The new Apple iPad mini: everything you need to know

Following last month's launch of the iPad mini and 4th-generation iPad in China, Apple has announced that cellular data-enabled versions of both products will be coming to the world's largest mobile market this week. Apple will sell the tablets online and in stores from Friday, and you'll also be able to find them at select resellers.

There's no information yet on whether carriers will be selling the iPads directly, but we'd expect them to work on 3G at best across the nation — number 1 operator China Mobile's nascent TD-LTE network is incompatible with Apple products currently on sale. We've reached out to Apple for further details and will let you know if we hear anything back.

As promised at Tuesday's announcement, Apple has opened up pre-orders for the iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad today. Anyone interested in Cupertino’s latest tablets will be able to place an order via Apple’s website or the iOS Store app. The iPad mini will be available in 34 countries at launch, including the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. The 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB Wi-Fi models cost $329, $429, and $529, respectively, with delivery expected on November 2nd. The Cellular models, meanwhile, command a $130 premium, and won't begin shipping until "mid-November."

Those not enthralled with the iPad mini may be more interested in the fourth-generation iPad, also available for pre-order starting today. Apple has tweaked its flagship tablet to include its new A6X processor, global LTE support, a front-facing FaceTime HD camera, and a Lightning port. The starting price remains the same at $499, and like the iPad mini, delivery for the Wi-Fi models is due for November 2nd. As always, you'll need to be quick if you want to ensure delivery of Apple's latest devices on launch day.

Those who have been paying attention to Apple over the years remembered one thing when the company revealed the iPad mini earlier this week: Steve Jobs' outspoken criticism of the 7-inch tablet form factor. Current CEO Tim Cook has just addressed those comments, saying on Apple's earnings call that "we would not make one of the seven inch tablets." He continued on to say that the iPad mini "is not a compromised product like the seven inch tablets. It's in a whole different league."

As the Apple CEO points out in his comments (audio above), the company took quite a bit of time out of its keynote on Tuesday to compare the Nexus 7 to the iPad mini, with Phil Schiller saying that "The iPad mini has a third larger display area." That all comes down to the iPad mini's 7.9-inch display, which Tim Cook clearly believes is significantly different than the seven inches offered by the Nexus 7. That's a good thing, too: otherwise Apple may have taken Jobs' advice and included "sandpaper so users can sand their fingers down to a quarter of their size."

Update: Added detail on Apple's 40 percent corporate gross margin for the quarter.

Some people like a pocket-sized notebook, and some people like carrying around a legal pad. That's why for years, Moleskine has offered a dozen sizes for its notebooks, and convinced bookstores to carry them all. But while Apple's iPad has replaced the notebook for many, it's always just come in one size — until now. The company's new iPad mini represents a new size in between the iPhone and iPad, and while it runs 275,000 iPad apps, it's got a a few people a little confused. Daring Fireball creator (and noted Apple evangelist) John Gruber tweeted, "It runs iPad apps, but the iPad Mini feels like a big iPhone in use."

And the 7.9-inch form factor does feel different. Paired with a big iBooks update, the iPad mini seems aimed more at consumption than creation (like Amazon's 7-inch Kindle Fire), yet, later in its presentation, Apple demoed the drawing app Paper on its new device. Perhaps it's simply just a smaller iPad for people that want a smaller iPad for any number of reasons. Or maybe it's Apple's e-reader that also does other stuff. So what is the iPad mini's utility, and does that make an iOS developer's job any more confusing?

Apple debuted the long-rumored iPad mini this morning, and per the norm for recent Apple product launches, the device was largely what we'd suspected. One question that had remained open, however, was the pricing: with competition from the likes of the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD, would Apple feel compelled to match those devices on their budget-minded $199 price? We now know the answer is no — the iPad mini starts at $329 for the 16GB model, with pricing ramping up from there.

It's a 60 percent premium over the tablet's most direct 7-inch competitors, and a number that likely boosts the iPad mini out of the realm of the casual impulse buy. So what is Apple up to exactly?

