Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) on Thursday officially introduced the much-talked-about iPad Air 2, its thinnest and most powerful iPad. Shares are lower Thursday, moving in part with choppy tech-sector trading but also amid mixed reviews for the new product offering, which some critics say don't bring enough change to existing tablets. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) also rolled out the iPad Mini 3. The Air 2 is 6.1 mm thin and weighs less than a pound. It features an improved Retina display for enhanced contrast and richer, more vibrant colors, and better cameras, the company said. The iPad Air 2 starts at $499 and iPad Mini 3 starts at $399."iPad is a magical piece of glass that runs more than 675,000 apps specifically designed for it, and is thin and light enough that you can comfortably hold it all day," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "iPad Air 2 has a new Retina display with anti-reflective coating, second generation 64-bit A8X chip, all-new iSight and FaceTime HD cameras, faster Wi-Fi and LTE wireless, and includes the revolutionary Touch ID fingerprint identity sensor." AAPL shares are moving between $95.41 and $97.72 today.Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) maker of life science tools, has launched new reagent kits as enhancements to its HiSeq sequencing systems. The kits advance the HiSeq X Ten and HiSeq 2500 systems by expanding the features available to researchers, such as adding flexibility to population-scale human whole-genome sequencing and expanding read lengths, to name a few. Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) has a 52-week range of $80.57 - $185.00.SunTrust Banks, Inc. (NYSE:STI) Friday reported Q3 2014 results that were much better than last year due to "increased client loan and deposit business, further efficiency improvements, and continued strong asset quality performance." SunTrust Banks, Inc. (NYSE:STI) earned $563 million, or $1.06 per share, a sharp jump from net earnings of $179 million, or $0.33 per share, in the comparable period last year. Excluding special items, EPS was $0.81, higher than $0.66 recorded in Q3 2013 and the Capital IQ consensus of $0.79.Revenue for the period slightly improved to $2.0 billion from $1.9 billion in 2013, shy of the $2.07 billion mean estimate compiled by Capital IQ. The increase was primarily driven by higher mortgage servicing income, gains on the sale of mortgage loans held for sale in the current quarter, higher retail investment services income, and a slight increase in net interest income, partially offset by the foregone RidgeWorth revenue. CEO William H. Rogers, Jr. commented: "We delivered solid performance this quarter driven by increased client loan and deposit business, further efficiency improvements, and continued strong asset quality performance, which helped mitigate the impact of the continued challenging low rate environment." STI is trading within a 52-week range of $33.09 - $41.26.
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