▲Why is the bezel so thick? A 1-2cm bezel around the entire "mini" device seems a bit odd, given that the iPad Mini is a relatively tiny device and phones these days come with a 1-2mm bezel (10x less useless border).
Is it a cost saving measure / sneaky margin increaser, or what might be the motivation?
Edit:
Touch interference is a good idea. Still, from the picture, it looks like the bezel could be half as thick and work well. Sorry to be such a stickler, I am genuinely curious if Apple is chasing better margins, the best feasible UX, or something else.
Could it be that since this device is only $650 USD, it isn't expensive enough to warrant a premium display? (Like the iPhone SE https://www.apple.com/iphone-se/)
If so, I wish there was a fancier "Pro" model with premium components. IIRC, I paid $1000 for my first iPad, it was the first super high-resolution one back in 2012. Perhaps there aren't enough customers who are sensitive to wasted screen real estate on an 8-inch device.. and FWIW I have noticed a constant stream of toddlers pacified by iPad Minis whenever I'm at Costco.
So that they can release a successor model with thinner bezels.
In reality this may be to (1) to keep costs down and (2) to distance the iPad mini from the more premium iPhone Pro Max.
All in all, this device leaves me wondering who this is for? iPads are mostly used for media consumption, no matter how Apple wants to position them. Not sure why this necessitates AI hardware, but perhaps people really start using iPads for productivity/creativity workloads that can make use of “Apple Intelligence” (the silliest moniker since “Spatial Computing” and “Retina Display”).
The comparatively small difference in screen real estate between an iPhone Pro Max and the iPad mini makes the latter rather pointless. Perhaps they are targeting people with a smaller iPhone who want another device to watch YouTube. What could have made a difference is a folding display. I think the iPad mini would have been the ideal candidate for that.
Lots of aircraft pilots love the iPad mini. Ideal sized tool for having strapped to a yoke, or to one's knee.
reply▲rainsford23 minutes ago
[-] I plan on buying one for exactly that use-case. I have a mini 5 that's showing its age and doesn't have enough storage (downloading flying charts takes up a surprising amount of space) and I didn't want to upgrade to the mini 6 considering how long in the tooth it was getting. The mini 7 isn't some massive improvement, but it's improvement enough in a very good niche for flying.
Edit: For the non-pilots reading this, it's also worth noting that the most popular flying app by far for general aviation at least, ForeFlight, is iOS only. So your choices are generally small iPad or big iPad, and a lot of people don't like big iPad in a small airplane cockpit.
> All in all, this device leaves me wondering who this is for?
You know, you could just read all the other comments on this post talking about why they like the mini.
People like to spend 1 minute looking at a product and pretend they've done a market analysis by only looking at their own consumption patterns or those of their very close group of people around them combined with some stereotypes like "people use tablets for media consumption" (and never do anything else on them in between).
reply▲>Not sure why this necessitates AI hardware
New Siri and iOS notification summaries seem like it should be enough of a reason for apple to want to ship an iPad with ai hardware.
> All in all, this device leaves me wondering who this is for?
I know children who study with their iPad minis and prefer them over notebooks. This isn’t necessarily a pro-Apple statement, but rather a reflection on how different user groups may engage with devices in ways that are cognitively distinct from what we discuss here on HN.
I think it's so that the fingers holding the device don't obstruct the view/ don't get counted as touch event.
reply▲I’d be surprised if thumb rejection/palm rejection isn’t close to perfect by iPadOS 18.
reply▲I’m forever triggering the camera app, while locking the device, on my iPhone 15 pro max. Every day, regularly.
reply▲Doesn't work well for me. Thumb gets too close to bottom, and now scrolling becomes zooming. All the time.
reply▲chemmail48 minutes ago
[-] Ipad Mini is such a good size. My friend lent me his Mini2 when he borrowed money from me and used it for a good 6 months i think and it was marvelous. I didn't use it all that much but later got an Air 2 and used it maybe slightly less. Then I got an iPad Pro 11" but only used it for a while and don't really touch it too much anymore. I feel maybe an ipad mini I would use more. But the jelly scroll really has me urked and I kinda want OLED on it, so there is definitely room for a Pro version if they wish, but the iPads are overwhelming with 5 sizes already.
reply▲1oooqooq18 minutes ago
[-] > overwhelming with 5 sizes already.
without jobs it's just a matter of time they go back to being "just an expensive dell" like before
askafriend19 minutes ago
[-] It's likely they're repurposing slightly older display inventory to preserve margins, recoup R&D costs and to bring overall component costs lower since this is meant to be a cheaper device.
reply▲somewhere to grab it without putting your fingers on the screen?
reply▲Screens come in standard sizes. It might simply be that they can't fit all the parts inside, including the battery, without making the device bigger than the standard screen size and so you get bezels. Bigger devices have more room in them and many of the parts are just the same size.
reply▲Are "standard" screen sizes really something you have to care about at Apple-scale?
reply▲>Why is the bezel so thick?
So you have somewhere to actually hold the bloody thing.
Bezelless gadgets look great in photos but are impractical as fuck to handle.
> Why is the bezel so thick?
How else were they supposed to make room for the extra 4GB of RAM required to support Apple Intelligence?
1oooqooq20 minutes ago
[-] because the target audience of mini ipads are babies.
reply▲In many ways (no pun intended :-)) I would relate to having an iPad mini and a much much dumber phone which was just text/chat and voice. I have gotten there because I'm constantly in this weird tension between wanting a bigger screen on my phone because the app I'm using and wanting a smaller phone so that it is easier to pocket and carry around. A friend of mine did the folding screen phone thing and that has its advantages but I really like a small phone (and ideally with a long battery life so no 1000 nit screens on it). Definitely first world/21st century problems :-). I do find engineering tradeoffs in product design an interesting thing though.
reply▲Most of the modern "dumbphones" (or "feature phones") would do this just fine for you.
If you want one that can survive anything life will throw at it, look at the Sonim devices - the XP3+ (flip) or XP5+ (candybar). They're Android Go, have exceptionally good (week and a half, easily) battery life, hotspot just fine, and handle actual use a lot better than the KaiOS toys out there. Maybe 3.x is better, but KaiOS 2.x couldn't handle actual use for more than a few weeks without starting to lag, requiring you to remove texts from it so the interface wasn't glacial, and mine eventually just stopped bothering to notify me about incoming calls and texts, which is your one job... The Android Go stuff seems to actually hold up to sustained moderate use.
WhyNotHugo18 minutes ago
[-] > Most of the modern "dumbphones" (or "feature phones") would do this just fine for you.
Assuming you use something like WhatsApp, Facebook or something alike. Modern "feature phones" include built-in applications for messaging and calling, and you generally can't install anything custom on them.
I used a KaiOS device for about 6 months. My expectations weren’t high, but texting and T9 input were a mess:
A) I had to manually enter captital I, apostrophe, and ‘m’ every time I wanted to write “I’m”.
B) New words (like brand and place names) displace common words in the built-in wordlist - that is, T9 gets worse the more you use it.
It was still an OK digital minimalist/detox device - the GMaps web app with voice search was good enough.
The Android Go devices you mentioned sound far better – I’m never touching KaiOS again.
Do any of these Android Go phones have semi decent cameras? That’s a big holdup for many people.
reply▲In the context of this thread, that’s what the iPad mini is for.
reply▲I am moving away from my phone to just using my Apple Watch/AirPods then pulling out the mini when I need something it can't cover.
reply▲rogerkirkness1 hour ago
[-] Apparently Steve's posthumous roadmap focused on the idea that personal computers get 'smaller and closer to you' as time goes on. So the idea that an Apple Watch and AirPods could be all you need when travelling, etc. follows that premise.
reply▲I wish I could do this but I have yet to find a good Apple Watch replacement for owning and syncing music (rather than streaming it)
reply▲reaperducer2 hours ago
[-] I wish I could do this but I have yet to find a good Apple Watch replacement for owning and syncing music (rather than streaming it)Is it not possible to sync MP3s to Apple Watches anymore? I have a really really old model, and I selected a few playlists on my iPhone, and when they change, the songs automatically sync to my Apple Watch.
reply▲What was the pun? Many/mini?
reply▲You can safely put 'no pun intended' after actually having no puns in the text. It can be disorienting but such is truth sometimes.
reply▲ typeof(x) y = (typeof(x))x; // no pun intended
Back when I was coding for a living, I tried things like that almost a dozen times to see if they would make anyone laugh, but no pun in ten did.
reply▲But why cast to it’s own type?
reply▲Apple keeps a lot of owners addicted to their phones by making Watch support exclusive to iPhone.
I’d love to go dumbphone and a Watch synced to an iPad at home, but this is not an option.
thorncorona2 hours ago
[-] What keeps them addicted to their watch?
I've never found a compelling use case where I'd willingly buy another Apple watch.
Exercise tracking is a biggie for me.
Integration with Fitness on Apple TV is extremely slick for HIIT and yoga.
Also, the third-party Intervals Pro app has been my go-to running app. I started with Apple+Nike since 2010 and a Fitbit Charge in 2015, but nothing let me customize my workouts as much as the Intervals app.
eightysixfour1 hour ago
[-] Keeps them addicted to their phone by not allowing them to just go watch only.
reply▲My best use case for the apple watch is I can keep it on everywhere. If I constantly have to think of the thing it’ll get annoying enough I want to get rid of it.
reply▲You can probably get fairly close to do this by using an apple watch with a sim card
I used to leave the house with just my watch and it was great - I could read and send text messages, email, even take calls on my watch and have everything synced up to my phone at home. You can even download music to it and pair it to your airpods.
The missing piece here is just having a dumb phone - somehow I think that with some ingenuity you might be able to something that serves 80% of your needs here or something like that.
My closest solution would be to piggyback off my partner’s iPhone using family watch pairing, and use my own dumbphone.
reply▲I didn't get the pun......
reply▲Maybe they pronounce “many” as “mini”?
reply▲many/mini are very similar if not identical in casual US English pronunciation.
reply▲For me its a very nice bedside ebook reader, reddit machine, and video device. Its a perfect size for all those things, perhaps a bit too small for video but good enough. It can fit into a large coat pocket or a medium sized purse too.
I keep trying to get into my kindle but just can't for some reason. E-ink is nice but being able to get a nice glowing black background with white text is really nice and the page changes are so much more fluid than e-ink.
Way more distractions on an iPad, though.
reply▲I was just pitching this yesterday to my friend. My Pixel 8 Pro is a great phone, but in many situations I only want a phone that can show me my messages and answer my phone calls, and it's OK if its interface is my smartwatch and/or earbuds. I want it to be able to take over my mobile number on-demand, and relinquish it to my Pixel afterward.
reply▲Back in the day when Android was KitKat and full of possibilities, I ran a Nexus 7 2nd gen and a cheap phone from my carrier. I'm not sure if it was enlightenment but it was closer to it than today, where I carry around a smartphone that's too big to use comfortably but still too small to use frequently for media.
reply▲You want an Apple Watch imo, I often leave my phone behind now, I’m contactable without distractions.
reply▲I find it incredible that I can't make calls on my iPad. I would just carry an iPad in my back pack if people could call me on it.
reply▲Can I just get a a flagship iPhone sized like an iPhone SE please?
reply▲Rumor has it that the SE 4 will be released in early 2025.
It will have the new flagship A18 processor and adequate RAM for Apple Intelligence.
Unfortunately, it will be larger (6.1") than the SE 3 (4.7"). Probably with a notch and Face ID as well. :(
The mini is the absolute sweet spot for me - enough portability that I don’t mind the many restrictions of iPad OS. But the A-line chips and low-quality screen are problems, and not being able to properly dock it at a monitor is a real hinderance. None of those are addressed here, unfortunately.
reply▲If you meant "not having Stage Manager", I'm genuinely surprised the A18 Pro wasn't considered powerful enough to run it, given that it outperforms the M1 that was. The only thing I could think of is that Apple thinks the smaller screen is too small for Stage Manager.
I still think they should support it anyway, even if only for three apps at a time on the primary display. iPadOS is weirdly bifurcated into two different window management strategies (Split View vs. Stage Manager) based on what device you bought, which is confusing. They should be expanding Stage Manager to as many devices as possible.
smileybarry4 hours ago
[-] Speaking of screens, I wonder if they fixed the jelly scroll. It doesn’t bother me that much on my mini, but it would be ridiculous to keep that flaw as-is in the newer gen.
reply▲The real fix would be for them to stop being so stingy with 120hz panels, as long as they keep using 60hz ones they're going to be prone to jelly scrolling in one orientation or the other. With 60hz the best you can hope for is that the orientation you use the most often is the good one this time.
reply▲NotYourLawyer3 hours ago
[-] The what?
reply▲It's basically screen tearing, apparently because the top and bottom of the display (or left and right in other orientations) refresh at different rates. iFixit suggests its a controller issue.
> Update, 9/28/2021: In response to our inquiry, Apple has told us that the "jelly scroll" issue on the 6th-generation iPad mini is normal behavior for LCD screens.
> Update, 9/30/2021: An iFixit teardown suggests that the iPad mini's more noticeable scrolling issue is a byproduct of how the display controller is mounted.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/2021-ipad-mini-suffe...
FWIW, my 5th Gen Mini doesn't have this issue.
They are referring to the screen lagging/tearing while scrolling
reply▲I'm guessing Apple is using an IPS panel meant for landscape orientation (i.e. the image scans from the top/bottom) in a device mostly used in portrait orientation. This causes rolling shutter distortion when scrolling contents.
reply▲labcomputer7 hours ago
[-] > and not being able to properly dock it at a monitor is a real hinderance
Can you expand on that? It seems to support DisplayPort over USB-C, and there are a number of 1st and 3rd party adapters that have DP out, power in, and a USB2.0 plug for your other devices. What does “properly” docking it look like?
The A-series chips only support screen mirroring; with the M-class iPads you can have stage manager and multiple windows across two displays; and the main display runs at native resolution. It’s a far better (though still flawed) experience.
reply▲There are a bunch of UX differences between an iPad and a laptop while connected to a docking station that make using an iPad in that manner not quite satisfactory. For example, the iPad's screen always has to be on - while you can choose to either mirror or extend your desktop environment, you can't use only the external monitors and shut your case like you can with a laptop.
reply▲> enough portability that I don’t mind the many restrictions of iPad OS.
Would it be a sweeter spot without those restrictions?
I hate that I can’t code on my iPad Pro.
whiteboardr7 hours ago
[-] Was patiently waiting for the mini getting an update - i don’t care as much for the screen, CPU etc. but not moving the front facing camera to the side, hence landscape friendly position is beyond me.
reply▲The whole chassis is weak, old... One camera still? Lame... The thermals are mediocre, at best. And the iPhone 15 Pro I just got makes me look forward to the winter. I expect similar experiences with this. When you write/draw
on it, it does get hot. Same battery life is not bad, but it could use some more when you use the Pencil.
Touch ID is another very
very weird thing to keep. I wonder what sort of market buys that and they don't want to upgrade anything... It feels so weird...
If you check Apple's comparison, at least on that overview, it seems they changed only the processor, networking, that HDR thingy on the camera, and... that's all. Everything else is the same.
> One camera still? Lame...
It's a tablet, not a phone. No number of cameras is going to make it into a good device for taking photos.
gjsman-10007 hours ago
[-] Considering the bestselling laptops at Walmart for $400-500 still sometimes have Twisted Nematic displays, I think the screen is fine.
I also don’t get the complaint about the A-series chip. What does an M1 unlock in iPadOS that the A17 doesn’t?
enragedcacti1 hour ago
[-] If were picking random stuff to compare it against, for $250 Motorola will sell you a phone with a 6.7", 395ppi, 120hz OLED screen. It also comes with a stylus and has 256GB storage standard.
Obviously these aren't directly comparable products but neither are iPads and budget laptops, and Apple asks $750 for a model with equivalent storage and a cellular modem. For a lot of people the screen probably is perfectly adequate but I can also see why some potential buyers would be pretty disappointed given the price point, especially since unlike the air apple doesn't even offer an upsell option at this size.
The screen has the same pixel density as the iPhones'. Which is better than any other iPad model's.
reply▲I think stage manager? And the A1 can get hot sometimes (PDFs and Procreate).
reply▲gjsman-10007 hours ago
[-] I can’t find any mention of Stage Manager being supported on this device - so either it doesn’t, or the help pages haven’t been updated yet.
I will say though the criticism of the A-series getting hot doesn’t make sense. If the A-series gets hot, the M-series is going to be boiling in that tiny chassis.
> I will say though the criticism of the A-series getting hot doesn’t make sense. If the A-series gets hot, the M-series is going to be boiling in that tiny chassis.
Depends on a particular A and M chip, tho.
throwaway484768 hours ago
[-] It is interesting that one of their examples is a "community repair fair", they want to market a sheen of social responsibility without actually taking part themselves.
reply▲giancarlostoro7 hours ago
[-] Lowkey wish their laptops would be as they used to be. Being able to swap RAM or hard drives is so basic but so useful.
reply▲I have a mac, absolutely love it, hate windows and yet my next laptop will be windows because of that.
You don't realize how much it matters until it does, and then it changes everything. Always having to carry an external drive just because my email takes 150gb of the 256gb MacBook storage is even more annoying than windows puting candy crush saga on the start menu.
chemmail44 minutes ago
[-] Unfortunately with DDR5L speeds, they need to be embedded to keep signal stability, so you need to find at least a 16GB laptop which is STILL pretty gatekept with a higher chip like i7 so you have to pay $300 more for that extra 8GB, pulling a page from Apple. Luckily m.2 is still a thing and 99% of Windows still use it.
reply▲> just because my email takes 150gb
You have a very different email life than me. Is that like, all emails received in your life, or just huge attachments?
dankwizard23 minutes ago
[-] He's replaced Github repos with local email archives because a Medium article said "One trick to enhance your version control"
reply▲Wow, this is the most “you’re holding it wrong” comment I’ve ever come across, 150GB of emails stored locally is absurd, and buying a 256G laptop for productivity that heavy is also absurd.
I’m afraid though that the core premise of your comment is flawed. Storage and especially memory are increasingly soldered to thin and lights. Even professional grade laptops such as the Thinkpad X1 Carbon have soldered memory.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-scourge-of-fully-soldered-...
Drives in particular. Let them solder the memory if they absolutely have to, but exposing even an empty NVMe slot should be standard for laptops. Unfortunately, Apple makes a pretty penny off the storage surcharge so I wouldn't really anticipate that anytime soon.
reply▲They no longer even have a "memory" chip anymore, it's all part of the same SOC AFAIK, so they cannot "solder" it.
reply▲I will accept the trade off for the performance boost tbh.
reply▲What performance boost? As in, same software running for comparison on the hardware of interest, one soldered and the other not. I never heard that soldering your SSD on makes it faster...
reply▲It doesn't, Apples SSD performance is fine but unremarkable. Their current machines will do around ~6GB/sec read and ~5GB/sec write, which isn't even at the limit of socketed PCIe4 NVMe drives, nevermind the bleeding edge PCIe5 drives which can do up to ~14GB/sec read and ~12GB/sec write (albeit with excessive heat and power consumption for a laptop).
Soldering the RAM has legitimate performance benefits, but soldering the SSD is just to save space and upsell overpriced upgrades.
Hot air rework is more accessible than ever. This video is kinda over-the-top breathless, but removing components and reballing new ones isn't rocket science.
https://youtu.be/apEKAY11NQs?t=328
wasabinator2 hours ago
[-] It is and will always be rocket science to most people, and orders of magnitude more difficult than swapping a drive or ram sticks.
reply▲It's a bit of filler text in a demo. You might be reading a little too much into it.
reply▲It is interesting that one of their examples is a "Mahjong Club", they want to market a sheen of board game enthusiasm without actually taking part themselves.
reply▲I'm curious about users who do use something similar. I have an iPad pro, but I find either a notebook and pen, or butcher paper and pen to be far superior for capturing anything.
Can someone tell me how they're increasing their creative productivity with these outside of making illustrations?
I have a ton of ideas that I organize and illustrate, but I can't give up my pen/paper as I haven't found the killer combo yet.
> but I find either a notebook and pen, or butcher paper and pen to be far superior for capturing anything.
I have phases where I convince myself this is true, in between switching back to a note taking app (TickTick last few yrs) and every time I go back it's because it a) has total historical recall + a search box when I want to find something and b) I already carry my phone everywhere, like the grocery store, or I'm on my laptop for work.
Papers only true benefit is focus and "zen" stuff.
I'm wondering how advanced it can get with the math. If it had capabilities like decent symbolic math software, that'd be pretty interesting.
reply▲I wish they had improved the screen a little bit as well.
It makes sense to update the model with apple intelligence but that might not be enough for a lot of people to upgrade.
Perhaps we're looking at a device that simply will be out of lineup soon (next few years).
I do like this form factor a lot though, well, eventually we'll get foldable phones to become mainstream I hope.
Probably a 120hz screen like the Pro has
reply▲Then it’d also get the IPad Pro price?
reply▲120hz panels are dirt cheap at this point, look beyond the Apple ecosystem and they're everywhere at nearly every price point. Even barebones office monitors meant for doing spreadsheets are often ~100hz now, there's no reason to make them 60hz when faster panels are more or less the same price.
reply▲heraldgeezer1 hour ago
[-] >120hz panels are dirt cheap at this point
So is storage and RAM but every OEM has their added vendor tax and so does Apple.
2TB Samsung pro nvme SSD is 170$, how much is 2TB Apple storage...
Same with screens.
There was some chatter on Macrumors that they flipped the orientation of the controller board so that the Jelly scrolling will be gone when used in portrait mode. That was the #1 display complaint on the outgoing model, so if its true then I’d count that as a win on improving the screen.
reply▲Wouldn't that cause jelly scrolling in landscape mode?
reply▲lovethevoid10 hours ago
[-] The alleged roadmap leak indicates they’re aiming for 2026/2027 foldable screens (no word on whether it’s horizontal or vertical) so if all goes according to plan, you would be right that this is the last update for the “iPad mini” device.
reply▲> It makes sense to update the model with apple intelligence but that might not be enough for a lot of people to upgrade.
that's fine? it's a very mature segment - medium-price small screen tablet. it hasn't even really been updated since 2021, and that was basically new case+usb-c.
The iPads are basically appliances. They release a new model of fridge every year but I've never once considered "Upgrading" my existing one.
My 2014 ipad air 2 is only just starting to feel old.
chemmail40 minutes ago
[-] The base models maybe, but the Pros have crazy OLEDs that almost have me drooling. The speed hasn't changed much, i just got a 11 Pro with M1 and it isn't any faster in normal stuff than the A12 on my 12.9". I always get my Apple devices from used shops and got my 11 Pro for $250 when it was 2 gens old and feel I won't get the OLED one till I find one for $300ish.
reply▲Mature segment? Is there any other tablet with a square aspect ratio that is smaller than 10"? Two years ago I was on the market, I only remember Microsoft's Surfaces, which are all 10", no other square tablets.
reply▲I thought the case and USB-C were in iPad mini already?
reply▲One would think that they avoid the embarrassment of releasing another device before their AI features are even available. But no.
reply▲Since Apple Intelligence won’t be available in the EU, this is a very underwhelming refresh.
I do love my iPad Mini to bits though. I use mine purely to read, sketch and take notes. It does not receive any notifications. I carry it almost everywhere I go.
A17 Pro and WiFi 6E like the iPhone 15 Pro, not like the iPhone 16 series.
reply▲I have an older (but not old) Mini, and I find it almost unusable, as screen elements don’t scale up. For example, Safari browser buttons are stupidly small. Is that still an issue with the Mini?
reply▲Yes. The mini feels like an abandoned product. In landscape mode, the keyboard takes more than half of the screen. UI elements are routinely covered up in various apps. For example, in Flighty, the flights "drawer" cannot be hidden in the way it can on the iPhone. This is probably fine in a larger iPad, but on the Mini, it covers more than half the screen, meaning it HIDES THE AIRPLANE ICON of the flight you're tracking. Apple Maps has a similar behavior with its drawer in portrait mode, but, IIRC, at least that one can be hidden.
I've owned 8 or 10 tablets in my life and never gotten along with any of them. The Mini6 is my latest experiment, and it's my favorite, but I still find myself rarely using it.
dialup_sounds3 hours ago
[-] The mini display is 326 PPI vs 264 PPI for larger iPads, but the same scale factor so things will always be smaller. (iPhones with even higher PPI use a 3x scale.)
That said, you can embiggen things like Safari browser buttons under Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Larger Text.
I'd also suggest playing with the setting here if you just want everything to be scaled up a bit: Settings > Display & Brightness > Display Zoom > Larger Text.
reply▲Thank you. Larger text does just that and in some cases makes buttons even more difficult to use. My eyes are fine, and my fingers are big…unfortunately rendering the Mini mainly useless for me.
reply▲I am not sure I understand what you mean by the scaling issues, so, I guess, no? I have the 6th generation. The problem I have (and I do not see getting improved, somehow) is that applications do not care for it. Many times I have to turn it to landscape for some more room to fit everything.
Most applications feel better on landscape, but then you lose vertical space. Affinity Photo 1 is very guilty of that, having buttons overlay each other on the left.
reply▲Elements such as buttons and scroll bars are too small for my big fingers and relative to the size of the device.
reply▲That page uses a lot of words to say,
"We added more RAM because there's no way we could make an LLM useful in only 4GB. While we were there, we updated the CPU. Might as well.(We grabbed the A17 Pro because we were in a rush.)"
Does anyone here have insight as to the differences between the various versions of Apple's "Smart HDR" feature? Interesting to see it took the leap from Smart HDR3 (previous model) to Smart HDR 4 (new model), and yet the latest iPhones released last month apparently use Smart HDR 5.
reply▲The version is tied to the Image Signal Processor (ISP) of the A-series chip. So the A17 has Smart HDR 4, while the A18 has Smart HDR 5.
Smart HDR uses neural image segmentation for tone mapping and other processing. In my opinion it goes way too far; trying to grab a faintly blue sky and make it as blue as possible, identifying a face and lightening any hint of a shadow, etc.
When people complain about iPhone photos looking over processed, this is why.
Smart HDR 5 but Auto WB is still stuck in kindergarten. Priorities I guess.
reply▲120hz would’ve been nice… since they likely won’t make pro modal in this size.
reply▲I luckily don’t care for higher refresh rate, but I’m disappointed this model doesn’t come with OLED.
reply▲zitterbewegung3 hours ago
[-] Bump up from 64 GB default to 128 GB is nice.
reply▲It certainly was, like eight years ago when I got the bigger SD card for my phone
At this point, the only word that can be applied to it is "overdue" for anything who uses it beyond a thin client for server-side storage or a streaming service
Uh, I'd be willing to bet that almost all ipad mini users use cloud storage and streaming services. That's an extremely common use case.
reply▲insane_dreamer7 hours ago
[-] Nice choice, always been my favorite size.
Surprised though that they don't have an option with cellular so you can have always-on data access (i.e., with a data-only plan).
Updated: my bad, it does come with cellular -- it's just not advertised on the main product page
giancarlostoro7 hours ago
[-] Most carriers offer iPads as far back as I remember? You have to get it through their stores though.
reply▲I'm seeing it on the Ireland store, for 170 eur.
reply▲23412098765410 hours ago
[-] A17 Pro huh, that's a first for putting a pro chip in a non pro iPad, isn't it? I guess it's, as they advertise, to handle Apple Intelligence although I don't understand why they are doubling down on this _now_ while nothing from the newly announced AI stuff is available as of today...
reply▲It makes sense, the iPad Pros graduated to using full blown M series chips so the A Pro chips they used to use can filter down the stack.
edit: oops I mixed up A Pro and A X
The A17 Pro (originally in the iPhone 15 Pro; now also in the iPad Mini) and A18 Pro (currently only in the iPhone 16 Pro) are the only chips Apple has produced with a "Pro" suffix.
Apple used to use the X suffix for bigger versions of their phone processors that went into iPads (starting with the A5X); that went away when the M-series was introduced.