Apple covered a lot of points about the new iPad mini in its launch event today, but one thing it didn't talk about was how the device would handle accidental touches by users' thumbs when they are holding it. In order to make the iPad mini easy to hold with one hand, Apple had to make the bezels considerably smaller than those on the 9.7-inch iPad, which leads many to wonder how it will be possible to hold it with one hand. To address this particular issue, Apple notes in its iPad mini promotional page that it has modified iOS to ignore accidental touches. "iPad mini intelligently recognizes whether your thumb is simply resting on the display or whether you’re intentionally interacting with it," says Apple.

It's hard to tell how effective this actually is in practice just yet — we certainly were not able to test it in the few minutes of hands on time that we had with the device. Rest assured, once we are able to properly review the iPad mini, we will be sure to see how well this thumb rejection feature works.

Apple's iPad mini has arrived. But unlike the company's original model, which soared to unrivaled success without much in the way of strong competition, the iPad mini enters a market with several entrants already competing for your hard-earned dollars. Google's Nexus 7 set the bar for what's possible at a price point of $199 and the Asus-branded Android tablet looks poised to maintain that price advantage over the $329 iPad mini for the foreseeable future. Even the $249 16GB configuration — rumored to soon be making a jump to 32GB — still undercuts Apple's baseline 16GB offering. Amazon's 7-inch Kindle Fire HD also bests Apple in pricing. With an asking price of $199 for the ad-supported version and an ad-free SKU available for $214, there's a clear disparity in pricing strategy between Apple and its competition. Will it be enough to sway shoppers one way or the other?

It's been only minutes since Apple's iPad mini event concluded, but you can relive it all right now by visiting the same events page that Apple used to broadcast the event live. You still need to use Safari 4 and OS X 10.6 or higher or an iOS device to watch the stream, but if you meet that criteria, you can see Tim Cook and company announce the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, new Mac mini, new iMac, 4th-generation iPad, and of course, the new iPad mini. Of course, once you are done watching the event, be sure to check out our hands-ons with the iPad mini, 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro and more!

Check out the replay of our live coverage right here:

Yes folks, it's arrived: Apple's new iPad mini. As you can see, it's certainly smaller than the regular iPad, although at 7.9 inches it's not as small as you'd expect — compared to something like the Nexus 7, it does feel more hefty in your hands, though the thinness of the device seems to make up for a bigger surface area. To be clear, it's an incredibly thin and light design, with a lean profile despite being larger than some of the devices it challenges.

Like most Apple products, the build of the smaller tablet is excellent, easily surpassing the competition on the market. By comparison, the Nexus 7 and Fire HD feel like toys. Other manufacturers are going to have to up their game with this product in town. It's just a striking difference in materials and solidness.

The iPad mini has just been revealed by Apple at a special event in San Jose. Up on stage, Phil Schiller explains that this "isn't just a shrunken-down iPad, it's an entirely new design." The 7.9-inch iPad mini has a 1024 x 768 resolution, like the earlier-generation 9.7-inch iPad models, but is encased in an all-new 7.2mm-thick aluminum shell, which makes it 53 percent lighter and 23 percent thinner than the 4th-gen iPad.

Comparing the iPad mini against the Nexus 7, Phil points out that Apple's tablet is lighter and thinner than Google's slate in spite of having a display area that's a third larger. The Nexus 7 also has a bigger, plastic bezel around its screen whereas the iPad mini's bezel is made out of aluminum.

The Lightning port features a much smaller connector that can be used in any orientation. Of course, this also means that new iPad owners will have to replace all of their current accessories if they are upgrading from an older model. These changes are not a huge surprise — it was rumored last week that Apple would be doing just so.

Apple is also expanding the iPad's LTE support, with new compatibility with Sprint's LTE network in the US and EE's network in the UK. The iPad's FaceTime camera has also been updated to an HD unit for improved video conferencing.

At its event in California, Apple has just announced that it has sold 100 million iPads — a milestone the company reached just two and a half years after launching the original iPad. The company may have been saving up to drop the big number, since it has stayed quiet on actual "record" sales numbers in the past, but there's still no indication of how the sales are distributed across the several iPad models. Tim Cook says that the company's tablet "has attracted a lot of attention," and that "the iPad accounts for 91 percent of web traffic." He's also sharing good news across the board today: Cook says that Apple "sold more products in the June quarter than any PC manufacturer sold in their entire PC line."

Check out the replay of our live coverage right here: