Electronic books, magazines and newspapers have been the next big thing for as long as I can remember: I've squinted at them on Palms and Psions, PCs and Pocket PCs, and in every case the experience was pretty horrible.

E-reading couldn't even put words on screen in a nice way, let alone display something as complicated and wonderful as a magazine.

It turns out that to deliver a decent electronic reading experience, you need two things: a decent screen, and an easy way to get the content.

The Amazon Kindle cracked that, but while newspapers and magazines are available for Amazon's e-reader they're pale imitations of the real things; publishers have tried various other platforms from PDFs to enormous executable applications, but nothing really stuck.

Part of the problem, I'm sure, is that desktop computers, keyboards and mice don't lend themselves to magazine reading: you need something that enables you to swoop and swipe at the pages. You really need a tablet - and that tablet really needs to be part of an e-reading ecosystem that makes it really easy to find, buy and update your publications.

That's what Apple's tried with Newsstand. One year on, is it working?

I read the news today, oh joy

As Future Publishing's Mike Goldsmith told InPublishing, there are two kinds of Newsstand magazines: there are digital replicas, which are essentially the printed title repackaged in a tappable, swipeable tablet format, and there are interactive editions, which can add panoramas, videos and other goodies. Which is better? Goldsmith asks. "the only logical response is 'both'."

I think he's right, for the time being at least. A lot of Newsstand magazines are digital replicas, and that's fine: the format works really well on a tablet, and I'd happily read my favourite mags that way. However in the longer term I think interactive editions are the way forward for many kinds of titles.

I'm old enough to remember the dark days of interactive CD-ROM magazines, and I'm in no hurry to resurrect those horrors, but when interactive elements are used wisely it breathes new life into magazines.

The digital editions of T3, Tap!* and new title Photography Week make great use of interactivity - they're somewhere between magazines and apps, taking the best bits of both to create something genuinely useful and exciting.

Titles don't need to be about tech to benefit, either. I love Car magazine for its great writing and extraordinary photography, but wouldn't it be great if I could look more closely at those landscapes, spin the cars around and hear those engines roar?

The technology isn't quite there yet - tablets are still awfully thick and heavy, although of course that'll change, and if you aren't on an iOS device you're locked out of the Newsstand party - but it's pretty close, and at last electronic magazines are genuinely desirable things in their own right rather than clunky imitations of their printed counterparts.

The most exciting thing of all, I think, is that Newsstand isn't just preaching to the converted: it's bringing in new readers. At a time when print publications are finding it harder and harder - supermarkets are taking over from newsagents in many areas, and they can't and won't stock everything - that's a rare bit of good news.

As Goldsmith says: "Future's research shows that 90% of its readers on Newsstand are new readers, whether it's digital replica or interactive edition, with only 20% being based in the UK. These are new audiences in new lands and with new needs."

* I write for Tap!, but that's not why I think it's great.

The Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini flaunts itself as the little brother of the big, powerful Galaxy S3 - which took the mobile market by storm this year.

Samsung is yet to give us an official Galaxy S3 Mini release date, but according to the Phones4U website, it will start shipping the smartphone from November 2.

The Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini offers up a 4-inch, 480 x 800 Super AMOLED display, 1GHz dual-core processor, 8GB of internal storage, 5MP rear camera with flash, micro SD card slot and comes running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

We've been hunting down the UK networks and retailers to find out who's offering it, and at what price.

Phones4U - the high street retailer has got ahead of the pack and already has its pre-order page up for the Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini, with a range of tariffs from O2, Orange and Vodafone for you to select.

You can pick up a free Galaxy S3 Mini on contracts starting at £25 per month, and the first 350 customers to pre-order will also get a free Samsung S Pebble – a mini MP3 player which pairs with the phone.

Carphone Warehouse – there's nothing currently on the Carphone website, so we contacted the retailer to find out its plans, and a spokesperson has confirmed it will be stocking the Galaxy S3 Mini.

Vodafone – took to Twitter soon after Samsung's announcement to declare that it will indeed be selling the Galaxy S3 Mini – however all it said was that it's "coming soon", with no word on price.

O2 – while various O2 tariffs are listed on the Phones4U pre-order page, the bubbly network is yet to confirm whether if will be offering the Galaxy S3 Mini directly.

