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iPad case and keyboard makers must have a love-hate relationship with Apple.
Great because people will need to buy a new case when there's a new form factor.

But it's difficult to keep up and can get costly to create a mould for another iPad, especially if a model such as the 2018 model has such a short lifespan.
 
In only the new 9.7-inch model adopted Face ID and the new Apple Pencil...
 
I don't care if the bezels are larger than the pro (would give another reason to buy pro), but I am hoping for USB-C and no home button
Bezels are not larger. Current iPad Mini side bezel is 6,5mm (black area) or 7,5mm (screen edge to frame edge) while the iPad Pro has a uniform 8,5mm or 9,5mm bezel. Top and Bottom Bezel of the Mini is good for holding it in landscape => the mini doesn't need "pro design", only a hardware bump (A12 please), certainly no protruding camera, but USB-C would be nice. Most importantly though, not heavier or larger than the current Mini. The current one perfectly fits a DIN A5 page and thus many things designed to fit A5.
 
Keeping the fingerprint reader is the biggest deal here imo. I use my 9.7 Pro daily and I’m very interested in a mini 5, but not if it’s Face ID only.
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Apple needs a proper OLED mini. They've been slacking off. I'm like give people what they want.

What are they going to do with Macs? Add new ports? NO. did they have some new battery tech that is ready for prime time? I'm honestly not sure what they could do with macs that they already aren't doing but maybe I'm limiting my imagination. If anything I'd like to see them drop the price $200 bucks and watch those things fly off the shelf.

I think a MacBook Pro with no oled Touch Bar and 12 usb-c ports and a lightening port and a headphone jack and a current top of the line processor would go over very well. They could also release a cheese grader style tower Mac Pro with current processors and let us choose between AMD and nVidia for our graphics. A full bandwidth full core count Threadripper option would also go over very well.
 
So many setting themselves up for disappointment in this thread.

If you expect more than the iPad 6th Gen guts transferred to the mini 4 chassis, you are reaching too far and hoping for too much.

No Face ID, no A12x, no full screen redesign, no Pro design cues, No USB-C, no 120Hz display, one capacity - 128GB - and likely at the same price - $399.

That being said, for those that want a mini, it will be a nice speed bump. Hopefully, Pencil 1 (not 2) support will be in there as well.

Temper your expectations, people. Apple is not going to build you a mini Pro. If they did, it would be $699 and then out come the long knives.
 
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Does anyone know the typical length of time it takes for a product to be introduced after it showed up in these kinds of documents?

Anytime between a couple of days to half a year. It unfortunately doesn’t indicate any timeframe. The best bet is estimating when 12.2 will be out, as these new iPads certainly won’t launch until that’s released.

With all that said - we are most likely looking at March at the moment. Too early to tell if it’s early March or late March though.
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So many setting themselves up for disappointment in this thread.

If you expect more than the iPad 6th Gen guts transferred to the mini 4 chassis, you are reaching too far and hoping for too much.

No Face ID, no A12x, no full screen redesign, no Pro design cues, No USB-C, no 120Hz display, one capacity - 128GB - and likely at the same price - $399.

That being said, for those that want a mini, it will be a nice speed bump. Hopefully, Pencil 1 (not 2) support will be in there as well.

Temper your expectations, people. Apple is not going to build you a mini Pro. If they did, it would be $699 and then out come the long knives.

That’s actually all I’ve been wanting for 3 years now.

The most I’m hoping for is the A11 and 3gb RAM. More storage would be great, but as long as it has ANYTHING better than the A8 (for AR/H.265 features) and 128gb I’m happy.
 
So many setting themselves up for disappointment in this thread.

If you expect more than the iPad 6th Gen guts transferred to the mini 4 chassis, you are reaching too far and hoping for too much.

No Face ID, no A12x, no full screen redesign, no Pro design cues, No USB-C, no 120Hz display, one capacity - 128GB - and likely at the same price - $399.

