Today’s iPad Mini event was incredible. Tim Cook and the gang just unleashed a tsunami of new Apple products on the world for the second straight month. Yes, the iPad Mini made an appearance, but there was so much more sweet stuff that it’s hard to keep up with all the details.

Rather than getting lost in the flood of thousands of different posts that will be written about the Apple event today, we’ve broken down all the necessary info into delicious bite-size information nuggets just for you, so you can know all the essentials.

Here’s everything that Apple announced at today’s keynote:

Why is the iPad mini $329 instead of $200? In the promo video above, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Design, the venerable Sir Jonathan Ive, gives an implicit explanation. The iPad Mini is not a reduced iPad, he says, but a concentrated one.

Here’s his rationale:

The iPad Mini was announced today, and frankly, it missed the mark. The iPad Mini will simply have no effect on non-Apple users. Apple needed to go $299 or less to make the iPad Mini seep into consumers heads and play devil’s advocate. At $329, that simply isn’t going to happen.

Wondering which iPad is right for you: the iPad mini, the iPad 2, or the iPad with Retina Display? Apple now has a dedicated page explaining the difference between the models, for everything from spec to price.

Source: Apple

The fourth generation iPad is now here. That means the third-gen iPad you bought just six months ago is a big pile of silicon dust: twice as slow as the new iPad, without a new connector, with none of its advantages.

Hey, bummer. Apple feels for you, man. That’s why they’re discontinuing the third-gen iPad and selling you the iPad 4 starting at just $379 for the 16GB Wi-Fi only model, just $50 more than a base 16GB iPad mini.

The 32GB and 64GB models are $469 and $549. Want a top of the line 64GB iPad with LTE? It’ll cost you $679 refurbished. At the low end, you can buy a refurbished iPad 3 for the price of a brand new iPad 2.

Source: Apple

The iPad mini is amazingly thin and light but not at all undersized. That’s the first impressions of reporters at Apple’s press event.

Reporters got their their first look at the iPad mini this morning, and the results are trickling in. Most emphasize how light and thin it is, and the quality of the build. And while it’s smaller than a regular iPad, it’s by no means tiny.

Here’s a sample of reporters’ first impressions:

Apple Head of Marketing, Phil Schiller, took the stage today and asked a very important question. “What does the iPad mini do that the iPad doesn’t already do?” he wondered aloud.

His answer was only half as good – “It can fit in one hand.” Here at Cult of Mac, however, we think that’s only part of the story. The fact is that Apple’s newest, smallest, thinnest iPad makes a perfect gaming controller.

Today Apple announced that the iPad mini will be available for pre-order this Friday, October 26th and ship on Friday, November 2nd. What you may have missed is that this launch timeframe applies to Wi-Fi-only iPad mini models. If you want to buy an iPad mini that’s equipped with cellular data, then you’ll have to wait a few more weeks.

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If you weren’t able to watch the entire iPad Mini keynote live, Apple has just added the video to their website and you can watch it at this link whenever you want. Another option is to download the video via iTunes at the following links:

There always seems to be an echo of people on the Internet that are disappointed after an each Apple event. Maybe it’s those people’s own fault because they hyped the products up too much in their minds before actually seeing them. Or maybe Apple’s under-delivered a little bit on the iPad Mini.

I plan to buy an iPad Mini on November 2nd (mostly because I just sold my iPad 3 last night), but part of me wishes the iPad Mini was just a little bit better. I wish it either had a better processor, a better display, or a better price. If Apple had improved just one of those three things a little bit then I’d be warp-drive enthusiastic about it. But after the unveil, the iPad Mini doesn’t look more compelling than a Kindle Fire or Nexus 7, other than that it runs iOS 6.

What do you think about the iPad Mini? Are you excited? Disappointed? Or is everything just as you thought it would be? We’d love to hear y’alls reactions, so head over to the forums and let us hear them.

Click here to share your reaction to the iPad Mini in the Cult of Mac Forums

Privacy, it’s important. With all the integration between apps, devices, computers, and the big, bad internet, it’s easy to lose track of all the ways people can find out about you, your friends, and your family.

Thankfully, most services and devices these days have some sort of tool or system to allow you the control you need to manage which info is available and to whom, as well as how much is even out there. iOS 6 is no different, with a nice set of toggles to allow you to be the boss of your own information.

Apple announced the iPad mini today, a smaller iPad model that starts at $329 for a 16G model. Along with the new form factor and a lightning connector cable, Apple is also making Smart Covers for the new iOS device. You can see them right on the Apple Store website.

