iPad mini iPad mini 7?

[sunking101]

It’s definitely there as it’s a function of how the technology works. Even Apple is on record talking about this and I can see landscape orientation jelly scroll on my iPad mini 5 in my hand right now.

As you said in the subsequent paragraph… how much you notice it is simply a function of which orientation it is lined up with

They all do it to a slight degree but it is unnoticeable on all my devices except the Mini 6 which exhibits the issue blatantly. I.really wish people would stop saying that all 60hz LCD displays have the same problem.

As for Apple, they just dismissed it but then they have form for that kind of thing.

 

[Edgecrusherr]

I'd love to get an M1 in the iPad mini, but I don't see them putting an M-series in them.Tthe M-series still has higher thermals than the A-series, and the A-series doesn't lag behind enough for them to just use an A-series X, Z, Fusion, and/r Bionic variant.

 

[dgdosen]

What would be great for the mini is to have external screen support - but not only in 'mirror' mode. It would be great to hook a mini up to a higher-resolution external monitor/keyboard/mouse once in a while for specific tasks...

Also, the A15 is a champ on the mini. It's never felt slow.

 

[rui no onna]

I'd love to get an M1 in the iPad mini, but I don't see them putting an M-series in them.Tthe M-series still has higher thermals than the A-series, and the A-series doesn't lag behind enough for them to just use an A-series X, Z, Fusion, and/r Bionic variant.

Yep. Besides, I expect the A-series chipsets to match M1 performance with a smaller power envelope in a few years. The A15 is significantly faster than the A12X/Z (pretty much the predecessor of M1) in single-core and matches it in multi-core despite having fewer cores.

 

[Edgecrusherr]

Yep. Besides, I expect the A-series chipsets to match M1 performance with a smaller power envelope in a few years. The A15 is significantly faster than the A12X/Z (pretty much the predecessor of M1) in single-core and matches it in multi-core despite having fewer cores.

Yeah, I think the A-series will continue to be just below the M-series, but very capable for 95% of everything you'd want to do on and iPad. That could change if they start making a smaller M-serices for the MacBook Air, iPad Air, and Mac mini, but I doubt it.

 

[Crow_Servo]

I agree that the A-series chip is perfectly sufficient for virtually every task. More RAM would be welcome (and it’s also a given that the next Mini will at the very least include 6GB RAM). OLED with ProMotion would be great. Upgraded speakers would also be a plus.

 

[Lioness~]

Good guesses all 😁

We know nothing what 7 might have. Personally I couldn’t care less at the moment, as I just bought 6. So I won’t need any new until 25/26.
If Air have M1 now, it’s a good guess that next Mini will have a M- chip imho.
But none of us know nothing now. We’ll see.

 

[jm31828]

I'd love to get an M1 in the iPad mini, but I don't see them putting an M-series in them.Tthe M-series still has higher thermals than the A-series, and the A-series doesn't lag behind enough for them to just use an A-series X, Z, Fusion, and/r Bionic variant.

Could you clarify the comment about the M-series having higher thermals- do those devices with M1 chips in them get noticeably hot with even light or moderate use?

 

[jm31828]

Yep. Besides, I expect the A-series chipsets to match M1 performance with a smaller power envelope in a few years. The A15 is significantly faster than the A12X/Z (pretty much the predecessor of M1) in single-core and matches it in multi-core despite having fewer cores.

You mentioned the A12X/Z processor being almost on par with M1- is that chip technically faster than the A14 that is in newer devices such as the 10th Gen iPad? According to Geekbench, the A14 in the 10th gen lags behind the M1 iPad Air by about 120 points in single core, and is about half as fast in multicore- so I assume the A12X/Z are actually more powerful than the A14?

 

[rui no onna]

You mentioned the A12X/Z processor being almost on par with M1- is that chip technically faster than the A14 that is in newer devices such as the 10th Gen iPad? According to Geekbench, the A14 in the 10th gen lags behind the M1 iPad Air by about 120 points in single core, and is about half as fast in multicore- so I assume the A12X/Z are actually more powerful than the A14?

No, A12X/Z isn’t on par with M1. It’s slower than the A15 which is slower than M1 (in multi-core and GPU at least).

I definitely noticed a difference between A12X/Z vs M1 when I had some heavy tasks (e.g. app updates) running in the background while using the iPad for other activities.

A12X/Z still performs really well though.

The A14 and A15 have a fairly small performance difference CPU-wise. The main improvement is GPU and power efficiency. The A14 beats A12X/Z by a noticeable margin in single core but lags by less than 10% in terms of multi-core.

I’m guessing part of the reason for the iPad Pros’ higher price is longer support. I expect the less expensive regular iPads are designed specifically to have shorter software support hence the 2-3 year old chipsets and lower RAM when they’re released.

 

[Edgecrusherr]

Could you clarify the comment about the M-series having higher thermals- do those devices with M1 chips in them get noticeably hot with even light or moderate use?

It’s kind of like levels of performance and heat. The A-series is slower and doesn’t get as hot as the M-series, but that doesn’t mean the M-series is problematically hot or anything. My iPad Air 5 with an M1 gets about as hot as my iPad mini with the A15 Bionic—however the Air is larger, and has better cooling. I think if you were to shove an M1 into an iPad mini (and more so a phone), it would run too hot at full speed, so it would need to be throttled down, removing any purpose to using it over an A-series.

A similar thing can be seen on the Macs. The M1 MacBook Air doesn’t have a fan, and runs the same as the M1 MacBook Pro (with a fan), until you run it hard for more than a few mins, then the MacBook Air throttles down, whereas the MacBook Pro’s fan kicks in and keeps it running at peak performance.

Another example is the iPad Air 5 vs the M1 Mac Mini (I have one of those too). They’re the same chip, the iPad Air’s M1 is clocked down a bit, and the chip performs ever so slightly slower than the Mac mini, because the mini had a heat sink and a fan.

All of this heat and throttling is relative though, as the M-series still doesn’t get as hot as any of the Intel Mac’s ever did, and performs truly remarkable compared to other chips at the same clock speed, thermals, and price point.

 

[Rafterman]

I would love to see 120hz promotion screen and 512gb storage option. Maybe a little more RAM.

 

[Edgecrusherr]

I would love to see 120hz promotion screen and 512gb storage option. Maybe a little more RAM.

Same!

 

[Traverse]

I find RAM the biggest compliant even more so than the screen. I've gotten used to the screen, but you don't get used to apps reloading. Jumping between the Reddit app and 2 Safari tabs while listening to music usually triggers reloads. I locked the screen for about 5 minutes and when I came back and unlocked it the current safari tab that was open reloaded. I've been spoiled by the iPad Pro.

 

[E-MO-TION]

I want stage manager so I can plug my mini into a studio display and use it as a desktop. Love big things in small packages.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Any predictions on when we will get iPad Mini 7 and if it will have M1. I am new to iPads and the first one I got was iPad mini 6 earlier this year. So, I am not aware of Apple's upgrade pattern with iPads.

I'd say Apple probably won't bring the M-series chips to the iPad mini. The capabilities that the M-series chips bring to the iPad Air and iPad Pro models are the kinds of things that wouldn't make that much sense on the iPad mini's smaller canvas. I do believe that Apple will advance the mini with a newer A-series chip, possibly with some of the enhancements seen in the M2 (that aren't already a part of A15 Bionic), but it's clear that Apple doesn't see the mini as the kind of tablet you do heavy drawing, video editing, or work on a 6K display with a keyboard and mouse.

 

[rui no onna]

I'd say Apple probably won't bring the M-series chips to the iPad mini. The capabilities that the M-series chips bring to the iPad Air and iPad Pro models are the kinds of things that wouldn't make that much sense on the iPad mini's smaller canvas. I do believe that Apple will advance the mini with a newer A-series chip, possibly with some of the enhancements seen in the M2 (that aren't already a part of A15 Bionic), but it's clear that Apple doesn't see the mini as the kind of tablet you do heavy drawing, video editing, or work on a 6K display with a keyboard and mouse.

I'd love to see M-series on the mini for gaming. It's by far my most favorite form factor for touchscreen gaming.

Alas, I don't think the battery and heat dissipation can keep up with M-series running full throttle.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I'd love to see M-series on the mini for gaming. It's by far my most favorite form factor for touchscreen gaming.

Alas, I don't think the battery and heat dissipation can keep up with M-series running full throttle.

You won't really need it. The A15 has the exact same graphics and CPU cores found in the M2. The only things you miss out on from M1 and M2 Macs are external display support and Sidecar; both of which are things that aren't really geared for the kinds of customers that the mini is marketed to.

The iPad Pro is billed as being your next computer. The iPad Air isn't too far behind. No one (not even Apple's iPad marketing team) will tell you that an iPad mini can be your next computer, despite the fact that it is unarguably versatile for what it currently can do.

 

[AppliedMicro]

The A15 has the exact same graphics and CPU cores found in the M2. The only things you miss out on from M1 and M2 Macs are external display support and Sidecar

I don‘t think that’s the only thing literally (what about USB/Thunderbolt support?) but I agree that external connectivity may be the main difference between those chips, when it comes to functionality . That is, things that won‘t work on the mini/A-series devices at all, rather than just being a bit lower clocked or measuring a little less performant. And I‘m pretty certain it that will be true for external display support.

As much as I‘d personally love to buy an iPad mini, dock it and „extend the stage“ on a 4K or 6K display in stage manager (rather than just mirroring), I don‘t think it‘s going to happen.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I don‘t think that’s the only thing literally (what about USB/Thunderbolt support?) but I agree that external connectivity may be the main difference between those chips, when it comes to functionality . That is, things that won‘t work on the mini/A-series devices at all, rather than just being a bit lower clocked or measuring a little less performant. And I‘m pretty certain it that will be true for external display support.

As much as I‘d personally love to buy an iPad mini, dock it and „extend the stage“ on a 4K or 6K display in stage manager (rather than just mirroring), I don‘t think it‘s going to happen.

Thunderbolt isn't a bad point, but it's also not on the M1 iPad Air either.

And I think Apple probably figures that no one buying an iPad mini is buying it to be dock-able. I think they would more likely assume that those buying the iPad Air or either size of iPad Pro are way more likely to do so for that reason. Then again, it's kind of wild to me that serious overhauls to iPadOS's UI were only considered for the larger iPad - as though to further fragment the mini away from the user experience that the larger iPads (9th/10th Generation iPad excluded, but only insofar as it's a base model and probably not being sold to folks that need that functionality).

 

[geta]

The only thing the Mini 6 missing is more RAM, 8GB would be perfect.

 

[davidbf1]

After many “full sized” iPads, & then iPad Pros etc (10.5”, 11”, 12.9”, back to a 11”iPP currently and looking to replace it with a 12.9” again!), I bought the Mini 6 at the end of 2021 on a bit of a whim, and it’s great for ad-hoc stuff. I still use my 11” iPP 80% of the time, but expect the mini will be a better complement to a 12.9” again which I’m planning on picking up in the next month or so, and selling-on the 11”.
Only thing I’d like to see in an updated version, is slightly smaller bezels on the screen. Seems to have plenty enough power for what I use it for - web, emails, apple notes app and the “jelly-scroll” effect whilst there, isn’t really that much of a problem for me since I’m not scrolling up & down rapidly.
Great device for [leisure] travelling with where the 11” or 12.9” would be a bit less “packable”.
Would LOVE a magic Keyboard for it, as I don’t mind typing on smaller keyboards, but doubt it will ever come from Apple.

 

[rui no onna]

You won't really need it. The A15 has the exact same graphics and CPU cores found in the M2. The only things you miss out on from M1 and M2 Macs are external display support and Sidecar; both of which are things that aren't really geared for the kinds of customers that the mini is marketed to.

Iirc, the A15 has fewer CPU and GPU cores.

I get stutters in Art of War: Legions on the iPad mini 6 that I don't get on the M1 Air 5/Pro (particularly with screen recording on) so I'll disagree on not needing more performance/RAM for gaming.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Iirc, the A15 has fewer CPU and GPU cores.

Apologies, I wasn't clear in what I said. They are the SAME cores (Avalanche and Blizzard), NOT the same amount of cores.

I get stutters in Art of War: Legions on the iPad mini 6 that I don't get on the M1 Air 5/Pro (particularly with screen recording on) so I'll disagree on not needing more performance/RAM for gaming.

Is that a particularly high-end game? I'm not familiar with it (more of a Hearthstone and Marvel SNAP guy, myself). Could be a case of the developer not optimizing for something that isn't an M1 or M2.

 

[rui no onna]

Apologies, I wasn't clear in what I said. They are the SAME cores (Avalanche and Blizzard), NOT the same amount of cores.

I know they use the same cores but the number of cores matter with certain tasks.

Is that a particularly high-end game? I'm not familiar with it (more of a Hearthstone and Marvel SNAP guy, myself). Could be a case of the developer not optimizing for something that isn't an M1 or M2.

Strategy game. Primitive graphics but there's usually 500-800 troops onscreen.

I don't play Civ 6 but I'm guessing that benefits from M1/M2 and extra RAM, too.