The 2024 iPad mini — Scott Smith

Here come all the click-bait hot takes about the latest iPad mini update. Complaints about missing features, the mistakes Apple made, and what they should have done differently. My wish is that someday, people will figure out that Apple is a trillion dollar company that knows what it’s doing.

The iPad mini is not a big seller. Take a look at the MacRumors Buyer’s Guide and it’s pretty clear that Apple doesn’t see it as a priority product. Is it important to the overall lineup? It must be if we’re still getting updates. But since September of 2016, the timeline for releases has looked like this:

September 2016
March 2019 (922 days)
September 2021 (911 days)
October 2024 (1,127 days)

In fact, the September 2021 update was a surprise because not only had there been rumors that it was going to be killed off, but we ended up getting a full redesign akin to the iPad Air; an all-screen design with USB-C and Touch ID in the lock button.

So here we are, getting a nice update over a thousand days later, forced to wade through a bunch of click-bait headlines trying to convince us it’s crap.

Want to know why the iPad mini got an update in 2024? Apple Intelligence. Full stop.

Apple knows that, at this point, a $499 product needs to support this new AI toolset. I wouldn’t expect the entry-level $349 iPad to be that advanced yet. But the iPad mini slots above that device in terms of capabilities, sitting in the lineup as sort of a small iPad Air, a device that is currently running a Mac chip (M2). There were only two options for the iPad mini: kill it or update it to run Apple Intelligence. I’m glad Apple chose the latter.

That fact that it’s now running the A17 Pro from last year’s iPhone 15 Pro is a bit of a surprise, only because it seemed like Apple was ready to move on from that chip process. I figured the A18 from this year’s iPhone 16 would have made more sense, but I’m sure demand dictated that decision.

But instead of just cramming a new chip in there, they also added a bunch of quality-of-life improvements: WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, faster USB-C, Apple Pencil Pro support, and some camera upgrades for people who still insist on taking photos with an iPad. They even increased the base storage from 64GB to 128GB while keeping the same starting price, and added a new 512GB option.

Yes, I’m disappointed in the colors (why no Space Black?), especially after seeing the crazy vibrant iPhone 16 colors, but they’re not that bad.

We’re on familiar ground here. Apple pundits expect to be wowed every time the company makes a move, and anything short of revolutionary must be a flop. Meanwhile, devices are lasting longer than ever and Apple is doing what they always do: ensuring that, when someone is ready to upgrade a device, there’s a better version available to them. If you have an iPad mini from 2021, you probably don’t need to upgrade, and that’s great. That device will serve you well for at least another three to four years. Even if you have an iPad mini from 2019, you can still upgrade to iOS 18 and enjoy a lot of the new features minus Apple Intelligence.

But if you really want the latest and greatest or you don’t have an iPad mini and you’ve always been tempted by it, this is a great time to get one. It’s a fantastic little device for reading books and articles, writing with Apple Pencil, watching videos, or using FaceTime.

Just try to ignore the click-bait.