And the "Pro" suffix itself doesn't seem to denote anything in particular-- there was never a non-Pro A17, and the "A17 Pro" going into the iPad Mini is itself a cut-down version of the chip that went into the iPhone 15 Pro (it has one GPU core disabled).
mcintyre19948 hours ago
[-] I'm guessing the delays to Apple Intelligence came late in the process and it was supposed to release with the new iPhones? And then they just left hardware plans as-is when the software got delayed.
reply▲I'm guessing they were aiming for iOS 18 but caved to what they perceived was the popular demand at the time
reply▲Is there somewhere where this Apple Intelligence can be used ?
reply▲Some of it is available in the beta's, but no, it's not released to stable yet.
reply▲dumbo-octopus7 hours ago
[-] Which boggles the mind… did nobody tell the software team that a release was coming?
reply▲fshbbdssbbgdd7 hours ago
[-] Apple doesn’t have a reputation for letting engineers slack. I have to guess they are working like dogs to meet some standard before they are willing to release.
reply▲dumbo-octopus1 hour ago
[-] They don’t have a reputation for releasing hardware without software to back it either. One way or another, an unprecedented process failure has occurred.
reply▲It clearly wasn't ready. My guess: the powers that be decided they had to make a public showing of being an AI company, hence the giant marketing push ahead of release.
It's unknown how useful any of this will be in day to day use-cases.
I don't think Apple can simply delay an iPhone. There's entire industries relying on there being a new iPhone out every September.
reply▲dumbo-octopus1 hour ago
[-] Apple of yesteryear would issue a patch update model and let this feature cook until it was ready for release. Current approach is sloppy in a decidedly un-Apple way.
reply▲And it’s not coming to the European Union.
reply▲bradgessler7 hours ago
[-] You can get it in the public betas, but it’s very underwhelming and not useful. I’m surprised they’re talking this up so much to be honest.
reply▲iPad mini 2024 with Pencil Pro and Math Notes is going to revolutionize math education.
reply▲I don't know which bubble you are in, but $499 + $129 for devices at MSRP is not going to revolutionize anything, especially just for maths.
A $200 Chromebook can do 10x. Guess what, that's exactly why schools buy Chromebooks.
insane_dreamer2 hours ago
[-] > revolutionize math education
math education is not likely going to be "revolutionized" with technology or that would have already happened
That's like saying giving students a better calculator revolutionizes math education.
Even giving students full access to Mathematica (which I think is worthwhile BTW) won't revolutionize it.
wasabinator2 hours ago
[-] Ironic how one demonstrates a questionable grasp on maths if they think an expensive iDevice will revolutionise maths education for the masses.
reply▲Mathematician here. No it's really not. Having used it extensively it craps out all the time, fails to parse things properly, doesn't understand anything other than a very narrow undefined subset of anything that needs to be done and generally makes things harder.
It sure looks like it would though.
Noteful and a competent calculator with CAS functionality on the other hand might be a different outcome.
To be fair, “math education” usually refers to the millions that learn arithmetic, algebra, and geometry every year, not the (tens of?) thousands that take part graduate level courses in “real” mathematics. Although I’m curious; do you think it would handle basic calculus (aka as taught in Calc survey courses up through multivariate)? In other words: does it know how to evaluate integrals and derivatives? Because I’d guess more people take those classes than all their descendants combined.
Either way, and on a more fundamental note: I’m a little dubious that “completing equations” is a net benefit for math education. It really seems like a small nice-to-have-available affordance tacked on to the real game changer: a computer that can adaptively challenge a student and competently answer clarifying questions without making it too easy. Y’know, just AGI stuff lol
As we’ve all seen from ChatGPT’s impact on English courses already, this all will require a fundamental rethink of how we teach children and adolescents. Homework is a bandaid over capitalist failings, and it’s beginning to peel…
It has no idea about calculus at all. Not only that it's a numeric not a symbolic calculator. So taking it even further back to basics, if you do sqrt(12) it should really crap out 2+sqrt(3) [as a surd] but it just dumps the evaluation out. My £10 Casio can handle that better.
As for education, you don't really need a calculator. We don't really use them that much. Pen, paper, ears.
As for computers, programmed randomised questions with deterministic answers and documented steps to solve the problems are the right way. LLMs can't do that even if they look like they can. some universities actually have tools which generate those. Those are truly enlightening as you can see the reasoning properly.
Ugh, that bezel.
Will full coverage screens with a software driven, virtual bezel every be a thing?
I don't get why some people get so worked up about bezels. I like being able to hold my devices without accidental inputs, and to me they look better anyway.
I wouldn't mind 3cm wide bezels and accordingly larger batteries.
Virtual bezels and let the user choosing.
reply▲Dynamically get larger as battery life decreases
reply▲And pay for a screen size I won't use? No, thanks.
reply▲Could be dynamic, example, watching a movie, no bezels. Remove the bezels from the top and/or bottom, that changes on the device orientation. Placed in a stand remove the bezels, add them back when picked up.
reply▲That sounds awesome actually. Makes me wonder how hard it would be on a rooted phone to just have it tell the software the screen is a few pixels smaller so you can touch chose sides safely, and remove the restriction again when you're in movie mode
Never heard of anyone making that but this would honestly sound like the first innovation in several years, not incremental like "GPS now finds a solution 2 seconds faster" and "the mobile data now uses 7% less energy" but something that is now possible that wasn't a feature before
iPads need to have some sort of bezel, else how are you going to hold the thing?
iPhones you can grip the sides, iPads not so much.
reply▲This. Phones are already a real trade-off between usability and screen size. I've reached (or perhaps slightly gone over) the minimum amount of grabbing space I want on a phone and mine isn't quite the sleekest model
reply▲iPhone 16 pro max is almost there with the screen size, also a two-hands device
reply▲ClassyJacket2 hours ago
[-] I was just thinking the same thing. Why couldn't they give it a tiny bezel, with a software option to put a virtual bezel if you want to hold it in a way it matters.
