Part of me applauds a brave attempt to keep the iPad mini relevant rather than eliminating it, as has seemed plausible at various stages in the product’s history. But another party thinks Apple just responded to competition from the auto industry by building the world’s most elegant horse-drawn carriage.
As I briefly mentioned in our live blog about this week’s Apple announcements, the big problem with the iPad mini is that the ground has shifted beneath its feet. When the device came out, you could argue that it was the best way for Apple fans to watch movies and play games on the go. It was relatively cheap, portable, powerful, and above all, it offered an experience you couldn’t get with any other Apple product. But that has not been the case for some time now.
The iPad mini has many of the features of an iPhone Duo when opened.
Apple
Take the phablet, as we used to call very large smartphones before products of that form factor became normal and even expected. They threaten mini-tablets because they address the same problem in a more versatile way. Yes, an iPad mini is cheaper than an iPhone 18 Pro Max. But this last It’s also a phone. It’s more portable, more powerful, offers a very respectable 6.9-inch screen ideal for games and movies, and it’s the only mobile device you need. Why buy an iPad mini and a phone when you can have both in one package?
But this year the iPad mini situation became even more desperate with the launch of the iPhone Duo. The Duo has its problems, but beating any iPad mini head to head isn’t one of them. It’s simply better: infinitely more portable when folded, has a screen almost as big when unfolded, and much more powerful and versatile. A world that contains the iPhone Duo is not friendly to the iPad mini, which is essentially a Duo that you can’t close.
Does the A20 Pro update change the equation in any significant way? Thin is always nice, the mini needed an updated processor to be future-proof, at least, and the OLED display is the kind of quality-of-life improvement you can market. But it’s still fundamentally a product whose niche was absorbed by something more interesting. It still feels a bit stale. It’s still a knife in a gunfight.
Can the iPad mini succeed? I think so. But my advice, perhaps counterintuitive, would be for Apple to embrace the qualities and features that differentiate it from larger iPhones and more powerful iPads. It has to be cheaper, not thinner. It has to be harder, not more powerful. (In my opinion, the water and dust resistance of the new model is a bigger issue.) It should become the iPad equivalent of the old iPhone SE, offering an old-fashioned experience for niche audiences who don’t want the newer, more expensive version.
