Apple CEO Cook: We will never make a 7-inch tablet

But seriously, Tim Cook, how do you really feel about smaller tablets?

The Apple CEO let loose on 7-inch tablets during a conference call with investors, insisting that the company would never build one. "We would not make a 7-inch tablet," he said today. "We don't think they're good products."

Cook, of course, is staying true to the late Steve Jobs' proclamation that a tablet that's smaller than the original 9.7-inch iPad was too uncomfortable, and that consumers would have to shave off parts of their fingers to actually use it.

But Cook is splitting hairs a bit here. Yes, the recently unveiled iPad Mini is a smaller tablet, but isn't the 7 inch tablet that Jobs referred to. No, it has a staggeringly larger 7.9 inch display instead.

Cook argues that the extra size gives it a much larger viewing area, and isn't cramped like smaller devices such as the Nexus 7 from Google and Kindle Fire HD from Amazon.

The slightly larger size gives the iPad Mini a 35 percent larger display, and more than 50 to 60 percent when considering the usable area (excluding the tabs and other bits of interface on Android tablets), Apple executives say.

To deflect criticism of the lack of pixels on the iPad Mini relative to its competition, Cook said the number of pixels are the same as the iPad 2. As a result, the iPad Mini can run all 275,000 apps designed for the iPad.

Still, the display does lack the key pixel per inch metric that Apple usually touts for its Retina Display-enabled screens. The iPad Mini offers a 163 ppi display, as opposed to 216 ppi each for the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD.

Regardless, the iPad Mini is "in a whole different league," Cook said about the iPad Mini relative to the competition.

Cook defended the premium price of the iPad Mini, which can be significantly higher than the competition. He added that the iPad Mini is significantly less profitable than other products in its lineup.

Apple, meanwhile, sold 14 million iPads in the fiscal fourth quarter that just ended, although it was below what Wall Street had expected. Apple as a whole reported mixed results, including a slight profit shortfall, disappointing iPad sales and higher costs.

The smaller tablets weren't Cook's only targets during the conference call. Microsoft's Surface got a negative shout-out when he compared it to a car that can both float and fly, saying it was a "compromised product" that probably couldn't do either task that well.

Apple's fiscal 2012 in numbers: 125M iPhones, 58.31M iPads

With Apple's fourth-quarter earnings in the bag, we now have a full picture of how the company has done during its entire fiscal year.

Though Apple's last quarter was a disappointment on the profit side, and soft on iPad sales, the company surprised with stronger-than-expected iPhone sales.

The company's current quarter, during which Apple expects to bring in $52 billion in sales, kicked off last month.

Here's some of Apple's 2012 by the numbers:

$156.5 billion. Apple's total sales for the year. The biggest chunk of that came during the first quarter, when the company brought in $46.33 billion in sales.

$41.66 billion. Apple's profits for the entire fiscal year. Once again, the company's biggest quarter was its first, buoyed by sales of more than 37 million iPhones.

$121.25 billion. Apple's current cash pile. It was about $81 billion at the end of this quarter last year, and up about 3.4 percent from its previous quarter.

58.31 million iPads sold. Apple let the cat out of the bag on this one at its event earlier this week, noting that it had sold just over 100 million iPads as of the end of its fiscal year, but that it sold more than half that total in 2012. Apple CEO Tim Cook described the tally as "unprecedented," though analysts were expecting the company to sell about 3 million more during its final quarter. Cook and company chalked up the lower-than-expected number to rumors of new models, including the iPad Mini.

125 million iPhones sold. Once again, most of those came in the first half of the year, in the first and second fiscal quarters. Apple sold 37.04 million in its first quarter, and 25.06 in the second quarter. The third and fourth quarters were fairly similar at 26.03 million units and 26.91 million units respectively.

35.16 million iPods sold. And just like the iPhone, most of the sales came during the first half of the year. The number tapered down by the quarter. Most of those devices, Apple said, were iPodTouches.

18.15 million Macs sold. Apple sold more Macs than it ever has before during its first quarter, where the company moved 5.2 million computers. As usual, most of those sold were portables. By comparison, Apple sold 17 million Macs during all of last year.

5.3 million Apple TV set-top boxes sold. This number, announced during today's earnings conference call with investors, is up 3.2 million from Apple's total sold last year.

33 retail stores opened. That's less than last year's 40 new stores. Apple closed out last year with 357 retail stores, and ended this fiscal year with 390 stores.