They could even give it only the virtual bezel on the left and right sides, in whichever orientation you're holding it, since you don't really hold it on the top or bottom.
gjsman-10007 hours ago
[-] Ugh, my batteries need recharging.
Will nuclear powered phones with built-in fusion reactors that never need recharging ever be a thing?
ClassyJacket2 hours ago
[-] An edge to edge screen is entirely technically feasible tho. The iPhone has it.
reply▲I love iPad minis, but a keyboard folio for this size would be great. I've used this form factor with the iPad Air for writing, and it's perfect for carrying in a small bag. I know this is an expensive toy, though.
[*] For reference, the iPad Air with the Magic Keyboard is about as heavy as a 13" MacBook Air.
I bought and returned a 13" iPad Pro M4 because I couldn't get a Smart Keyboard Folio for it. Only the Magic Keyboard is available. I'm still using my 2018 iPad Pro.
reply▲All of this looks good, but if they want to retain trust with artists, the last thing they should be doing is integrating generative AI tools into their art programs.
Creatives are getting more and more frustrated with the AI tools showing up in places like Windows or in Photoshop. For the first time ever I am meeting career artists and designers who are actively looking to add non-AI alternatives to their usual toolchains because they feel betrayed by the addition of generative AI.
Apple is asking to lose the trust of a major market segment by charging forward with this stuff. You would think that the backlash to their "Crush!" commercial would have been an eye-opening moment for them about what Artists actually expect from them...
protoman30007 hours ago
[-] The size of the mini is really the best, but the external monitor support is very disappointing. Do jailbreaks etc. allow for native monitor resolutions or are we limited to the iPads screen resolution by hardware?
reply▲All I want to know is can it do windowed multi tasking with stage manager?
reply▲Pretty sure theres no stage manager, hard pass. Sticking to my 6.
reply▲Well, they call it stage manager, but in iOS 18 (too) it only offers split screen and one window overlaid to the side. There is an example in the page somewhere.
reply▲Would be nice if Apple also introduced a new base iPad with at least support for a decent Apple Pencil. I want to buy my wife an iPad, but she wants to draw and the Apple Pencil USB-C doesn't support presure levels, so it is either a base iPad with an old Apple Pencil 1st Gen (that still is lightining) or paying extra for the iPad Air and Apple Pencil 2nd Gen/Pro. The fact that Apple Pencil USB-C doesn't support presure levels at ALL is infuriating too.
reply▲The Air is a significantly better drawing display.
reply▲She basically wants to draw notes and do some doodling, so it is not like it would make much difference and the price delta is huge between the base iPad and the iPad Air.
reply▲It depends on her storage needs. If she’s making files she’ll probably not want the 64GB version. So you’d be looking at the 256GB base for $500 or the 128GB 11” Air for $600. That’s not that big a jump for the added utility.
I agree with the other poster; maybe look at refurb and a 2nd gen pencil.
Or just don’t get one. But it sounds like this is on the short list to buy for you two.
She lived with an iPhone 64GB up until last week and I expect that her tablet storage needs to be even smaller (e.g.: no photos). So yes, 64GB is fine.
> Or just don’t get one.
This is actually what I am going to do: wait until there is a better base iPad version. Unless I can get an older iPad Pro for a cheap price, but it is unlikely here in EU.
I would suggest the iPad Air 5th or 4th generation. They should be pretty close in price to a base iPad, probably less for the 4th generation.
reply▲The older generations are still available and cheaper, they just don't support the newest Pencil Pro.
reply▲The Wikipedia article for the Apple Pencil has a compatiblity matrix that is very helpful in this regard, since it's so damn confusing.
I think if I was in the market for a drawing device on a budget I'd go with an iPad Air that supports the Apple Pencil 2nd generation. Something like the iPad Air 5th or 4th would do well.
ToucanLoucan7 hours ago
[-] If she's looking to sketch or just doesn't mind not having color, I can't recommend the Kindle Scribe enough. I bought it for reading but it's become my combination work notes/presentation board/drawing tablet, and I absolutely love it. The premium pencil honestly smokes the Apple pencil and it feels so nice to use. I just wish it did color too.
reply▲ivanjermakov8 hours ago
[-] It's sad that "ultraportable iPad" marketing works, but "ultraportable iPhone" does not make sense for most people.
iPhone 13 mini was the last flagship smartphone with such dimensions.
The typical iPhone Mini product cycle:
Make iPhone Mini -> Mini only accounts for 10% of sales -> Cancel iPhone Mini -> Notice that 10% of iPhone customers haven't updated for 3 or 4 cycles -> Make iPhone Mini -> Suffer crippling corporate amnesia -> <...>
I'm expecting the brain worms to reach step 4 of the corporate consciousness cycle around the next generation or so.
only the 12 and 13 had mini sizes, so not really. unless you are counting the SE1 as mini
reply▲samatman12 minutes ago
[-] Dimensions:
SE1: 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6
Mini 13: 131.5 x 64.2 x 7.65
Counting the original SE as a mini is perfectly reasonable.
