iPad mini announcement meta-liveblog

After years of rumors or speculation, the day is finally here. The day when Apple is expected to unveil the iPad mini - an iPad with a smaller screen and a cheaper price tag that will try to compete with popular small tablets like the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD.

If you want to follow the event as it unfolds, please feel free to keep track of our liveblog below. We'll be making sure to keep you posted with up-to-the-minute updates, so that you can almost feel as if you're right there at the California Theater in San Jose.

Stay with us, guys and gals, as the event is going to begin at: 10AM PT | 12PM CT | 1PM ET | 7PM Central European.

Live event tracker

13:15	And be sure to stay with us, as we have a lot of interesting content coming right up!
13:15	Thanks for being with us, guys! This is Ray, signing off.
13:14	And just like that, Tim thanks to all the cool people at Apple for working so hard, and closes the presentation.
13:13
13:11	Now Mr. Cook is going through all their announcements this year. It all really sounds quite impressive like that.
13:10
13:10	And after a short TV ad for the new iPad mini, Tim Cook, aka The Boss, is back on to close the show.
13:08
13:08	As expected, pre-orders are starting October 26, and the device is shipping on November 2 (for the Wi-Fi version).
13:07
13:07	And there it is - iPad mini starts at $329.
13:06	A full set of Smart Covers will be available for the iPad mini.
13:06	Your friendly neighborhood PR, Phil Schiller, is back on stage.
13:05	The iPad mini looks veeery hot. Though we have the feeling Apple won't be willing to give it to you for less than $300.
13:02	They are rolling a video about the iPad mini now. Yes, Jony Ive is there, in a white room.
13:01	The iPad mini gets an A5 processor, LTE, FaceTime HD camera, 5MP iSight camera, Lightning port, and 10-hour battery life.
13:00	Phil compares popular apps made for iPad and Android, as you can imagine, iPad's look much better.
12:59	Well, this really looks bigger.
12:58	"The iPad mini is about 50% larger display area in the browser."
12:58
12:58	"Theirs is made of plastic, it's thicker and heavier." Well, he has a point there, but let's hear the price then...
12:57	Phil is doing a side-by-side comparison with the Nexus 7. "Let's look at the bezels around the display."
12:56	"So it's great for reading your email, surfing the web, managing your photos."
12:55	So, it's still a 4:3 display, meaning that all those powerful apps will run on the mini as well.
12:55	It's just 7.2 mm thin, weights 0.68 lbs, 7.9" display, with the same resolution as the iPad 2, which is 768 x 1024 pixels.
12:53	"So this iPad mini, is just 7.2mm thick. That's about a quarter thinner than the 4th gen iPad. Thinner than a pencil."
12:53
12:53
12:52	Good job, Phil! That was a timely update to the iPad. But now here's the iPad mini! And the crowd gives a big round of applause.
12:52	The new Lightning connector, comes in black or white, and once again, starts at $499!
12:51	The iPad 4 comes with a faster A6X chip, 10-hour battery life, 2X CPU and GPU performance, better camera, better LTE, better Wi-Fi...
12:50	Wow, Phil has announced the 4th generation iPad!
12:49	But as Tim say that they are just getting started and have some new stuff for us, he invites Phil back to the stage!
12:49	It seems about 94% of the Fortune 500 companies are testing or deploying the iPad as their mobile computer solution.
12:48	The new iBooks Author is available today. But Tim also mentions that the iPad "is taking the business world by storm too".
12:47	They are announcing a new version of iBooks Author, offering some new templates for books, custom fonts, multitouch widgets.
12:46	"There are now 2500 classrooms in the US with iBooks textbooks."
12:45	Apparently, teachers around the world are quite impressed by the iPad.
12:44	"One of the things that is so rewarding is how quickly iPad has been embraced in education."
12:41	Interestingly, the iPad's web traffic continues to get higher, compared to that of other tabs...
12:41	"We've now sold over 100 million iPads."
12:40	Now Tim Cook is back on stage to talk about the iPad! YEAAAH!
12:40	The iMacs will be shipping next month.
12:40	The 21.5" iMac will cost $1299, while the 27" iMac will set you back with $1799.
12:39
12:39	The HDD will be used for the capacity-hungry stuff. Neat!
12:38	As well as the bandwidth-hungry apps.
12:38	Through software, they will appear as a single drive in the system, but the SSD will be used for the pre-installed software.
12:37	Now that's really cool - the new iMac will have a feature called Fusion Drive - it'll have both an SSD and HDD.
12:35

12:34	This has allowed them to make the display and the overall device much thinner. It really looks extremely thin for a desktop.
12:33	A new kind of technology has been used for the construction of the new iMac - Friction stir welding.
12:32
12:31	The new generation of the iMac has just been announced. So many Macs today! Let's hope there'll be some time left for a small iPad...
12:30
12:29	The new Mac mini is also available starting today.
12:28
12:28
12:28	"Next, Mac mini, you knew there will be something called mini in this presentation, didn't you?" Don't be that guy, Phil!
12:26
12:26	The new MacBook Pro is available today! They are now rolling an ad about it.
12:25
12:24	It comes with i5 or i7 processor, Intel HD 4000 graphics, 8 GB RAM, and up to 768 GB memory.
12:23	It also has a FaceTime HD camera, dual mics, two speakers and a backlit keyboard.
12:22	The screen of this new MacBook Pro has 29% higher contrast ratio, 75% reduced reflection, and about 300 nits brightness. Sweet.
12:20	This is the lightest MacBook Pro ever. Way to go, Apple, now give us your lightest iPad ever, will you?
12:19	And here's a new 13" MacBook Pro! "It's incredibly thin."
12:18
12:18	Phil Schiller appears on stage under a round of applause.
12:18	Somewhere right now, Steve Ballmer wrinkled his forehead a little.
12:16	Mac has been named #1 desktop and #1 notebook in the U.S.
12:16
12:16	Tim is now giving us an update on the Mac.
12:16	New languages have been introduced for iBooks - Korean and Japanese.
12:14	"Today we're announcing a new version of iBooks." It has a new reading options - Continuous scrolling.
12:13
12:12	Customers have downloaded over 35 billion apps from the App Store.
12:12	Over 275,000 apps have been specifically tailored for the iPad's screen.
12:12	A total of $6,500,000,000 paid to developers!
12:11	Over 160 million Game Center account. It looks like people are actually using this thing!
12:09	Plus, there are now about 125 million documents stored in the cloud (iCloud that is), and about 28,000 iMessages sent per second.
12:07	There are now 200 million devices running iOS 6 out there.
12:06
12:06	After the video, Tim is back on stage, continuing to talk about their amazing line-up.
12:05	The iPhone 5 has been declared the fastest-selling phone in history. They are now rolling a sweet video about it.
12:03
12:02	And it has begun! Tim Cook is now on stage, ready to discuss the great success of Apple.
11:58	So, who's excited about this so-called iPad mini? We guess it'll have quite an impact on the small tablet market...
11:55	Heeey guys, this is Ray and I'll be liveblogging this lovely event for you!