Apple offers operating software for free as it unveils iPad Air, new Macs

Apple Inc is offering free upgrades on its desktop operating system and business software OS X Mavericks, which would be available from the Mac App Store.

''With more than 200 new features, OS X Mavericks brings iBooks and Maps to the Mac, includes a new version of Safari, enhances multi-display support, introduces Finder Tabs and Tags, and delivers new core technologies for breakthrough power efficiency and performance,'' Apple said in a web site announcement.

The announcement coincides the debut of the one-pound iPad Air and MacBook Pro with sharper 'retina' display.

Apple said upgrades to its Mac operating system and iWork software suite, which compete with Microsoft Corp's Excel, Word and other applications, will now be offered free for all MacBooks and Mac computers.

''We want every Mac user to experience the latest features, the most advanced technologies, and the strongest security,'' said Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering. ''We believe the best way to do this is to begin a new era of personal computing software where OS upgrades are free.''

Apple hopes the offer of free system software upgrades on phones and tablets to the computer market will help it compete better with Microsoft's Windows.

Apple is trying to safeguard its grip on mobile software as Microsoft builds on its Windows and Excel software for the mobile market.

"We are turning the industry on its ear, but this is not why we're doing it," Apple chief executive Tim Cook told media and technology executives at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center.

"In the tablet PC market, they do think Microsoft is a bigger threat than Android," said Carolina Milanesi,  Research VP in Gartner's Consumer Devices team. "The iPad Air will compete with Surface Pro, not some rinky-dink Android tablet."

Gartner estimates that Apple's share of the global tablet market will slip to 47.2 per cent in 2014, with Android-based tablets just overtaking Apple's this year.

The IT research outfit expects Microsoft tablets to grab 3.4 per cent of the market this year, double the 1.7 percent forecast for 2013.

Microsoft gets 65 per cent of its Windows revenue, which totalled $19.2 billion last fiscal year, from PC manufacturers which put the system on its machines, and 35 per cent from other sources, mainly people and businesses buying its software separately to install themselves.

The latest version of Windows, when bought separately to install on an old computer starts at $120 for a home version and goes up to $200 for the full 'Pro' version. The latest Windows 8.1 upgrade was free for customers running Windows 8.