Patent holder sues Apple over Quick Look file viewer

WhitServe, which owns intellectual property but doesn't make any real products, is suing Apple over allegations that versions of the Mac OS X operating system infringe on a file viewer patent it holds.

The complaint, filed today in U.S. District Court in Connecticut, claims that Apple's Quick Look violates Patent No. 7,921,139, a system for "sequentially opening and displaying files in a directory."

Introduced in 2007 with Mac OS X Leopard, Apple's Quick Look allows users a convenient way to preview the contents of a document before opening it fully in an application. By selecting a file in the Finder and pressing the spacebar, users can view a window that shows a view of the contents of the file.

"The harm to WhitServe resulting from the infringing acts of Apple is irreparable, continuing, not fully compensable by money damages, and will continue unless enjoined by this Court," the company said in its lawsuit.WhitServe said it is actively licensing the patent, which was granted in 2011, and has suffered as a result of Apple's inclusion of the technology in its operating system.

In addition to damages and court costs, WhitServe is seeking a permanent injunction against Apple's use of the technology.

CNET has contacted Apple for comment and will update this report when we learn more.

Apple Store down ahead of iPad Mini midnight preorders

With three hours to go before the iPad Mini officially goes on sale, Apple's online store is down.

In what has become standard operating procedure for Apple before a new release, the online marketplace has gone offline, replaced with the familiar message that assures shoppers that the store will "be back" soon.

The message appears in anticipation of the iPad Mini -- 7.9-inch version of the 10-inch iPad tablet -- going on sale at midnight Pacific time. The device, which was unveiled yesterday at an event in San Jose, Calif., is expected to ship to consumers on November 2.

The iPad Mini comes in six pricing configurations. In addition to the 16GB tablet with Wi-Fi at $329, the 32GB tablet with Wi-Fi is $429, and the 64BG version is $529. For devices with Wi-Fi and 4G cellular connections, the 16GB tablet is $459, the 32GB is $559, and the 64GB is $659. These devices are shipping two weeks after their Wi-Fi-only counterparts.

Phil Schiller: Optical drives are 'anchors on where we want to go'

Fresh off the introduction of its latest products, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller explained his company's abandonment of built-in optical drives in its new Macbooks and iMacs. 

"These old technologies are holding us back," he told Time. "They're anchors on where we want to go. We find the things that have outlived their useful purpose. Our competitors are afraid to remove them. We try to find better solutions -- our customers have given us a lot of trust." 

Full coverage of Apple's iPad mini and other announcements

The senior vice president of worldwide marketing also noted that the solid state storage used in Apple's products is more reliable than the mechanical devices with rotating drives. Apple does offer a USB $79 optical drive, and of course, points to iTunes and Apple stores as the way to get digital content, such as movies and apps, on demand.  

Schiller pointed to the more than 100 million iPads sold as an example of how Apple's value proposition is received by customers. However, in the last quarter the iPad had less than 10 percent growth, compared with 132 percent and 51 percent in the previous two quarters.Time's Harry McCracken asked Schiller about making cheaper Macs. "Customers have come to understand that Apple's products aren't priced high -- they're priced on the value of what we build into them," Schiller said. That said, they are priced with very healthy margins that have allowed Apple to become the most valued public company. 

As a company, Apple has probably been the most obsessed with the fit and finish of its products, and the pricing reflects the idea that it can charge a premium. The optical drive was eliminated in the Macbook and new iMac to satisfy Apple's design and engineering craving for thinner and lighter.

The new iPad Mini will be a good test of whether Apple can sustain its premium pricing and margin advantage as it enters more categories and the competition heats up. 

At $329, the iPad Mini with 16GB of storage and a 7.9-inch 1,024x768 pixels (163 ppi) display is more expensive and has a lower-resolution screen than its 7-inch competitors. During the iPad Mini launch presentation, Schiller compared it to a Google Nexus 7, criticizing Google's plastic casing and smaller display viewing area. But the Nexus 7 is $249 with 16GB of storage and a 7-inch 1,280x800 HD display (216 ppi). The iPad Mini's claim to the thin and light crown (308 grams, 0.28-inch thick) and more viewing area may be enough to sway customers to pay nearly $80 more than the Nexus 7 (340 grams, 0.41-inch thick) costs.

So far, the iPad Mini is in high demand. Within minutes of Apple accepting online orders, it was backordered for delivery by two weeks. Of course, it's hard to know just how many iPad Minis Apple has ready to go on its official November 2 delivery date.