Orange – we've contacted Orange and asked if the Galaxy S3 Mini would be gracing its line-up, but we're still waiting on a response.

However thanks to Phones4U, we can be pretty sure the colour- or fruit-inspired network will offer the Galaxy S3 Mini to its customers.

T-Mobile – we're also waiting to hear back from T-Mobile on whether it will be stocking the Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini.

Three – the data-friendly network will probably complete the network line up and stock the Galaxy S3 Mini, although we're yet to hear anything official.

SIM-free – if you hate being tied down to a contact or forcibly linked with a network, then you may want to pick up the Galaxy S3 Mini SIM-free.

Online retailer Clove already has its pre-order page up, but it's asking for £298.60 for the handset, which seems a little on the steep side to us.

The world of tech is hugely competitive and ridiculously fast-moving, and that's why we like it so much: today's hero can quickly become tomorrow's zero as something more interesting, elegant or exciting comes along.

That's definitely the case in the ultra-competitive smartphone market, where we've discovered the very best thing money can buy: it has "every kind of feature we could ask for and more, and [it] raises the bar once again in terms of what consumers should be expecting in terms of battery life, processor speed and media management." We'd recommend you buy one "without hesitation".

Is it the iPhone 5? Nope! It's the Samsung Galaxy S3, which we've spent some more time living with to see how it compares to Apple's latest. As nice as the iPhone is, we still think the S3 is better - even though it "doesn't have the same wow factor" as its predecessor.

Something musical

There's a new king of the MP3 player market too, although it looks rather like the old king: yep, it's the new iPod touch, which started shipping this week.

As we explained in our hands on review, "the fifth-gen iPod touch is a big step forward. Its battery life and low cost of ownership (since it has no cellular contract) beat the iPhone, and it can do just as much, in a thinner, lighter package."

The late Steve Jobs was seen by many as the king of the technology industry, and our Gary Marshall makes a strong argument that Amazon's Jeff Bezos is his successor: "In a world of dull tech CEOs – ten points for anyone who can say three interesting things about Samsung's CEO; hell, ten points for anyone who knows his name without Googling it – Jeff Bezos stands out," he writes, arguing that "like Jobs, Bezos thinks big and plays for keeps."

Something bad

According to the US House Intelligence Committee, the Chinese mobile makers Huawei and ZTE are kings too: kings of EVIL! After an 11-month investigation, the Committee said that the companies are an espionage threat to western firms and governments, and accused them of bribery, corruption, discriminatory behaviour and copyright infringement.

As you might expect, the companies angrily denied the allegations - in Huawei's case, over 81 no doubt riveting pages - but the news sparked "dozens and dozens" of fresh complaints to the Committee, so the story isn't going away any time soon; meanwhile the Committee is urging US firms to buy kit from other companies and TechRadar news writer Matt Swider's pun generator is set to max: he describes the growing international consensus against Huawei as "The Coalition of the Un-Huaweilling." Zing!

Could we have a new king of small tablets this time next week? It's certainly looking that way as the world greets the imminent arrival of a new Apple product with the traditional rumour-mongering, leaked product images and wish lists. You know it's coming. We know it's coming.

Something small

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Pretty much the only thing we don't know is whether it'll be called the iPad mini, iPad Air, or Sharon - although it's unclear whether we'll see a 3G/4G version or, as The Guardian reports, just a Wi-Fi one to keep the small iPad distinct from its bigger sibling. Yet more allegedly leaked pictures are doing the rounds, showing the expected Lightning connector and a more squared-off case. Unless Apple really messes up or charges too much, it's clearly going to sell squillions.

Something bright

Are you planning to buy an iPad mini or similar device for your kids? Some experts say you shouldn't, and that "your gadgets will eat your children's brains and turn them into something even more horrible than George Osborne," Gary Marshall warns, agreeing that too much screen time and not enough exercise is unlikely to have a happy ending.

"As a geek parent I'm a paid-up member of the Gadgets Are Great club, and I think tech can be great for teenagers and tots alike," he says. "The trick, as with most things, is to get the balance right. If your kids are trying to pinch and zoom their picture books, you should probably give the screens a break."