Earlier today, Apple updated the iPad mini to support Apple Intelligence thanks to the breakthrough A17 Pro chip along with several improvements in tech specs across the board. Furthermore, here are some of the top tidbits you may have missed.
- The A17 Pro chip that’s inside the new iPad mini is actually a binned version. The iPhone 15 Pro’s A17 Pro chip has a 6-core GPU, but the one inside the iPad mini has a 5-core GPU. This isn’t the first time that an Apple Silicon chip is downgraded in some way for an iPad mini. Similarly, the A15 chip in the iPad mini (6th generation) is downclocked to 2.92 GHz from 3.23 GHz in the iPhone 13 Pro. Both of those chips are configured with a 6-core CPU and 5-core GPU.
- The A17 Pro chip is based on the more modern 3nm architecture, so as previously promoted in the iPhone 15 Pro models, this chip will finally allow the iPad mini to support hardware-accelerated ray-tracing and mesh shading as well as AAA games, which will make the new iPad mini an excellent portable gaming console. Note that this may be a slight advantage over the next step up, the iPad Air (M2), which doesn’t support those graphics improvements as that chip is based on an older architecture (5nm), but it can still support AAA games.
- The USB-C port inside the new iPad mini can now support USB 3 Gen 2 speeds (up to 10Gb/s), similar to that of the latest iPad Air and iPhone Pro models. This is a huge improvement over the previous generation, which supported up to Gen 1 speeds (up to 5Gb/s).
- Although the front and rear cameras remained unchanged in terms of specifications, it is now upgraded with Smart HDR 4 for photos (compared to Smart HDR 3 in the previous generation). This is now in line with both the iPad Air (M2) and iPad Pro (M4) that were introduced earlier this year.
- Speaking of the front camera, that camera remained in the same location as in the previous generation, unlike the rest of the iPad lineup where those cameras moved to the landscape side. In other words, the front camera on the new iPad mini is still on the portrait side. It’s most likely that the iPad mini is often used in portrait orientation most of the time and the iPad mini has never had a Smart Connector, hence a Magic Keyboard accessory where it would be docked in landscape mode. So there’s no need to move the camera to the other side.
- Following suit of the latest iPad Air and iPad Pro, the cellular models of the iPad mini eliminated the physical SIM slot, so those models are fully eSIM supported, which continues the transition from Nano-SIM to eSIM. So keep this in mind if you’re planning to switch SIMs for traveling.
- If you look at the iPad mini’s product page, you’ll see that the back of the iPad mini now says “iPad mini” as opposed to just “iPad” in the previous generation. This trend was introduced back in March 2022 with the iPad Air (M1) where the back of the iPad says “iPad” along with its corresponding moniker.
- The new iPad mini now supports Apple Pencil Hover when used with either the Apple Pencil Pro or Apple Pencil (USB-C). That feature was introduced in the iPad Pro (M2), and it carried over to the iPad Air (M2).
- Following suit of the rest of the iPad lineup, the new iPad mini now includes a braided USB-C cable for improved durability.
- However, just like with the iPad Air (M2) and iPad Pro (M4), if you’re ordering an iPad mini in Europe, you won’t get a charging brick to charge directly into a wall or surge protector.
- And a bonus one, the new iPad mini will not likely include those iconic Apple stickers anymore that became a staple in Apple products’ unboxings. This is a trend that was introduced with the latest iPad Air and iPad Pro as well as the new iPhone 16 lineup. If you buy an iPad mini from an Apple Store, you may request Apple Stickers upon purchase or pickup.
So these are the top tidbits on what you should know about the iPad mini (A17 Pro), which is now made for Apple Intelligence. You can order today, and it’ll be available starting October 23. The iPad mini starts at $499 with double the base storage as before at 128GB.
