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EnigmaticZee

macrumors regular
May 31, 2022
113
132
Lalaland



Don't get the iPad Mini 6 lol, it's an awful product. Bad UI scaling and terrible screen with jelly issues, surprised it even made it past Apple's QA, as a company who loves to overly obsess over tiny details.

Your personal opinion and that is entirely fine. I absolutely love mini. I wouldn’t trade it with a bigger iPad even if someone offered it to me for free. iPad mini is just what I wanted and perfectly fits into my life.
 
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The Game 161

macrumors Nehalem
Dec 15, 2010
30,980
20,169
UK
The mini is for portable consumption, not productivity.
About right

mini is more for convenience be able to use apps and media on a screen you can hold with one hand. It’s mainly why I’m tempted to get one even with 60hz screen. For what i plan to use it for it wont Matter too much
 

Zdigital2015

macrumors 601
Jul 14, 2015
4,143
5,622
East Coast, United States
I’ve been hanging on to my iPad mini 4 through the mini 5 update and thought about the mini 6, but at this point I think I’ve outgrown my need for the mini size. The jelly screen issue on the 6 doesn’t bother me as much the UI scaling does.

I would have to argue that Stage Manager really isn’t suited to the smaller display at all and the percentage of users who want a mini just to hook to a display and use Stage Manager is an incredibly small slice of an already small pie and Apple sees it as an extreme edge case. In other words, it isn’t likely to happen any time soon.
 

profets

macrumors 603
Mar 18, 2009
5,165
6,313
Some reviewers are complaining the 11” screen is too small for stage manager…

I'm using stage manager on a 12.9", and it feels quite comfortable and looks well balanced. I can't really picture it on the 11", and I really can't imagine it at all on the mini screen.
 
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MiniApple

macrumors 6502
Sep 3, 2020
361
462
Regarding Stage Manager, I think there are 2 kind of people, those who wanted better iPad multitasking and those who wanted extended display support (and sure many wanted both, but most probably wanted one feature more than the other). Personally I don't particularly like Stage Manager for multitasking on the iPad. A better split screen (like Samsung does) would have been a better solution for me. However I am in the camp of external display support and I am taking any kind of desktop mode, as long as it's possible to extend the display...
And honestly for extended display any USB C device could have been supported if they reduced the number of active apps on non M1 iPads. But they decided to set the bar very high and make no lite version for non M1 devices. This has a negative impact on the value of older devices (people will upgrade sooner, especially once M2 is out later this year, flooding the market with used 2018 and 2020 pros) and may impact sales of the minis for those wanting this feature (and will reduce the value if a new mini gets M1 next year, which however I doubt will happen)

Good summary.

I'm in the "just give me better external display support" camp. Don't really care about the other feautures, but don't mind them.

Shame they can't or don't want to enable better external display support however - even if it would be with less open apps/slower speeds or just mirroring instead of extending the iPad Mini "desktop".

Finally got to hold a Mini 6 in my hand last week is not very comfortable to hold (sharper edges) vs the Mini 5 (rounded edges).

I'll stick with Mini 5 if I can't sell it for a good price and hope for a future refresh which enables this function (and at least slight redesign to make it more comfortable again).
 
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LibbyLA

macrumors 6502a
Jun 16, 2017
825
857
Cool, thanks for the update. I had to return mine, I wish I could be as content as some people on here to pay for an expensive new product and be happy keeping a flawed one.
For you it is flawed. For those of us who enjoy using ours, it isn’t. You made your decision based on your wants, needs, and standards. Those of us who love ours have different wants, needs, and standards. Look down your nose and be judgmental all you want to but we’re grownups and we’re spending our money, not yours.
 

GhostOS

macrumors regular
Mar 25, 2022
110
386
For you it is flawed. For those of us who enjoy using ours, it isn’t. You made your decision based on your wants, needs, and standards. Those of us who love ours have different wants, needs, and standards. Look down your nose and be judgmental all you want to but we’re grownups and we’re spending our money, not yours.
Ok, I’m happy that you have found it to work great for you. Didn’t mean to cause any offence, was just describing my personal opinion about it.

No one is looking down on anyone here, it’s a free market economy. Have a nice day.
 
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Digitalguy

macrumors 601
Apr 15, 2019
4,643
4,469
Good summary.

I'm in the "just give me better external display support" camp. Don't really care about the other feautures, but don't mind them.

Shame they can't or don't want to enable better external display support however - even if it would be with less open apps/slower speeds or just mirroring instead of extending the iPad Mini "desktop".

Finally got to hold a Mini 6 in my hand last week is not very comfortable to hold (sharper edges) vs the Mini 5 (rounded edges).

