Apple iPad Air goes on sale today, iPad mini 2 nowhere in sight

Just as Apple promised at the announcement event, the iPad Air is up for sale now. The Apple Store, major carriers worldwide as well as select brick-and-mortar and online stores are offering the latest and greatest iOS slate.

The Apple iPad mini 2 runs iOS 7 out of the box and boasts storage options ranging from 16GB all the way to 128GB. Color options are just Silver & White and Space Grey & Black. As usual there will be Wi-Fi and 3G/LTE versions.

Checkout the image below to see how each of version of the iPad Air is priced in the US.

Pricing in Europe is a bit steeper than this. We've organized how prices stand and compare in the UK, German and French Apple Stores. Here go the pricing tables.

United Kingdom

Germany

France

As for the Apple iPad mini 2 with Retina display, it's going to become available for purchase around the end of November. Apple hasn't officially stated the reasons why both iPads haven't launched at the same time, but it's pretty clear that it's all due to supply shortages.

Tim Cook feels confident that his company will dominate the tablet market this Christmas. "I think it will be an iPad Christmas," Tim Cook said.

According to analysts, however, the second generation iPad mini is having serious production issues. As a result, only a limited number of iPad mini 2 units will be available for this holiday season. This could turn out to be quite a headache for the company and its next quarterly financial report.

Cook's comment regarding potential iPad mini 2 shortages states that "It's unclear whether we'll have enough for the quarter or not,". The fact that even Apple admits there is a problem with supply suggest that getting an iPad mini 2 before 2014 might be quite problematic.

Indeed, a new report surfaced today saying that the situation might be even worse than previously expected. The info comes from China and says that one of the two iPad mini 2 screen suppliers (LG Display) is having huge issues with the production and Apple was even forced to turn to Samsung to save the day. However, even so, full production is reportedly not coming until we are "well into next year".

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