iPad mini (7th Generation)
Apple (MacRumors, Hacker News):
With a beloved ultraportable design, the new iPad mini is available in four gorgeous finishes, including a new blue and purple, and features the brilliant 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display. A17 Pro delivers a huge performance boost for even the most demanding tasks, with a faster CPU and GPU, a 2x faster Neural Engine than the previous-generation iPad mini, and support for Apple Intelligence. The versatility and advanced capabilities of the new iPad mini are taken to a whole new level with support for Apple Pencil Pro, opening up entirely new ways to be even more productive and creative. The 12MP wide back camera supports Smart HDR 4 for natural-looking photos with increased dynamic range, and uses machine learning to detect and scan documents right in the Camera app.
The new iPad mini features all-day battery life and brand-new experiences with iPadOS 18. Starting at just $499 with 128GB — double the storage of the previous generation — the new iPad mini delivers incredible value and the full iPad experience in an ultraportable design.
A17 Pro is the chip from last year’s iPhone 15 Pro models, and, notably, there was no non-“Pro” variant. Still, though: an interesting chip to use for iPad Mini.
I thought the rumor was that was to be a temporary chip because it was much more expensive to manufacture.
For Wi-Fi, the previous mini offered Wi-Fi 6 compatibility, but the new mini takes it further by supporting Wi-Fi 6E.
The previous mini supported Bluetooth 5, but the new mini adds the more modern Bluetooth 5.3 spec.
[…]
Both models support USB 3. However, the old mini only offered speeds up to 5 GB/s, whereas the new model doubles that and goes up to 10 GB/s.
Overall, the update to the iPad mini would seem to be a good one – as tends to be the case when you wait three years between product refreshes.
I’m not even sure that “disappointing” would properly describe this iPad mini update.
Three years for a chip bump and Apple Intelligence, and this thing will likely be replaced in 2027? Cool.
[No] matter how they sugarcoat the A17 Pro, it’s not the upgrade I wanted for my mini 5 in either CPU, display, camera or anything else short of the USB-C port and TouchID (yes, I prefer TouchID).
Given the PR-only prerelease and outrageously spaced out refreshes it’s obvious the mini isn’t a priority for Apple, so I have to figure out if I want to address the fact that the 256GB cellular model is closer to €1000 than I would like or wait another two years to upgrade.
Still no Pro Motion display. I tried the last iPad Mini and had to send it back because I couldn’t get used to the low refresh rate.
iPad mini battery life is pretty miserable as-is, without Stage Manager or ProMotion or Face ID. While I would love to see an M-series iPad mini Pro, with all the bells and whistles, I’m not convinced it can be done to that level with current battery technology.
The big problem for me remains the price. The iPad mini isn’t worth $500–600 and I don’t want to pay $500+ for an iPad.
I would honestly fully support Apple splitting the iPad mini into two separate lines — remove some stuff to make the mini even cheaper than it is today, but have an iPad Pro 8.3-inch (M4) with everything the bigger models have. Give it that 5.1mm OLED design to make it the ultimate notepad/sketchpad
Previously:
Update (2024-10-16): Steve Troughton-Smith:
Well this is dumb — today’s new iPad mini is compatible with the previous generation folio cases, and vice versa. Except those options aren’t provided to you during the purchase process, even though you can still buy them on Apple’s site. So if you preordered with a case color combo you’re not super fond of, now’s your chance to change your order!
Update (2024-10-21): Jason Snell:
Based on various reports, it seems like Apple’s goal is to turn over its entire Mac product line to the M4, so they can leave the old process (used on the M3 as well as the A17 Pro) behind. And yet… here’s a new product that uses a chip on the old process that everyone is trying to drop like a hot rock? What?
That’s why my guess is that the new iPad mini is using this chip for non-technical reasons. Here are the possible explanations[…]
Second, while it’s certainly possible that Apple has stockpiled enough five-GPU A17 Pro chips to make three years’ worth of iPad minis, this model feels more like a holding action that gets the iPad mini onto Apple Intelligence… while also using up some amount of chip excess. If I had to predict when we’ll see a next-next-generation iPad mini, I think I’d guess that it will probably be sooner than three years from now.
One of the main complaints about the prior-generation iPad mini 6 was “jelly scrolling” or screen tearing, and it sounds like it’s a problem that Apple may have addressed with hardware updates to the iPad mini 7 display.
Update (2024-10-22): Joe Rossignol:
The first iPad mini 7 reviews were published today, and many of them said that “jelly scrolling” display behavior is either less noticeable or fully unnoticeable on the device. However, one prominent technology website disagrees.
See also: Jason Snell and Federico Viticci.
Update (2024-10-24): Sebastiaan de With:
Brutal but honest paragraph from David Pierce in the @verge iPad mini review, and I can’t help but agree. They couldn’t even put a new wallpaper on the screen?
As we reported last month, all iPhone 16 models feature a new system that lets users restore the device’s firmware wirelessly from another iPhone or iPad. Now we’ve learned that Apple is also expanding this system to the recently announced iPad mini 7 with the A17 Pro chip.
The jelly effect is less pronounced that it’s negligible.
What’s terrible is the extreme bluriness when scrolling, especially when there’s text. Gives me a headache. Scrolling on a MacBook Air’s 60Hz display is so much better.
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Re: the A17 Pro, one notable difference is that this seems to be a binned version, with 5 GPU cores instead of 6. So it appears to be a model for clearing stock of rejected chips. I wonder how long it'll last — I'll skip this one, thinking we might se another refresh next year.
It's super weird that they used the A17 Pro considering how expensive/low-yield the N3B node supposedly is, and how Apple and TSMC both seem to be trying to move everything off that as quickly as possible.
Jason Snell has a decent list of plausible reasons why they used the A17 Pro: https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/10/the-new-ipad-minis-surprising-not-new-processor/
I'm inclined to agree with his conclusion that it's a sign that the next iPad mini refresh will be less than 3 years from now.
