Apple Inc. scheduled a media event on Tuesday, Oct 22, at 10 am Pacific, 1 pm Eastern at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, California.

What to expect?

Bloomberg reports that people with knowledge of the event stated that Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook will introduce a high-definition iPad Mini and a thinner iPad.

The report said that since iPads are Apple's second-best selling gadget after the iPhone, Apple will give a facelift to the iPad. The facelift was made, more than anything else, to overcome the challenge of Apple's decreasing tablet market share.

Samsung Electronics Co., Asustek Computer Inc., Lenovo Group Ltd., Acer Inc. are providing customers with devices at less than half the price of the iPad Mini. Amazon.com had introduced a new Kindle Fire lineup with higher-resolution screens in September.

Apple believed that a sleeker design and refreshed features will attract the customers back to Apple even at a higher device price.

"Tablets are a maturing market. It will be difficult for Apple to move the needle on new tablet sales, as the strongest growth is coming from emerging markets where customers are more price sensitive," said Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. in San Francisco.

Cook remained hopeful with Apple's iPad as he cites data from analysts at Chitika Inc. The data showed that iPad still makes up 84 per cent of Web traffics from tablets.

"Customers continue to love their iPads," said Cook in a statement in July.

Meanwhile, Brian White of Cantor Fitzgerald said on Monday that the update to the 9.7 inch iPad will be the highlight of Tuesday's event. He said that during his recent trips to Taiwan and China, sources told him that the new iPad will be about 15 per cent thinner and 30 per cent lighter than the current fourth-generation iPad.

According to White, the Apple Oct 22 iPad launch is highly important for Apple because Apple's tablet market share were down 27 per cent year over year in the third quarter of fiscal 2013.

Limited Stocks for the iPad Mini with Retina Display

In a report from Reuters early October, insider from Apple's supply chain said that Apple was only in the process of making retina displays for the iPad Mini. This means that the iPad Mini will only be available in limited quantities even after its Oct 22 launch.

No Apple TV just yet

TechCrunch columnist and Google Ventures partner M.G. Siegler said that the Oct 22 event may not be the right time to launch the Apple TV device. As for its official launch, nobody can really predict at this point.

"It's hard to imagine Apple holding a third event following the iPhone one in September and the iPad event next week. But who knows? Not me, this time," Siegler said.

However, Siegler predicts that Apple might be introducing an upgraded version of the Apple TV with some additional specs during the Tuesday event.