iPad mini Why did Apple ditch silver?

[James Godfrey]

What is everyone’s thoughts on potentially why Apple ditched silver???

I have a feeling, that due to the pandemic and supply constraints, Apple decided to combine their gold and silver colours into one colour to ensure supplies can be met in all colour options.

Either that or they have decided to only keep silver for their pro devices moving forward… however, this seems odd as the iMac was launched in Silver and not starlight earlier this year…

What is everyone’s thoughts?

 

[QCassidy352]

I have no idea why Apple does what they do with respect to colors. The only things that are consistent are that they (1) usually have a dark neutral color (though that’s not true of the M1 iMacs) and a light neutral color, and (2) keep changing the options. Other than that, there’s not much rhyme or reason that I can discern.

 

[Yr Blues]

Starlight looks good with black (which is what I ordered).

 

[PieTunes]

It seems to me that Apple is going to the point where the classic silver is going to be reserved for their higher end devices, like anything with Pro in the name. Might take a couple years for the transition to complete. I’ll bet the 10th generation iPad will come in Midnight and Starlight, with those colors replacing space gray and silver. Also when the 5th generation iPad Air comes out.

 

[PieTunes]

I like how starlight looks on the new mini. I ordered mine in space gray but when I pick it up from Apple next Friday I’m anxious to see how starlight looks in person.

 

[ZMacintosh]

It’s clear there is no internal communication or alignment amongst teams seeing as how there various arrays of what spacey grey and silver are. Looking at the silver iPad pros compared to previous silver iPads it’s clearly different.

Silver/white and black/silver (or space grey) should be base models, then they can offer multi choice colors like they used to with the iPods series. Can’t imagine it’s terrible difficult for them

 

[profets]

Well, its not specific to iPad mini, but I'd just venture a guess starlight and midnight are new 'standard' colour options for base devices (non pro) for this year's devices.

Will be interesting to see if they stick around in future years or not.

 

[Richard8655]

I see silver still with the new 9th generation at least. Starlight seems the closest to it. I think they're trying to be hip with these colors.

 

[*~Kim~*]

I don’t think they’re reserving Silver as premium, otherwise they’d have ditched it on the base iPad instead of the Gold

 

[usagora]

I'm not sure what you mean. I just looked on Apple's website and every iPad except the Mini is offered in Silver ?‍♂️

 

[Danoc]

Apple has been very confusing with its grey / black color for years, making it different at every iteration. Apple has now decided to be confusing with silver as well.

 

[Yr Blues]

Apple has been very confusing with its grey / black color for years, making it different at every iteration. Apple has now decided to be confusing with silver as well.

Apple should have black and silver as a basic color and experiment with all the rest.

Space Gray only looked cool on the trashcan Mac.

 

[*~Kim~*]

To be fair they’ve been confusing with Gold as well (though consistent since the 6th Gen.) The Gold on the iPhone 5s seemed to be unique to that and there was at least one shade used in between. Then all the Golds on the iPhone line since they killed Rose Gold.

Which brings me to the pink. It looks to me to be less pink than the Air 4 Rose Gold, which I’m sure I’ve heard it said was less pink than the Rose Gold on the 1st and 2nd Gen Pros. Time will tell, but I’m getting tempted to order the purple.

 

[Homme]

Apple is going to the point where the classic silver is going to be reserved for their higher end devices

iPad 9 which is cheaper than Mini 6 says hi

 

[PieTunes]

iPad 9 which is cheaper than Mini 6 says hi

Are you one of those people who stops reading at the first period you come across?

 

[PieTunes]

I don’t think they’re reserving Silver as premium, otherwise they’d have ditched it on the base iPad instead of the Gold

It's just a somewhat educated guess. It's why I said I think it might take a year or so for them to finish it across their product lines. With the base iPad being a big seller to them, maybe they don't want to have too strong of a shock to their customers this here.

Plus, the iPad is the exact same chassis as last year so they could just be finishing out whatever stock they have in their production cycle until they go to starlight (and maybe midnight) with next year's base iPad. The 6th gen mini is a new chassis design that they built from scratch they probably never even started making them in silver.

Didn't the series 7 AW go with a smoother/rounder body compared to the 6? "...an innovative design that maximizes the screen area while minimally changing the dimensions of the overall case size..." is what they say. If the chassis was changed slightly, then they would have had to make new ones and went with starlight, and ditched silver because they couldn't keep using the series 6 cases they've already made.

Again, all just speculation and conjecture. I sincerely hope they don't completely get rid of silver, it's been my color preference for my devices since day one. But why else would they ditch the long time "base" color that gives their stuff the classic Apple aesthetic, just for one year, only to go back to it later? That wouldn't make sense.