I'll stick with Mini 5 if I can't sell it for a good price and hope for a future refresh which enables this function (and at least slight redesign to make it more comfortable again).
My mini 5 is not my main iPad (the 12.9 is) but I really like it, especially for use in bed and the occasional note taking. I feel no need to replace it with a mini 6. Sure USB C and pencil 2 are nice, but performance is still great on the mini 5 and I prefer the older smart cover. I have no intention of selling it and will probably keep it for several years (for my use, it will be fine until the battery is decent). I doubt the mini will be redesigned again for a while. I'll upgrade when the mini gets 8GB RAM, which will probably be the mini 8 or 9. And at that point Stage Manager should be possible too.
 

mpetrides

macrumors 6502a
Feb 10, 2007
590
524
I can't wait to try Stage Manager on a 12.9 inch iPad Pro but am waiting to see what's in the pipeline before replacing my 2018 model. That said, I can't really envision a time when I'd have much use for Stage Manager on my mini 6.

The mini gets used for reading books, surfing the web, and taking handwritten notes. It's the perfect size for books (size of a trade paperback) and for taking notes (the size of a small notepad/moleskine notebook). While I do need to have a couple of apps open at the same time on the mini occasionally, the number of times I would want more than that is virtually non-existent. Furthermore, the screen size is just too small to reasonably accommodate 3 or more windows open at the same time. Sure, it would be nice to have the option to run Stage Manager but I certainly don't feel my mini 6 is crippled by never being able to do so. As always, YMMV.
 
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ian87w

macrumors G3
Feb 22, 2020
8,704
12,638
Indonesia
I believe the mini will continue sporting A series chips instead of M series. With the rumored design change of the base iPad, imo the mini will be downgraded to be the smaller version of the basic iPad instead of the iPad Air.

The current M2 chip is already pushing the ceiling of 5nm fabrication. Its efficiency is probably not a good match for the iPad mini. It’s probably easier for Apple to just upscale the A series for the mini instead of trying to optimize the M series for the smaller form factor.
 
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iPadLoverrr

Suspended
Jul 10, 2022
8
1
But I don't think that's what's happening here. It sounds like Stage Manager is over-engineered to require a what an M1 brings to the table. And if that was not the only way to get desktop class multi-tasking on the iPad (in the way that it is not the only way to get desktop class multi-tasking on the Mac), I'd chalk it up to being a higher-end feature that finally utilizes the M1 being in an iPad. But the fact that the only way that we can get true multi-tasking on an iPad is with something like Stage Manager and that Stage Manager REQUIRES an SoC faster than the A12X and A12Z which already were faster than Intel MacBook Airs and Intel 13" MacBook Pros (that can also handle stage manager) makes no real sense.

Not to deffend Apple or anything, but I think it might be different Chip architectures that allow stage manager on one versus the other. It might not be related to procesor speed, but other acompaniing features the SOC has
 

iPadLoverrr

Suspended
Jul 10, 2022
8
1
Regarding Stage Manager, I think there are 2 kind of people, those who wanted better iPad multitasking and those who wanted extended display support (and sure many wanted both, but most probably wanted one feature more than the other). Personally I don't particularly like Stage Manager for multitasking on the iPad. A better split screen (like Samsung does) would have been a better solution for me. However I am in the camp of external display support and I am taking any kind of desktop mode, as long as it's possible to extend the display...
And honestly for extended display any USB C device could have been supported if they reduced the number of active apps on non M1 iPads. But they decided to set the bar very high and make no lite version for non M1 devices. This has a negative impact on the value of older devices (people will upgrade sooner, especially once M2 is out later this year, flooding the market with used 2018 and 2020 pros) and may impact sales of the minis for those wanting this feature (and will reduce the value if a new mini gets M1 next year, which however I doubt will happen)
I am curious, how would you splinscreen on a large 27“ external display? this doesnt make much sence in my mind, and I would rather have windowed environment on an external screen, and splintscreen on ipad *as windows on ipad also dont work, since the screen realestate is too small
 

iPadLoverrr

Suspended
Jul 10, 2022
8
1
I also don't buy that an iPad mini shouldn't be able to have multi-tasking. Maybe not in the form of Stage Manager, but in SOME KIND OF UI. Hell, all of the iPhones should have it. It's a feature that Android has had with phones and tablets for years now.

Wait does mini not have multitasking? Most people here very wrongly call windwos multitasking, while real multitasking is splitscreen and slideover. So, I am not sure what you are refering to here… I dont know why people asociate multitasking with windows environment, its like they are used to old ways and dont see forest from the trees… Multitasking means multiple apps at once - or even fast switching. In a way multitasking was possible on iphone since iOS5 that first enabled background apps - so you could switch quicly form one to another - and - Multitask. On iPad this is realised on an even higher level by usage of Splitscreen and Slideover, which are Windows10 grade multitasking tools *(many people use windows 10 exactly like you would use splitscreen / fulscreen apps on ipad), with cmd+tab, like you do on the ipad. And the newest addition to multitasking is StageManager, which is a great tool especially on external screens, but is by no means the first occurance of multitasking on iPad or even iPhone.

But, to sum it up, do you mean the iPad MINI does not have splitscreen, or you dont really know what you want … 😄 jk. I am assuming ipad mini does not have splitscreen + slideover and this is what you mean… ? right?
 

iPadLoverrr

Suspended
Jul 10, 2022
8
1
It's not that people will complain no matter what, but because Apple chose the wrong thing to make M1 exclusive. It is not credible to people that something like this cannot work on slightly older chips.