As it says in the official Apple Press release, the iPad mini Smart Cover will be available in six colors, including dark gray, blue, green, pink, light gray, and (PRODUCT) RED. It will cost $39 and fit that sweet new Wi-Fi iPad mini you can pre-order on October 26, purchase in an Apple retail store on November 2. The Wi-Fi + Cellular models will show up mid-November.

Source: Apple

A few days after the iPhone 5 was released to the public – just a few weeks ago – people started commenting on how thin and light it was. “You really have to pick it up and feel it in your hands,” was a common thread of these comments. Sure, it looked amazing: but it felt amazing too.

Today’s announcements are a direct continuation of the theme that began with the iPhone 5, and set the tone for the next generation of Apple hardware. From now on, Apple’s message is clear: “No-one does thin like we do.”

Apple just brought the Apple Store back online, and is now ready for your purchases. You can’t pre-order the iPad Mini till October 26th, but if you’re totally jonesing for a new MacBook Pro with Retina display, iMac, or Mac Mini, you can buy one right now.

Ask iFixIt: the thinner Apple makes their products, the less user serviceable they are. That’s why the new 21.5-inch iMac doesn’t allow users to upgrade the RAM themselves. The 27-inch, though, apparently does, a consequence of the added space.

Source: Apple

Per usual, Apple.com just got updated with everything that was announced at the iPad mini event moments ago. Dedicated pages are up for the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, all-new iMac, 4th gen iPad and iPad mini. Apple has included all of the new features and specs for its new products, including lots of beautiful images and videos.

Head on over to Apple.com and take it all in. The Apple Store has also come back online with the new inventory.

Apple has also published press releases for the new iMac, iPad mini, and 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. Today’s keynote was live streamed, and you can watch it now online.

It’s got to be tough making cases and other accessories for Apple products. While it may seem that everyone knows everything about the new iPad mini already, the truth is that the actual specifications of the product are unknown by anyone except Apple and its manufacturing partners in China.

An accessory maker who wants to create an iPad mini case, for example, is hard pressed to know what to make, what size and shape to make it, and what type of person is going to want it, especially at first. The stakes are high, considering that a well-designed case that makes it to market at the same time as the iPad mini will be the one that most people choose.

We spoke to Marware’s Director of Marketing, Ronnie Khadaran, who opened up about the process his company went through to design its new iPad mini cases and accessories.

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Saying that it will allow users to use the iPad in places and environments they never could before, the iPad mini is the smallest and lightest device yet.

Capitalizing upon 100 million iPads sold in just two and a half years, Apple wants you to know that the iPad is a device that they want to have a huge educational focus.

iBooks Author already makes up 80% of U.S. High School core curriculum, according to Tim Cook. There are 2500 U.S. classrooms that are using iBooks textbooks.

So today iBooks Author has a new version, with embeddable fonts and embedded mathematical expressions for the math set.

Also, publishers can now update their books, just like in the App Store. This will allow publishers to keep kids up to date with the latest and most accurate information.

iBooks Author is just going to continue to be huge in education. The new version will be available in the App Store starting today.

All of this leads to the iPad mini.

Phil Schiller just unveiled what the company is calling the “4th gen iPad.” This is essentially an updated version of the third-gen Retina iPad, but for some reason Apple is choosing to give it a new generation name.

The device looks exactly the same, but the internals have been upgraded across the board. Apple has added the A6X chip, more LTE support internationally, and the new Lightning connector. Pricing stays the same. The current Retina iPad will be phased out, and interestingly Apple is keeping the iPad 2 around for a little while longer.

Right after explaining the 4th gen iPad, Apple turned the device around onscreen to reveal the rumored iPad mini. The audience went nuts.

Apple just unveiled the all-new iMac with a gorgeous edge-to-edge display and crazy thin design. Using a new display that’s 5 millimeters thinner and laminated to the glass, the new iMac is 80% thinner than its predecessor. The display is also 75% less reflective, which is excellent news.

It’s hard to explain how thin this iMac is in words—it almost looks like an optical illusion. But don’t let the thinness fool you, the new iMac is a powerhouse. It comes with USB 3.0, Thunderbolt, and up to 3TB of internal storage and Intel’s quad-core Ivy Bridge Core i5 or i7 processors.

Apple has just announced the Apple Fusion Drive. It’s a combo SSD/HDD, with smart software in the mix to maximize performance.

It includes 128GB flash storage, as well as a 1 terabyte or 3 terabyte hard drive.

This is essentially a standard SSD/HDD dual drive configuration. The difference is that Apple’s software figures out which files to automatically switch between SSD and HDD for the best performance on your machine.

There have been combo SSD/HDDs before, but never with this kind of smart operating system integration. This is a fantastic compromise, and the first big surprise of today’s event.