iPad mini
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iPad mini
The full iPad experience. In hand.
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| Official iPad mini site — Apple |
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The iPad mini is the iPad you hold in one hand — the 8.3-inch tablet with a devotion no sales chart explains. Launched in 2012 over Steve Jobs's famous objection to smaller tablets, it became the pilot's kneeboard, the point-of-sale terminal, the field notebook, and the reader's iPad, refreshed on its own unhurried clock.
1 History✎
The original mini shrank the iPad 2; the Retina mini 2 (2013) made it genuinely good; minis 4 and 5 kept the flame through quiet years. The 2021 sixth generation rebuilt it in the modern all-screen design — USB-C, Pencil support, and the briefly infamous "jelly scrolling" — and the current seventh generation (October 2024) added the A17 Pro, bringing Apple Intelligence and Pencil Pro support to the small canvas.
2 Current model✎
| Model | Chip | From |
|---|---|---|
| iPad mini 8.3" | A17 Pro (2024) | $499 |
3 Position✎
The mini survives because nothing replaces it: phones grew toward it and stopped, the Air can't be palmed, and its niches — aviation's electronic flight bags above all — buy it by the fleet. It is Apple's clearest case of a product kept alive by loyalty rather than volume, and the lineup is warmer for it.