Apple officially outs the iPad mini 3, pre-orders start tomorrow

You knew it was coming; now it's here. Apple just pulled back the curtain on the iPad mini 3 at its live media event in Cupertino, and so far it's pretty much what we expected -- a modestly updated tablet with some more familiar looks. The saga of the iPad mini 3 hasn't been too spoilerific, but Apple's "accidental" leak from the other day painted the thing with some vague strokes: We figured out what it'd be called and knew it would have a Touch ID sensor (turns out that latter bit is the most notable addition to the mix). Phil Schiller didn't spend too much time on them -- by which we mean he hardly said anything about them -- mostly likely because there's really nothing else new here.

Sadly, none of the new hardware in the iPad Air 2 (zero-gap display, upgraded A8X processor) made its way into Apple's 7.9-inch tab. The mini 3 runs the with the same A7 processor as last year's model, along with the same 5-megapixel iSight camera. So what is new? Well, Touch ID aside, you've got the addition of a gold model to match up with iPhones. That Retina display remains intact, too -- Apple basically seems to have tweaked the Retina iPad mini and streamlined its name a bit. It's maybe not the most mindblowing upgrade, but improving something that already seems well-equipped to tickle consumers' fancies is no easy feat. Tim Cook noted that the Retina iPad mini has received 100 percent customer satisfaction ratings -- can you blame Apple for not rocking the boat? (We can.)

Anyway, you can pre-order yours starting tomorrow: the 32GB model is gone for good, so expect to shell out $399/£319 for the 16GB version, $499/£399 for 64GB and $599/£479 for 128GB. Itching for an LTE model? Expect to pay $130/£100 more for that particular pleasure.