Apple uprading products for holidays

What do you do if you have more than $ 145 bi llion in cash on hand - enough, say, to pay off Detroit's bankruptcy near ly eight times over?

I f you're Apple, you use some to update much of your product line in time for the holidays. You build on your lead in some areas, and answer competitors' advances in others. Oh, and you cut your laptop and desktop prices by a couple hundred bucks, and start giving away key software.

Apple's pitch has always been that it charges more for premium products built around an integrated hardwaresoftware ecosystem. On Tuesday, just weeks after unveiling two new versions of i ts pathbreaking iPhone, Apple doubled down on that strategy seeking to cement its standing, scoffing at competitors.

You don't need a scorecar d to recognize its targets - that's been clear ever since Google drew Apple's wrath by introducing its open-source Android platform just months af ter the iPhone's 2007 debut. Androids now collectively outsell the iPhone and have made major inroads in the tablet market.

But on Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook saved his sharpest jabs for Microsoft, which last year ventured into computermaking with its Sur face tablets - new versions went on sale this week - and has worked with par tners to reinvent Windows- based PCs as tablet - laptop hybrids. Nokia, which is selling its mobile-device business to Microsoft, competed for attention Tuesday as it unveiled a new Windows-based Lumia tablet.

As Cook announced improvements to Apple's tablets, laptops, and Mac Pro desktops at its San Francisco event, his message was clear: Apple's competitors are just nipping at the Big Dog's heels.

"Our competition is different. They're confused. They chased after netbooks," Cook said, drawing laughs over a concept that the iPad eclipsed three years ago. "Now they're trying to make PCs into tablets and tablets into PCs. Who knows what they will do next?"