Perhaps the most interesting and surprising thing about the just-announced 7th generation iPad mini is the processor Apple has put inside it.
This announcement is definitely disappointing for iPad mini fans who were hoping for a major upgrade in three years’ time. It’s a completely minor upgrade, and there’s not much to it other than some (unfortunate) color changes, slight Wi-Fi and HDR improvements, and the addition of Apple Pencil Pro support.
The big thing is that it uses the same A17 Pro processor found in last year’s iPhone 15 Pro, meaning it’s the first iPad mini to be compatible with Apple Intelligence.
What’s surprising is that it uses the A17 Pro processor instead of the A18 found in the new iPhone 16. The A17 Pro was the first chip built on TSMC’s first-generation 3nm chip process, which was a milestone in chip design, but ultimately also a dead end. TSMC has moved to a newer, more efficient second-generation process, and that’s what Apple’s 2024-vintage processors use, namely the M4, A18, and A18 Pro. The upcoming M4 Pro and M4 Ultra processors will also use that process.
According to various reports, Apple’s goal appears to be to hand over the entire Mac product line to the M4 and leave behind the old processes (used in the M3 and A17 Pro). And yet… here’s a new product using chips from an old process that everyone is throwing away like water on a hot stone? What?
So my guess is that the new iPad mini uses this chip for non-technical reasons. Possible explanations are:
- Apple has surplus A17 Pro chips after discontinuing production of the 15 Pro
- These are all just binned versions (with 5 GPU cores instead of 6) that were not adapted for the iPhone and were left to be reused in other products.
- Apple has a contract with TSMC that includes enough capacity to continue manufacturing this chip until that contract ends.
- The iPad mini design predates the introduction of the A18 chip generation.
- When developing the iPhone 16s, Apple probably didn’t want to divert the fresh A18 chip, which is likely in limited quantities, to the iPad mini.
Either way, it feels like there’s some good news here for iPad mini fans. First, the new iPad mini supports Apple Intelligence, and the A17 Pro is significantly faster overall than the A15 Bionic (25% single-core, 40% multi-core).
Second, while it’s certainly possible that Apple has enough 5-GPU A17 Pro chips stockpiled to make three years’ worth of iPad minis, this model would rather use up some of the It feels like a pending action to bring mini into Apple Intelligence. surplus of chips. If I had to predict when the next next-generation iPad mini would arrive, I’d say it would probably be sooner than three years from now.
But for people like my friend Sparky who really want an iPad mini Pro, this release is understandably disappointing. Apple continues to view the iPad mini as an iPad Air-class device in a small case, and high-end features will likely be out of reach for some time.
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