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The iPad lineup received several changes in 2022. The base iPad got a new design and a new chip, but it also got a price bump, which brings it too close to the price of the iPad Air. Speaking of the iPad Air, the tablet got a performance boost thanks to the M1 chip. The Pro models got an upgrade to the M2 chip.
Outside of the USA, all regions saw unreasonable price increases. The iPad Mini got no refresh in 2022. The latest version is the iPad Mini 6th Generation. It launched in 2021. The 2021 model got meaningful upgrades from the 5th generation iPad Mini, with a better chip and a USBC port with a total redesign.
According to Apple’s 2022 fourth quarter earning sales, iPads saw a sharp decline in sales, nearly 2 Billion dollars. Since the iPad Mini was well received, we can attribute some sales to the iPad Mini user base. At the time, the 499$ price tag was perfect since it brought meaningful upgrades with an overall balance.
The iPad Mini was criticized for having a relatively poor-quality screen, and some people reported problems with jelly scrolling. Most disappointing, the tablet only started with 64GB of storage, which is far from enough in 2021.
Earlier, there were rumors of Apple replacing the iPad Mini with a 10″ foldable iPad. Many people were initially skeptical of this since it wasn’t a convenient decision. It was better than risking the iPhone lineup, but the price of the iPad Mini will shoot sky-high if it’s a foldable offering.
Hence, renowned leaker Ming-Chi Kuo does not expect a foldable Mini iPad in 2024 or even 2025. The analyst now predicts that Apple is working on an iterative successor to the iPad Mini, i.e., iPad Mini 7. It might begin mass production next year. The announcement will probably occur in the middle or end of the year and will not be launched in early 2023. It is expected by late 2023 or early 2024.
The main selling point of the existing iPad Mini is the size and price-to-performance ratio. The iPad Mini supports the 2nd Generation of Apple Pencil, which the similarly priced base iPad does not. It uses a weird dongle solution with the outdated first-generation Apple Pencil. Furthermore, the Mini iPad also has a laminated display.
A new chip is the selling point for the upcoming iPad Mini 7. It will likely ship with Apple’s A16 or A17 Bionic SOC. Apple will certainly not use the M1 chip since it is old.
Apple using the M2 is very unlikely. They reserve that kind of performance for the Pro iPad models. The Air model will mostly get it nearly a year later.
In other specs, we’ll probably see the same 8.3-inch 1488 x 2266 IPS LCD panel. A complaint is the low 500 Nits of brightness, which will hopefully see some improvement. Changing the display technology from Standard IPS LCD to MiniLED is not happening.
It’ll have Touch ID on the power button, with 5G support for cellular models. Hopefully, we will see the base storage variant being at 128GB. Sixty-four gigabytes of base storage for the 2021 iPad Mini was already inadequate, and launching a 499$ iPad in 2023 or 24 with only 64GB of base storage is borderline abysmal.
Ming-Chi Kuo has yet to share any confirmed specifications details about the iPad Mini 7, but replacing it with a foldable option seems highly unlikely due to a severe bump in price.