That being said, for those that want a mini, it will be a nice speed bump. Hopefully, Pencil 1 (not 2) support will be in there as well.

Temper your expectations, people. Apple is not going to build you a mini Pro. If they did, it would be $699 and then out come the long knives.

I kind of think it will adopt the same design language with squared-off edge and flat back.
 
If Apple makes this a “budget” Mini, Apple is just heading downhill to the junky, commodity bottom of the barrel tablet marketplace. We will see if Apple wants to go in that direction!
 
That’s actually all I’ve been wanting for 3 years now.

The most I’m hoping for is the A11 and 3gb RAM. More storage would be great, but as long as it has ANYTHING better than the A8 (for AR/H.265 features) and 128gb I’m happy.

It would be nice if they put an A11 in there, but I think that is destined for the 7th Generation iPad. Its probably 50/50 versus an A10 Fusion. I also think it would be great if they offered 64GB/256GB tier. I probably just made a few enemies for whom the 128GB tier is their jam...makes life more interesting. Cannot wait until it hits the stores.
 
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If Apple makes this a “budget” Mini, Apple is just heading downhill to the junky, commodity bottom of the barrel tablet marketplace. We will see if Apple wants to go in that direction!

Even the worst ipad is miles ahead of the best android tablets out there, just through the strength of the apple ecosystem alone.
 
I still love the mini size over the larger iPads after having a few 10" ones. I still rocking the iPad mini 2 and its just the right size. if apple did the new design with smaller bezels and same size as the mini now it would shrink the overall size and the mini would actually be pocketable. I can fit the mini in my back pocket and my gym shorts(yes it does fit) and a little smaller overall form factor would make this a big big deal especially if you can carry it around in a pocket. It would be a tight fit overall but I think there could be a big market for a same size screen iPad with smaller overall form factor.
 
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I'm not seeing A10 anything in the new iPad Mini - they must've exhausted the supply, having used them in so many products.

A11 (even A12) versions - mainly because they did not use enough on the iPhones. They over-estimated the number of iPhones they were going to sell - expecting the numbers to climb as steeply as it had in the previous years - and pressed out more of the newer process.
 
I'm the exact opposite. Once I get home I don't even touch my iPhone until the next day and use my 2018 iPad exclusively. The 4:3 ratio of the iPad make a much more pleasant reading experience than the 19.5:9 ratio on the new iPhones. Even The XS Max is only 2.7" inches wide while the iPad Mini is 4.7" wide and the iPad is 5.8" wide. That is a very noticeable difference.

People send me screenshots from the iPhone X and they’re ridiculous tall and thin.
 
So many setting themselves up for disappointment in this thread.

If you expect more than the iPad 6th Gen guts transferred to the mini 4 chassis, you are reaching too far and hoping for too much.

No Face ID, no A12x, no full screen redesign, no Pro design cues, No USB-C, no 120Hz display, one capacity - 128GB - and likely at the same price - $399.

That being said, for those that want a mini, it will be a nice speed bump. Hopefully, Pencil 1 (not 2) support will be in there as well.

Temper your expectations, people. Apple is not going to build you a mini Pro. If they did, it would be $699 and then out come the long knives.
You forgot to mention the memory(RAM)? Forget the SoC; that not important to the iPad; it the amount of memory!
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I'm not seeing A10 anything in the new iPad Mini - they must've exhausted the supply, having used them in so many products.

A11 (even A12) versions - mainly because they did not use enough on the iPhones. They over-estimated the number of iPhones they were going to sell - expecting the numbers to climb as steeply as it had in the previous years - and pressed out more of the newer process.

LPDDR3 is not longer being produced! It is all LPDDR4 now and in June LPDDR5 will be switching over!
 
Just watch the ipad mini 5 is pathetic bare bones release . I predict it will have A9 processor , Touch ID 1 , no pencil support , no w2 chip, no headphone jack, comes in 8 , 32 gig variations and costs $399.99 and could have been released years ago.
 
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