Who is Apple’s new iPad mini even for?

There’s finally a new iPad mini shipping out later this month, and it’s been a long time coming — the last one launched all the way back in September 2021. In fact, the mini has been on a slow update cycle for a while now, with the iteration before 2021 having shipped in 2019. Even today’s new hardware is only a minor update, the only meaningful enhancements being an A17 Pro chip — the same one used in the iPhone 15 Pro — and support for the Apple Pencil Pro. Apple brags about Apple Intelligence, but that’s software, and won’t even come to the mini (or other iPads) until supposedly the end of October.

So, what’s Apple trying to achieve with the new mini, then? Who is it for? It seems to me that, while there are some niche cases for buying one, Apple is otherwise stranding the device in a middleground. It almost feels like it exists solely to push people towards an iPad Air or iPad Pro, which I’ll explain more about below.

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Middling specs, middling value

Playing catch-up with other iPads

Apple

Don’t get me wrong — if you’ve never owned an iPad before, or you’re upgrading from a much older model, there’s a lot to look forward to with the new mini. The A17 Pro remains very capable when it comes to media and gaming, and we’re still talking about an 8.3-inch tablet with access to most of the apps available on the App Store.

Let’s hone in on “most,” though. Once again, the mini is saddled with an A-series iPhone processor, rather than one of the M-series chips used in Macs and more expensive iPads. Some iPad apps now require (or effectively require) an M-series chip — so while you might be able to play a detailed 3D game like Resident Evil 8 on a mini, don’t expect to be doing much in the way of professional audio or video editing. You also can’t push Stage Manager windows to an external display without an M-series iPad, so you can forget about using a mini to anchor a desktop setup.

What’s particularly crazy is how Apple decided to go with the A17 Pro instead of the A18. Even the base iPhone 16 uses an A18 chip, which suggests that the company doesn’t consider the mini important, or that compromises were needed to keep the mini’s starting price at $499. That’s not even addressing the complaints about all of Apple’s non-Pro iPads, such as their using Touch ID instead of Face ID, and sporting 60Hz LCD panels when it’s common for Android and Windows tablets to offer smoother refresh rates and/or OLED. Samsung’s budget Galaxy Tab A9+ offers 90Hz.

Effectively, Apple has upgraded the mini just enough to keep it relevant, but crippled it strategically so that people will naturally gravitate towards spending $100 extra on an iPad Air. The Air gets you an M2 chip and a much larger 11-inch display. It’s a tablet you can run pro apps on, including enough screen space that multitasking actually makes sense.

iPad mini (7th-gen)

Storage

128GB, 256GB, 512GB

Operating System

iPadOS 18

Ports

USB-C (10Gbps)

Display type

8.3-inch 2266 x 1488 LCD

Price

$500, $600, $800

Connectivity

Wi-Fi 6E, optional cellular 5G

Colors

Space gray, starlight, purple, blue

Weight

0.65lbs (293g) Wi-Fi, 0.66lbs (297g) Cellular

SoC

Apple A17 Pro

Front Camera

12-megapixel ultra-wide

Rear Camera

12-megapixel wide

Dimensions

7.69 x 5.3 x 0.25-inches (195.4 x 134.8 x 6.3mm)

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So, who should actually buy the iPad mini 7?

It’s the most niche of iPads

Pocket-lint / Apple

The most fitting customer for the new mini is someone who has casual needs and values portability above everything else. A mini is an excellent travel device — it’s reasonably sized for reading a book, watching a movie, or even playing a game, yet it creates fewer problems than other iPads when it comes to packing or making it through security screening. A 13-inch iPad Pro can be tough to fit on a seat tray, never mind trying to pull it out of your carry-on bag when there are 50 other people behind you in the TSA line.

Speaking of flying, I do know that minis are popular with pilots, since it’s a lot easier to use them in the cockpit when browsing maps and other technical data. They tend to show up in other roaming workplaces as well, such as hospitals. But of course, those are niche circumstances — buyers there have very specific requirements, and they’re not who Apple caters to in its marketing or at Apple Stores.

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I could see the new mini gaining traction with artists and fans of handwritten notes. The mini’s size is more amenable to sketching on the go, since you can just jam it in your sling or backpack and draw without always having to have a flat surface to rest things on.

Getting the most out of that depends on buying an Apple Pencil Pro, however, and people with serious illustration and note-taking demands are still going to want an Air, if not a Pro. The mini’s 8.3-inches doesn’t offer much of a canvas, and there’s no Smart Connector for docking a keyboard — that means you have to use something with Bluetooth or USB-C, both of which are less convenient.

The mini definitely needs to be rethought

Apple needs to stop treating small devices like an afterthought

Apple / Pocket-lint

It’s easy to imagine a version of the new mini that’s a force of nature — giving it a matte OLED screen would make it undeniable as an art and note-taking tool, and dramatically improve its value as an e-reader and travel companion. You’d be able to read in direct sunlight while worrying less about battery life on long flights.

While that’s probably not realistic given what Apple charges for the OLED tech in the iPad Pro, an M-series chip and a Smart Connector should’ve been de facto for the mini’s seventh generation. How do you explain to a newcomer that Apple’s latest mini can’t run everything in the App Store, or every iPadOS feature? Or that there’s no Magic Keyboard for it? Being a tech journalist, I would’ve loved having something I could take anywhere and still get real work done.

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Perhaps we’re lucky to still have an iPad mini at all. iPad sales haven’t been setting the roof on fire in recent quarters, since people hold onto them for many years at a time, and there’s little compelling reason to buy one over a Mac. Buyers seem to prefer larger screens, too. The last mini iPhone was 2021’s iPhone 13 mini — sales were poor, and since then Apple has actually gone in the opposite direction, replacing mini options with over-sized Plus versions.