Apple has announced a new iPad Mini with the A17 Pro chip without fanfare. It will go on sale on October 23 this year and will cost USD 499.
The iPad Mini line has not been updated since 2021. The A17 Pro chip, according to Apple, is 30% faster than the previous generation, has a 25% faster GPU and twice as fast a neural engine to take full advantage of Apple's Inteligence capabilities.
Apple also mentioned in its release that the new device can perform hardware ray tracing acceleration, which should improve the look of some high-end games, but this is obviously an AI-centric update.
The amount of memory in the basic configuration will increase from 64 to 128 GB. The device will also support the new Apple Pencil Pro.
In addition, iPad Mini will be available in new colors: soft blue and purple variants will be added to the familiar Space Gray and Starlight colors.
The device will still have the same 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display and a widescreen 12-megapixel camera with support for Smart HDR 4.
The iPad Mini has always been one of Apple's niche products, just like the iPhone SE: it has fans who love it for its smaller size, but most people prefer the big screen.