What, you were thinking about downgrading? Weird.
It really does. They should have just cancelled it rather than release this phoned-in effort. Pointless.
LOL classic. Rather than just understand that there are people who have been begging Apple for an updated iPad Mini with modern specs, you’d prefer they just not put anything out. What does it hurt that they have a tablet that has bezels? It’s not like the tablet market has exploded with tons of competition. Apple is the only company that’s really taking tablets seriously. Maybe Microsoft, but that’s more at the high end.
Worst. Tablet. Ever.
As an aside, the MacRumors Forums were a riot.
“WTF! I doesn’t work with the Pencil 2?”
Me: well, they would have to redesign the logic board and the enclosure to support the inductive charging. They aren’t going to do that at this price point.
Then we would hear
“WTF! Now I need new cases and chargers. What the hell was wrong with Lighting?”
I agree with you. A lot of people wanted the mini. That said, on this one I could see a little more care since I don’t think it works with existing mini cases. Since the mini costs more than the basic iPad, it would be interesting to see if Apple raised the prices a little more but reduced the bezels and put FaceID in it.
Isn’t this called an iPhone XS Max?
There’s a fine line Apple (I think) wants to walk here. Tablets in general are not a growing market, but it feels like Apple decided they could squeeze some margin out of re-using the old Mini design. Perhaps they couldn’t be profitable if they spent a ton of money redesigning the Mini and pricing it at what they’d have to price it at.
Or perhaps they want to save the high end of the “small tablet” market for the Max line of iPhones.
I am a bit discouraged by them rolling out a new product that still has a Lightning connector. That’s one area that I think Jobs would have freaked out about - having so many different connectors for their mobile devices and accessories is just crazy. Switch it all to USB type C already! I know it means less money from MFI certification, but there’s a basic inelegance to their current plan.
It looks silly. The 10.5" iPad has thin bezels, the iPad mini looks ridiculously ancient.
I don’t have a problem with Lightning. There are a ton of people with old iPads who would freak out over having to buy a new charger, et al. Even if you can now get generic connectors on Amazon. Apple really took it on the chin with the dock-lighting connector. There would be tons of “OMG GREEDY APPLE NOW WANTS ME TO BUY WHAT???”
That said, the Mini would have been one to max out a screen size in a small form factor that can also work with the Pencil.
FTFY
:-)
Fair points, Menzo.
I do resent their lack of effort. This is Apple, a company with tremendous resources. The mini was a fabulous device in its day. After 3 years with no changes at all, and after more than 6 years using the exact same form factor, announcing a long-awaited update kindled anticipation of something great — and hope that they would perhaps redefine the category once again.
This does not do that.
One more thing: they have amortized the original design work many times over. They were already going to have to invest significantly in new internals for this upgrade. That was a perfect time to also invest in a new overall design, and target the improved innards on the new form factor rather than the old.
This is profit over product in a glaringly conservative way.
And yeah, it should have used USB-C. They are going to have to migrate everything to that. It is unavoidable (/Palpatine). Perpetuating a multi-interface mobile device strategy just prolongs the pain. Rip off the damn band-aid already.
“Guts” my ass.
Little reason to completely redesign a product that will probably never see another update after this. This is a massive upgrade as it is.
I am confused to why people are complaining about the Mini update. The regular iPad still looks like the old version with the bezels, etc as well, but people are only complaining about the Mini? It was a just speed bump for both models wasn’t it? Why is that a bad thing?
It’s hardly charity. They’re just counting on it not to matter that they didn’t go farther. Personally, I think they could have recaptured some of the original magic and marketshare of the mini if they’d thought differently.
Perhaps, but not sure they really want to for better or worse. They’d rather people buy overly large phones with massive margins. But…we see how well that is working.
No, the 10.5" model has considerably smaller bezels than the 9.7" did.
Still looks ancient compared to the 11 inch model, but not ridiculously so.
They still sell the iPad 9.7" with full bezels. Has been that way since introduced last year.
Seems pretty clear to me that the standard iPad and iPad mini are the low-end machines, still have Lightning, bezels, and only support Apple Pencil 1.
iPad Pro is the high-end machine at all sizes. Tiny bezels and FaceID.
The outlier is the new iPad Air, which is nicer than the iPad, but has smaller bezels, but also only has Lightning and Pencil 1 support. It’s a bit of a hybrid.
Well it’s clear that for Apple retooling /reengineering the casing is the expense, not the internals, so this relatively low effort upgrade is sort of painless for them.
Supposedly the Mini is popular with medical but i have no actual knowledge of this myself, just internet rumor.
I did get rid of my Ipad Air 2 for a Mini 2 and then a Mini 4 ere long years ago, and it’s been my exclusive ipad ever since.
Ahh ok, thanks. I looked at a picture of them all together and they all looked equally ancient next to the Pro.
The mini is really popular with kids, too.
It would make a great little field notebook, too.
It’s really hard to for me to dislike the Mini - it’s really the only legitimate tablet in its size range.
When it came out everyone assumed 7.9" tablets were the future - Amazon and Samsung and others came out with them, and reviewers heaped praise on the form factor.
Then phablets became “standard sized phones”, and all tablets but Apple’s died on the vine, and Apple left the Mini to rot, and suddenly no one understood why the Mini existed.
A big issue for me with tablets are when their size demands you use them as a laptop. Once i have to sit down at a desk and pull out the tablet like a laptop… i’d rather have a laptop. Or, to be honest, use the iMac I really do have (a much smaller footprint than a laptop and a much less annoying typing experience in general).
There are a ton of use cases for a Mini sized tablet, especially one with built in cellular. They’re generally just not cost efficient uses but more about convenience. But the Mini lives in my bag, lasts literally forever (even today the battery seems all but indestructible, and i never turn it off) and is smaller than any laptop.
It also has the highest dpi of any Apple device.
The black levels otoh are pretty average at this point and lacking the Apple pencil does seem like a big oversight. So having a new Mini about 3x faster than the old one with pencil support seems cool enough.
It is a tough sell tbh, when a new 256gb Mini w/ Cellular costs $650+tax and a lightly used B&H iPad Pro 11" is $800 without tax. But that’s the logic that got me to get an Air 2 and then get rid of it later.
I don’t know, I sort of agree with you, but I use my 11” Pro constantly as a laptop. And then when I just want to sit on the couch I pull it out of the keyboard cover. The 11” has been the best of both worlds for me. When I really want to something where I need a full computer I have my iMac, but the Pro really has replaced a laptop for me. I use it constantly, especially with the pencil. (Liquidtext is an awesome iPad/Pencil app.)