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Upcoming iPad Mini 5

Hater said:
god you English are a bunch of miserable sods.

They were hella quiet about the Mini 4, loads of people said it was going to be axed after the 3.
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Nobody credible said that. We all knew the iPad mini 4 was coming. In 2015, Kuo predicted it would be similar to iPad Air 2.

Kuo has now stated Apple has no "no further plans" for iPad mini.

  • iPad mini: Nov. 2012
  • iPad mini 2: Nov. 2013
  • iPad mini 3: Oct. 2014
  • iPad mini 4: Sept. 2015

It's now three years since the iPad mini 4. And before somebody conflates the iPad mini with the Mac mini or iPod, understand the replacement cycle for a tablet is much shorter than a desktop computer or a media player.
 
JPack said:
It's now three years since the iPad mini 4. And before somebody conflates the iPad mini with the Mac mini or iPod, understand the replacement cycle for a tablet is much shorter than a desktop computer or a media player.
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Why do you say that? What about tablets require them to be updated more often than a Mac mini or an iPod? People update devices often because they want to, not because their devices stop working after a year or two. People used to update iPods yearly. Eventually certain products lose popularity, and/or Apple chooses to push other products, so those products fall to the side, just like the Mac mini and iPod have. It’s possible the iPad mini has followed that same path. Who knows.
 
subjonas said:
Why do you say that? What about tablets require them to be updated more often than a Mac mini or an iPod? People update devices often because they want to, not because their devices stop working after a year or two. People used to update iPods yearly. Eventually certain products lose popularity, and/or Apple chooses to push other products, so those products fall to the side, just like the Mac mini and iPod have. It’s possible the iPad mini has followed that same path. Who knows.
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Tablets are portable devices and are far more likely to be dropped, water damaged, stolen, etc. There's an entire insurance industry that serves smartphones and tablets. The performance of iPad increases 25-50% each year. Compare that to x86 where we see 5-10% each generation. Furthermore, latest versions of iOS only run on relatively new devices. ARKit requires A9 and newer.

Mac mini and desktop computers have a much longer upgrade cycle. A $699 Mac mini purchased in 2014 comes with 8GB RAM and a Haswell processor. High Sierra runs on Macs as old as 2009. According to Intel, the PC upgrade cycle is 5 to 6 years.

The iPod is obviously being cannibalized by iPhone but Apple still manufactures the iPod as a $199 gateway to the App Store.

Some people think Apple could wait 3-4 years before updating the mini. Given the replacement cycle of tablets, that theory doesn't stick. If Apple wanted to update the iPad mini, we would have seen a new version by 2016 or 2017 at the very latest.
 
Richard8655 said:
I don’t think it’s as easy as simply swapping components. For example, more powerful chips and more RAM requires more power and that impacts power management and battery capability. Changing a single component can have a chain reaction effect in the hardware architecture, along with significant impact on software and other hardware components.
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That is not true about more power needed since the A8 is a 20nm thickness and the A11 is 12nm thickness. Power is cut by 60% and the new LPDDR4 takes much less power then the LPDDR3 RAM! It Apple kept the same battery which is old technology; it would last at least a hour more then the current Mini 4! If Apple decide to update the battery to current lithium battery technology it will be at least 20% more efficient too!
 
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JPack said:
Tablets are portable devices and are far more likely to be dropped, water damaged, stolen, etc. There's an entire insurance industry that serves smartphones and tablets. The performance of iPad increases 25-50% each year. Compare that to x86 where we see 5-10% each generation. Furthermore, latest versions of iOS only run on relatively new devices. ARKit requires A9 and newer.

Mac mini and desktop computers have a much longer upgrade cycle. A $699 Mac mini purchased in 2014 comes with 8GB RAM and a Haswell processor. High Sierra runs on Macs as old as 2009. According to Intel, the PC upgrade cycle is 5 to 6 years.

The iPod is obviously being cannibalized by iPhone but Apple still manufactures the iPod as a $199 gateway to the App Store.

Some people think Apple could wait 3-4 years before updating the mini. Given the replacement cycle of tablets, that theory doesn't stick. If Apple wanted to update the iPad mini, we would have seen a new version by 2016 or 2017 at the very latest.
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Breakage and bigger speed increases might be somewhat logical reasons for more frequent updates, but those aren’t the main reasons Apple updates. Really it just comes down to popularity and strategy.

The reasons you listed apply to the iPod Touch as well yet it’s not updated regularly, because it’s not popular/strategic enough to do so.

Apple used to update Macs multiple times a year with little speed increase, back when they made up more of apple’s revenue. And recently, there have been long droughts with no Mac updates even when there could have been significant performance increases, because it wasn’t strategic enough for Apple to do so.

