Following the start of orders for the Retina iPad mini a few hours ago, Apple has issued a press release officially announcing the launch. The release notes that the Retina iPad mini will not only be available for online orders, but also through the in-store Personal Pickup mechanism by which customers can check stocks at their local Apple retail stores and purchase online before heading to their stores to pick up their orders. Walk-in sales will apparently not be offered until supplies improve.
Stocks of the Retina iPad mini have apparently yet to make their way to Apple's U.S. retail stores, as all stores are currently showing no availability for pickup, but limited supplies should be arriving shortly. Some of Apple's international stores do, however, already have stock available for in-store pickup, as noted by MacStories' Federico Viticci, who has placed an order for pickup and confirmed with his local store in Italy that supplies are indeed available.
Availability through Apple's online store appears to be holding up for the time being, with the company's U.S. stores showing the same shipping estimates seen at the time orders went live: 1-3 business days for 16 and 32 GB Wi-Fi models and 5-10 business days for all other models.
Update: Some U.S. retail stores on the East Coast are beginning to show availability of Wi-Fi models for Personal Pickup. Many stores have all 8 color/capacity Wi-Fi configurations available at the moment.
Update 2: Apple has now opened up Personal Pickup availability for a number of its stores across the United States. Many stores are, however, still listing no in-store stock, and those that do have stock are seeing quick sellouts of many models.
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bigger screen / bigger battery / higher clock speed on the A7 chip is kind of a big deal :)
It's a very small deal I think. No one will ever notice the higher clock speed. Screen size is subjective, doesn't make any difference in performance unless you're using it to create work then I could see the bigger screen being beneficial. For 90% of people, it's all e-mail, web browsing, Facebook, Twitter, banking, games.
Just to confirm, has anyone seen a Wifi+Cell available anywhere? I have been checking throughout the day for NYC availability and have not seen anything.
We've added the new iPad mini to our iDevice availability page and notification service. Receive an e-mail when your local Apple Store has the model you want available for in-store pick-up.
