Apple announced two new iPads at its "Let Loose" event in May: The iPad Pro M4 and the iPad Air 6 M2, which come in two sizes. The company even advertised a price cut for the base 10.9-inch iPad. The one tablet that wasn't mentioned at all? The iPad mini 7.
The tiny 8.3-inch iPad mini 6 is a favorite among many because of its ideal size for streaming video and reading print. It was released almost three years ago, in September 2021, yet Apple has seemingly forgotten about the iPad mini.
While we haven't heard much about the next-gen iPad mini, reliable analysts—including Ming-Chi Kuo and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman—seem to think it does indeed exist, and even better, it could be launching as soon as the end of 2024.
It may not be much, but here's what we know about Apple's fan-favorite tiny tablet: the iPad mini 7.
iPad mini 7: Expected release date
In November 2023, reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted that “mass production of the new iPad mini is delayed to 2H24, vs. the previous prediction of 1Q24.”
If this estimate is true and Apple starts mass production in the second half of 2024, the iPad mini 7 could launch in late 2024 or early 2025.
2024年新款iPad機型與量產時程預測 / Predictions for New iPad Models and Production Timeline in 2024https://t.co/VgiIXeS1WgNovember 12, 2023
In April, Gurman reported that Apple "is working on new versions of the low-end iPad and iPad mini, but those won't be coming before the end of the year at the earliest."
iPad mini 7: Expected pricing
Right now, the iPad mini 6 starts at $499. That's $100 more expensive than its predecessor, the iPad mini 5, which started at just $399.
Although Apple hasn't confirmed the price (or existence) of the iPad mini 7, it's unlikely that it'll be lower than the iPad mini 6's starting price of $499.
It's possible that Apple could even drop the price of the iPad mini 7 to match that of the iPad mini 5 at $399.
At Apple's "Let Loose" event in May, the iPad 10's new suggested retail price was announced: $349. That's $100 less than its previous suggested retail price.
As Laptop observed a year ago, it's strange that the smaller iPad mini was more expensive than the 10th-generation iPad when there was only a $50 difference between them. Now, it'd be a $150 difference!
Granted, the iPad mini 7 could boast a more powerful chip and possibly a better display. However, those two upgrades would have to be significant enough to justify buying a smaller tablet for an extra $150.
iPad mini 7: Specs
The next-gen iPad mini likely won't improve much in terms of specs.
In response to a reader question about Apple's iPad mini 7, Gurman reported that "[Apple] isn’t likely to do another major overhaul of the product, so I’d expect the next model to offer little more than a processor upgrade."
What might that chip upgrade look like? Well, rumors are circulating that it could be an A16 Bionic chip, an A17 Pro Bionic chip, or even an M1 chip, but the truth is, we just don't know yet.
The current-gen iPad mini 6 features an A15 Bionic chip. Jumping to an M1 chip seems unlikely and simply upgrading to an A16 Bionic chip doesn't seem like it'd justify the $150 price difference between the iPad mini 7 and the 10.9-inch iPad. That leaves the A17 Pro chip as our best guess right now.
Regardless of which chip upgrade Apple goes with for its iPad mini 7, a stronger, more efficient processor will result in better battery life. In our iPad mini 6 review, we squeezed out 10 hours and 59 minutes on a single charge, so even more battery life than that in the iPad mini 7 would be fantastic.
The iPad mini 7 might not see much in terms of increased RAM, but we're hoping to see increased storage. The current iPad mini 6 offers two storage options: 64GB and 256GB. Apple finally bumped up its iPad Air line to start with a minimum 128GB of storage, and we're hoping the company does the same with the iPad mini 7.
iPad mini 7: Design
As of right now, the iPad mini 7 isn't expected to offer anything new design-wise compared to the iPad mini 6.
We'll likely have the same color options to choose from — Space Gray, Starlight, Pink, and Purple — but of course, we'd love to see more colorways. More pastel colors, like Blue or Yellow, would be great, and an iPad mini in Space Black sounds like a sleek dream.
iPad mini 7: Display
The iPad mini 7 is bound to boast display upgrades. Nothing official has been announced yet from Apple, but with about three years separating the iPad mini 6 and the iPad mini 7, it'd be wild to not see an improvement to the mini tablet's display.
The iPad mini 6 features an 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display with IPS technology that's LED-backlit and offers a 2266 x 1488-pixel resolution, 500 nits brightness, and True Tone.
Previous rumors suggested that the iPad mini 7 could gain an OLED panel or a 120Hz ProMotion display, which would help justify the current price difference between the iPad mini and the base iPad model, but most analysts seem to think that these display upgrades are reserved for Apple's higher-end Pro models, including Ross Young.
One major upgrade likely coming to the iPad mini 7 is a fix for the infamous jelly-scrolling issue. If you're unfamiliar, jelly scrolling is essentially screen tearing due to refresh rate differences across the screen, and it makes images and text on one side of the screen appear tilted downward, which is incredibly annoying when you're trying to read. Check out jelly scrolling on the iPad mini 6 in action below.
In response to an Ars Technica article on jelly scrolling, Apple said the issue was "normal behavior for LCD screens." Ars Technica updated the article a second time two days after Apple's response to include this info: "An iFixit teardown suggests that the iPad mini's more noticeable scrolling issue is a byproduct of how the display controller is mounted."
According to a leaker on Chinese social network Weibo (via Tom's Guide), Apple will change the way the screen is assembled to "[improve]" the jelly scrolling phenomenon. It's not clear yet how Apple intends to tweak the display, but the jelly-scrolling issue should be much less of a problem on the iPad mini 7.
iPad mini 7: Outlook
The iPad mini 7 is three years overdue, and we can't wait for Apple to announce it officially.
It may not boast incredibly impressive upgrades, but even small improvements to its processor (and therefore battery life) and display would be much appreciated. Because the $499 iPad mini 6 is already overpriced compared to the now $349 iPad 10, we're hoping the iPad mini 7 stays at the same price.
Apple has been silent about the iPad mini 7, and we haven't heard many rumors from frequent leakers and analysts. However, we're still hopeful that a late 2024 launch could be in the cards. Apple does tend to have an event in September and October, so perhaps we'll hear more concrete details then.
