The seventh generation Apple’s smallest iPad is finally here, three years after its last update. There was no fancy pre-recorded or live event: the company quietly announced the new tablet through its online writing. The main feature that this device encapsulates? Apple Intelligence. Apple’s AI features are not yet available for the iPhone 16, but they will arrive this month via iOS 18.1.
Starting at $499 for the base model, the seventh-generation iPad Mini has the same chassis as its predecessor, but with a few upgrades including a new processor, support for Apple Intelligence, and double the storage. It also works with the latest Apple Pencil Pro. It is available to reserve now and ships on October 23rd.
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It’s what’s inside
The sixth-generation iPad Mini received a major facelift in 2021, so it’s no surprise that Apple has kept the same external features in this version. This tablet includes an 8.3-inch LCD display, slim bezels, a 12-megapixel selfie camera, and a USB-C port (now with 10Gbps data transfer speeds). The rear camera has a 12-megapixel sensor with support for Smart HDR 4, an updated image processing algorithm with the ability to detect and scan documents from the Camera app (a feature we saw introduced in May with the M4-powered iPad Pro). .
The most significant changes are inside. Apple upgraded the A15 processor (the chipset inside the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro models) to an A17 Pro, the same one found in the iPhone 15 Pro. With a six-core CPU, the company claims it offers an increase in 30 percent in CPU performance, while the five-core GPU offers a 25 percent increase compared to the previous model. Meanwhile, the neural motor is twice as fast.
Placing this chip inside the iPad Mini means it can support Apple Intelligence, a set of artificial intelligence tools coming in iOS 18.1. This makes the iPad Mini the cheapest tablet in the line that has these features. Other supported models include the 5th generation iPad Air M1, 6th generation iPad Air M2, 5th generation iPad Pro M1, 6th generation iPad Pro M2, and 7th generation iPad Pro M4.