Point being, Apple can neglect a device that has good reason to be updated, and they can update devices that don’t really need to be updated. They do whatever they want. There are no rules except their own.
Well there is one rule. Obviously Apple can’t let the iPad mini sit in the store forever. It will eventually stop working with iOS updates. But the mini 4 works well now, and with iOS 12 it will continue to do so for at least another year.
 
subjonas said:
Point being, Apple can neglect a device that has good reason to be updated, and they can update devices that don’t really need to be updated. They do whatever they want. There are no rules except their own.
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More to the point - there exists no viable competition to the iPad mini in the premium 7-8" sized tablet market. Without such competition, Apple can continue to maintain current pricing + performance.

Both serious competition and a sizable market share [to lose] would be required to force Apple to make a change, otherwise they will continue to profit even with the outdated iPad mini 4...
 
HarryWild said:
That is not true about more power needed since the A8 is a 20nm thickness and the A11 is 12nm thickness. Power is cut by 60% and the new LPDDR4 takes much less power then the LPDDR3 RAM! It Apple kept the same battery which is old technology; it would last at least a hour more then the current Mini 4! If Apple decide to update the battery to current lithium battery technology it will be at least 20% more efficient too!
Click to expand...

You miss the original point. You just can’t swap in a new processor and RAM and “call it a day” as you put it. That’s pretty simplistic. No matter how the power requirements change, such major modifications impact the entire system and architecture. It’s not so easy for Apple to make component changes in an existing system so closely intergrated as you may think.
 
masotime said:
More to the point - there exists no viable competition to the iPad mini in the premium 7-8" sized tablet market. Without such competition, Apple can continue to maintain current pricing + performance.

Both serious competition and a sizable market share [to lose] would be required to force Apple to make a change, otherwise they will continue to profit even with the outdated iPad mini 4...
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There’s that too.
 
I still love my mini and will continue to use it, but I really wish they would update it. I'm leaning towards an iPad pro right now as a different device for a change. I'll still keep my current mini. Trade in is only $55 and it's worth more to me to keep it than that.
 
judyg951 said:
I still love my mini and will continue to use it, but I really wish they would update it. I'm leaning towards an iPad pro right now as a different device for a change. I'll still keep my current mini. Trade in is only $55 and it's worth more to me to keep it than that.
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I'm hanging onto my mini2 for as long as it lives. iOS12 breathed some new life into it. It's developing an intermittent problem where I get flickering at the bottom, but it comes and goes.

I think the only iPad replacement I buy would be a 7.9inch sized iPad with Pencil support. Otherwise, I'll hang on with the mini2.
 
Boyd01 said:
Really? Then what does this mean? Were they just statiing the current line-up?

7:45 am All-new iPad Pro, that "is gonna push what you can do on iPad or on any computer even further."
7:44 am Today, iPad Mini, iPad, iPad Pro.
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I don't know what that means. I only know what they announced.... which was that the 10.5 Pro and the Mini 4 would continue to be sold and no new Mini was announced.
 
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It's kind of looming there like the iPod Touch. They weren't updated but they weren't dropped either. I thought they'd kill the iPod Touch. I thought the Mini was getting an update, but it didn't.
 
Boyd01 said:
Well, to be fair....

https://www.macrumors.com/2018/10/23/kuo-october-event-ipad-mini-refresh/

"Kuo does not know, however, if Apple will announce it during the media event or launch it sometime later in the year/early next year"
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Yeah but if what he says is true it will be a screen downgrade, with a proc upgrade. Don't know if this will be a net good or a net bad upgrade. They really should go all in with thin bezels and pencil support, but I doubt they will. I don't think a proc upgrade will persuade me to upgrade as my mini 4 is plenty fast on ios12.
 
Mini 4 was mentioned my name during the event. Seems like my guess was right? No mini 5. Even though the mini 4 runs fine on iOS 12, it will start to seem slow if used with a much newer device.
 
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As soon as they mentioned the 'mini 4' it was obviously not being updated.

But...Tim referred to the 'iPad mini' and the 'iPad' as the 'cheaper' options. This means that the time to update it would be March alongside the iPad 2019.

For the first time, I'm probably leaning more towards it now being updated in March than it being discontinued. They mentioned it more than once this event, which is more attention than its got in a long time, even if it hasn't been updated yet.
 
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007p said:
As soon as they mentioned the 'mini 4' it was obviously not being updated.

But...Tim referred to the 'iPad mini' and the 'iPad' as the 'cheaper' options. This means that the time to update it would be March alongside the iPad 2019.

For the first time, I'm probably leaning more towards it now being updated in March than it being discontinued. They mentioned it more than once this event, which is more attention than its got in a long time, even if it hasn't been updated yet.
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That would be nice if they settled in on updating the Pro line in Oct and entry line on March. Leaving everyone to guess is not helpful for customers in planning.
 
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I think Apple is being smart not releasing a new mini right now... it'll definitely hurt sales for the new iPad pro esp if it support pencil. would love a new mini though. i notice they are super slow in update any mini- mac mini, ipad mini.......
 
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