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Apple Marks iPad Mini 3 as Obsolete Product

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Apple has officially marked the third-generation iPad mini as an obsolete product, marking the official end of the road for one of Apple's most popular iPads.

ipad_mini_trademark_specimen.jpg

In December, MacRumors reported that Apple would designate the third-generation iPad mini in both Wi-Fi and cellular configurations as an obsolete product in the coming weeks. Today, Apple officially moved the iPad to its list of obsolete devices, meaning it will no longer be eligible for repairs as service providers can not order parts for the device.

The third-generation iPad mini was a popular iPad that launched in 2014 alongside the second-generation iPad Air. The third-generation iPad mini included the A7 chip and a Touch ID home button.

Article Link: Apple Marks iPad Mini 3 as Obsolete Product
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/01/03/ipad-mini-3-obsolete-product/
Last edited:
The screenshot shows the original iPad mini with an A5 and iOS 6.
MacRumors said:


Apple has officially marked the third-generation iPad mini as an obsolete product, marking the official end of the road for one of Apple's most popular iPads.

ipad_mini_trademark_specimen.jpg

In December, MacRumors reported that Apple would designate the third-generation iPad mini in both Wi-Fi and cellular configurations as an obsolete product in the coming weeks. Today, Apple officially moved the iPad to its list of obsolete devices, meaning it will no longer be eligible for repairs as service providers can not order parts for the device.

The third-generation iPad mini was a popular iPad that launched in 2014 alongside the second-generation iPad Air. The third-generation iPad mini included the A7 chip and a Tough ID home button.

Article Link: Apple Marks iPad Mini 3 as Obsolete Product
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I did actually think that the mini 3 already was obsolete, because mini 2 already are. My bad.
The differences between 2 and 3 was touch id and one extra color (gold)😂
Everything wasn’t better before😁

Edit: I used the mini 2 for a couple of years, but sold and bought the iPad 5th Gen.
It was incredibly slow at the end, but it did liked the format😊
 
The main image in the article (screen shot of Apple web site) is of an iPad Mini 1st generation, not 3rd generation.
 
Awful product, the new feature was the TouchID that came a year before in the iPhone. Meanwhile the iPad Air 2 had the A8X that was much more powerful than the A7.
 
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Several years ago, a team of consultants convinced our company to buy 100 refurbished iPad mini 2s for a project. They were already four years old at the time! That project was abandoned and we attempted to repurpose them as mobile training devices, but ComplianceWire (our crappy Learning Management System at the time) was incompatible. Absorb LMS (which goes live today, BTW) runs just fine on iPads that are nine years old.
 
The Mini 3 was the only iPad Mini I never owned prior to the Mini 6. I was given the original iPad Mini for Christmas in 2012 right after it was released and I absolutely loved it. When the 2nd Generation Mini was released a year later, I passed on it. By the fall of 2014, I was ready for an upgrade. I had anticipated that the Mini 3 would end up being what the Mini 4 would be a year later, but when it was announced, I was disappointed that was the exact same as the 2nd generation Mini, but only with the addition of touch ID. I thought to myself "what a rip-off". I instead went to Costco and bought a 64 GB Mini 2 at a $100 discount, since there were no other changes. I will have to say that the Mini 2 was an excellent device, a huge improvement over the original Mini. I used it for 2.5 years, and then gave it to my dad after I replaced it with a Mini 4. I don't feel I missed anything by passing on the Mini 3.
 
They should obsolete the mini 4 and back. My kids mini 4 is a complete dog, it has to be one of the slowest computing devices I've ever used.
 
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spinedoc77 said:
They should obsolete the mini 4 and back. My kids mini 4 is a complete dog, it has to be one of the slowest computing devices I've ever used.
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I have the same one. It works for what I need it for, which is streaming video and reading.

When you think about it, though, that thing was very snappy to use a few years ago. What happened is that every iOS/iPadOS update got more demanding, until we ended up where we are today. People are out here blaming the hardware, but I distinctly remember this iPad being a pleasure to use not terribly long ago.

What sucks about this is that Apple doesn't seem interested in keeping alive an OS version with current security updates (and some subset of new features) that doesn't drag the whole thing to hell and make it unusably slow. I guess they have no incentive to, but it does suck.

I'll probably get another iPad Mini, but this time I'm going to stop updating at some point in the interest of prolonging its useful life.
 
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This is a great machine for my 3-year-old. It's a bit slow by today's standards but after doing a clean install and only loading kids apps and YouTube, it gets the job done.
 
I owned most of the iPad Minis at one point or another, except for the Mini 3 as it wasn't worth upgrading from my Mini 2 for Touch ID and literally nothing else. The Mini 4 was a much better upgrade.
 
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Ahh that screenshot takes me back to when OSX and iOS had beautiful UIs. At the time I still missed Tiger even aqua in Snow Leopard but just seeing Mavericks again for the first time in almost 8 years reminds me of how much Apple’s UI has regressed. Time to bring back a modern version of Aqua and get rid of this BORING and often times confusing flat, white-washed UI that we’ve been stuck with since Yosemite
 
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