It's also quite clearly what the grandparent comment was referring to.
giancarlostoro7 hours ago
[-] I wonder if that was their attempt to make the iPhone SE have a legitimate place with the other iPhones? Not sure, but it is interesting that no matter what, they always sell the SE.
reply▲How long do we have on the 13 mini before it becomes so slow I have to get a new phone? I don’t know what I’ll do at that point. On the 12 mini now and can never go to a big phone.
reply▲Probably a couple of more years provided you can keep replacing your battery. I’m on a 13 Pro Max which has the same SoC as a 13 Mini and while I might want a battery replacement within the next year, the phone itself has no performance issues. I think the iPhone 12 model line is essentially in the same boat, just a little bit older and with worse batteries.
reply▲The battery was the main reason I moved from my 12 mini to a 15 (save for USB-C) — just wasn’t holding up, even after a replacement. I still hold out for a 17 mini, though.
reply▲A few years still. The XR is still supported with iOS 18.
reply▲lol as if teachers have money to buy this to make their lessons plans.
reply▲You might be surprised as to how many are willing to make the splurge. Anecdotal, but I'm married to a high school teacher. She and several of her coworkers have been willing to eat the cost personally just to avoid using dated district-provided assets, which are often clucky and make the job worse.
reply▲I still remember the Steve Jobs era when people would praise Apple for having a simple lineup of devices, in contrast to Android, which had some crazy amount of variants of every device. How times have changed.
reply▲What other large brand has a simpler lineup? Samsung released 22 phones just in 2024 with memorable names like C55 and M05.
Although I wouldn't mind if they got rid of one or two iPhone variants, or at least gave them more meaningful names. I have no idea what the difference between Plus, Pro and Max is. I only know that Pro doesn't mean pro, and that doesn't make it any easier.
Edit: also Steve Jobs was still alive when you could choose between four different iPod variants.
Google Pixel has one Tablet.
reply▲It's mainly just the iPad lineup that's a mess, but it's optimized for there always being an iPad available for increasing budgets in $100 jumps, give or take. It's confusing to try and keep track of them all, but that's not really the point. What they have is anyone can walk into a store and say "give me an iPad, I'll pay $600" and they'll get a good device.
reply▲scarface_742 hours ago
[-] When Jobs did that Apple was close to bankruptcy. When the first iPhone was introduced in 2007, was less than $25 billion. It’s now $385 billion.
reply▲Regarding variants, it continue to be more complex to buy a Microsoft Windows notebook.
reply▲Looks really nice, wish could afford it, but Apple products are so expensive... Commodity products for premium price
reply▲I usually like to buy these 1-2 years old off Craigslist / Marketplace and that's been a sweet spot for price and quality.
Apple has always been about premium price and quality but I agree that it's not for everyone and their needs.
JumpCrisscross8 hours ago
[-] What’s with the sour grapes? I can’t afford a Pagani. Doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the engineering.
reply▲Not sure why you're calling me "sour grapes"? I only lamented the fact that I could not afford the thing
reply▲"Commodity products for premium price" definitely sounds like sour grapes.
If the products are actually commodity, just buy something else.
The iPad lineup starts at $350, and that's brand new, look used or refurbished and it becomes even cheaper. If that's too much for you, you'll be pressed to afford any computer.
reply▲insane_dreamer7 hours ago
[-] True, but they last long enough that you can get them second hand, whereas used products from other vendors tend to be junk not worth spending money on even at a cheaper price point.
reply▲Also when buying second hand, you pay for that premium brand
reply▲There is a definite lack of worthy competitors to the iPad Mini in the market.
Most other tablets are 10" or larger. The only other contemporary tablets I've found in that size have had very low-end specs in comparison.
reply▲True - long time ago I had the "new ipad", and it was really, really nice - lasted me for years, until I could no longer update it.
reply▲It's ok, lotsa people have the money for it.
reply▲Apple products are not commodity, because there is very little fungibility due to network effects.
Maybe their hardware is commodity (arguable), but the product + integrations are not.
They are hardly commodities. The build quality and lifetime of iPads is incredible compared to any other tablet I’ve ever used (typing this on a six year old iPad Pro that’s still going strong).
reply▲I recently traded in my 5-year-old iPad Pro because it was badly banged up, and they still offered me ~$400 in trade-in value. Great iPads.
reply▲Its commodity you can buy from dozens of other vendors for much cheaper price.
reply▲Then buy it there instead of complaining?
reply▲Uh, where can I buy a cheaper iPad?
reply▲And while we're at it, can someone finally tell me where people find cheap ferraris? I really want a car but they're just too expensive!
reply▲Many of these devices aren’t actually fungible commodities though.I tried to buy a phone in the $200 range and Android phones were so much worse than used iPhones. I they would drop calls and freeze on the dial pad during long calls where I was on hold. Tried two different models and had the same issues. I could have tried a used $200 Android but I was not wanting to try for a third Android. All I wanted/needed was to make important calls.
So I guess I don’t see them as commodities which implies fungibility.
I realize that there are bad Androids out there and the abundance of choice makes it difficult to sift through the good and the bad, but there are good Android phones out there in the $200-$300 USD range. My current phone is a bit over three years old and it is still very usable.
reply▲Especially with companies like Motorola.
The 2022 Edge cost $400 on release. A bit over a year later it was on sale for $140.
reply▲> All I wanted/needed was to make important calls.
Can I recommend you a 40€ phone? They've been making models that can do calls for a while now and they needn't cost as much as an Apple-branded device to do just that
> they would drop calls and freeze on the dial pad during long calls
Never heard that happen to anyone with any phone model. If you've ruled out some software-specific issue like a call recorder you've installed or so, that sounds borderline implausible. Then again, given the number of issues I experience with software (of any kind)...
I got an 8" Android tablet instead of an iPad mini. What I wanted, was to have something really compact that I could use emacs on, mainly for org-roam, notes and writing in general, not for writing code. It works well with termux, I don't think there is a good way to have a local version of emacs on iOS.
The keyboard is the most important part really (although I did want a good screen too). I'm on my second keyboard, they are only about $30 each, which is better than iPad prices. The first one wasn't so convenient to unfold quickly, the new one is working really well.