple has announced that they are doing “the same again, but thinner” once more. Where is the dynamic experimentation that creates brand new product lines like the iPad and the iPhone?

Short Term Victory Is Still Guaranteed, But The Future Will Be Difficult
You always believed that Steve Jobs could do something special when he led Apple. I saw nothing at this week’s events that led me to believe that Tim Cook has that spark to lead Apple onwards to something truly new and different.

Forming, storming, norming, performing, dorming - Bruce Tuckman’s group development model is apt here. Right now Apple is performing, but is entering the dorming stage, the stage where complacency creeps up on a group and they are more concerned about preserving their position and investments. I want Apple to break out of that stage and return and do some storming, but to do that they need to believe that change is needed.
Apple will continue to sell hardware by the metric tonne, the company will continue to be one of the biggest companies in the world, but I can’t see any impetus for change. It’s the same product line-up, slightly better, still with high margins, and trusting people to buy into the Apple story, shouting about short-term success…

If it were any other company, that would be enough, but Apple is not ‘any other company’, it’s Apple. It’s meant to be forward thinking, to be magical, to think different, to just work.

Right now, it’s doing none of that.

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