Why? its about RUNNING 8 apps Simultaniously - without hickups. Why is it hard to understand this needs more power? Not everyone will want to run 8 safaris or 8 notes apps, some will want to run Cubasis Procreate Shaper3D LumaFusion Lightroom and Photoshop simultaniously in Stage Manager. How do you expect this to work? And its not the ‘Apple way‘ to make something that will work slow, or buggy or otherwise not perform in an prisefull manner. Can you run 8 Pro apps on 4Gb or ram? No. so, this is the reason, please stop complaining…. +sorry if that sounded a bit rant-y
 

mpetrides

macrumors 6502a
Feb 10, 2007
590
524
I am curious, how would you splinscreen on a large 27“ external display? this doesnt make much sence in my mind, and I would rather have windowed environment on an external screen, and splintscreen on ipad *as windows on ipad also dont work, since the screen realestate is too small
Interesting question and one which highlights the dichotomy laid out in the post you quoted—namely that some people are looking at the mini as a primary iPad they would want to use with an external display and some, like me, see the mini as a secondary iPad valued for its portability and something they will likely never dock.

And this dichotomy alone undercuts any decision to bring Stage
Manager to the mini in the near term. Why spend all that effort for a relatively niche device many (if not most) of whose users will never really benefit from it? I'm not advocating for this position, mind you, simply saying it makes sense at a time when development resources are not unlimited—what with all the other devices being migrated to Apple Silicon right now.
 
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iPadLoverrr

Suspended
Jul 10, 2022
8
1
Interesting question and one which highlights the dichotomy laid out in the post you quoted—namely that some people are looking at the mini as a primary iPad they would want to use with an external display and some, like me, see the mini as a secondary iPad valued for its portability and something they will likely never dock.

And this dichotomy alone undercuts any decision to bring Stage
Manager to the mini in the near term. Why spend all that effort for a relatively niche device many (if not most) of whose users will never really benefit from it? I'm not advocating for this position, mind you, simply saying it makes sense at a time when development resources are not unlimited—what with all the other devices being migrated to Apple Silicon right now.
I agree with you
 

Digitalguy

macrumors 601
Apr 15, 2019
4,643
4,469
I am curious, how would you splinscreen on a large 27“ external display? this doesnt make much sence in my mind, and I would rather have windowed environment on an external screen, and splintscreen on ipad *as windows on ipad also dont work, since the screen realestate is too small
What you are suggesting is exactly what I was suggesting.
You probably did not understand what I meant because you might not know how Samsung does it. On the tablet you have a much more advanced split screen system than the basic one you have on iPad (vertical and horizontal split, 3 apps splits with 2 on half of the screen, one above the other, and 1 in other half, plus a 4th in slideover, and full resizeability for all of them). While on the external display you have DEX, a system that is very similar to Windows (and actually better than MacOS without third party apps in some respects).
I know Android and Windows haters are gonna hate what I said, but I don't care. I consider those solutions better than both the iPadOS 15 and 16. Conversely I much prefer Apple's hardware.
 

iPadLoverrr

Suspended
Jul 10, 2022
8
1
I think it's credible that Stage Manager requires an M1 at minimum. What I don't think is credible is that Stage Manager is the only thing they've come up with to give the iPad desktop-class multi-tasking when (a) it ought to be possible to give the iPad desktop-class multi-tasking SOMEHOW using the A12X, A12Z, A14, or A15 at the very least, and (b) There are Intel Macs with similar RAM, storage, and processor performance that have no issue running that many apps at once. I'm not saying it's the best time, but you could take a 2015 MacBook Air with 4GB of RAM (weaker in pretty much every way compared to a fourth generation iPad Air or a sixth generation iPad mini), and load 8 apps on it simultaneously and multi-task and window manage between them using Big Sur, Catalina, or Mojave. The fact that what Apple lande with for iPad multitasking and the fact that it was so deluxe that it required an M1; that's the part that's dumb. They could've been more economical with their design objectives.

I think Steve Jobs summed it up nicely when they decided not to include Flash. He said - we only have so much engineers and we can only tackle so much issues. Thus we focus on what will bring the biggest impact across all our products.

This , to me makes a lot of sence, Apple is about focus, and focusing on the future that is.
 

LibbyLA

macrumors 6502a
Jun 16, 2017
825
857
Ok, I’m happy that you have found it to work great for you. Didn’t mean to cause any offence, was just describing my personal opinion about it.

No one is looking down on anyone here, it’s a free market economy. Have a nice day.
Oh, but you were looking now your nose at all us rubes who happen to like our Mini 6…

“I wish I could be as content as some people on here to pay for an expensive new product and be happy keeping a flawed one.”

For you, it’s flawed and not suitable for your use. Fine. It’s not the right device for you.

However, it works great for me, use mine several hours a day, along with my 2021 iPP 11.

(For me, the 12.9” would be unsuitable. It’s just way too big and I know that because I’ve downsized from devices that size and slightly smaller to 11”. However, I can appreciate that lots of people prefer the larger size, it’s just not right for me.)
 
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