Apple introduces iPad mini built for Apple Intelligence | Hacker News Reader

Apple introduces iPad mini built for Apple Intelligence

apple.com

317 pointsdiwank503 comments

Why is the bezel so thick? A 1-2cm bezel around the entire "mini" device seems a bit odd, given that the iPad Mini is a relatively tiny device and phones these days come with a 1-2mm bezel (10x less useless border).

Is it a cost saving measure / sneaky margin increaser, or what might be the motivation?

Edit:

Touch interference is a good idea. Still, from the picture, it looks like the bezel could be half as thick and work well. Sorry to be such a stickler, I am genuinely curious if Apple is chasing better margins, the best feasible UX, or something else.

Could it be that since this device is only $650 USD, it isn't expensive enough to warrant a premium display? (Like the iPhone SE https://www.apple.com/iphone-se/)

If so, I wish there was a fancier "Pro" model with premium components. IIRC, I paid $1000 for my first iPad, it was the first super high-resolution one back in 2012. Perhaps there aren't enough customers who are sensitive to wasted screen real estate on an 8-inch device.. and FWIW I have noticed a constant stream of toddlers pacified by iPad Minis whenever I'm at Costco.

I think it's so that the fingers holding the device don't obstruct the view/ don't get counted as touch event.

I’d be surprised if thumb rejection/palm rejection isn’t close to perfect by iPadOS 18.

Doesn't work well for me. Thumb gets too close to bottom, and now scrolling becomes zooming. All the time.

I’m forever triggering the camera app, while locking the device, on my iPhone 15 pro max. Every day, regularly.

Same.

How small are your hands?

Consider the possibility that the person here is not an adult Western man.

On top of that, just consider that there may be someone with a different body shape.

There is a really weird vibe that some folks put out trying to body shame over the internet.

"The phone is fine, it's your genetics that are the problem here"

I guess without /s people don't get the sarcasm these days.

I could have phrased it better but I was trying to be succinct.

Smaller hands are likely to struggle to one hand control the Pro Max.

Honestly I'm not sure you could have phrased it worse!

> Smaller hands are likely to struggle to one hand control the Pro Max.

Couldn't agree more.

Funny responses, but I’d say my hands are big.

I click on ads by mistake on my iPhone 15 pro max. Even the iPhone SE was better, with its bottom bezel. Thumb detection on iOS is very bad.

You're holding it wrong.

Yeah every hour on the YouTube app. Probably a google feature though. Ha

How is that possible? The camera icon is in the bottom left corner of the screen and you use the physical lock button on the side to lock the iPhone.

You can also trigger the camera by swiping right-to-left on the lock screen or from the notification pull-down.

Don’t shame the man with the extra digit projecting from his thenar eminence.

If you reach for the top left corner your thumb will naturally come into contact with the bottom right corner of the screen, assuming you are holding the device one-handed (in your right hand).

I’m trying to picture this, but I can’t. If I hold and lock my iPhone with my right hand, I press the lock button with my thumb. If I try to reach the top left corner, I either do that with my left thumb (mostly) or index finger (sometimes), or with my right thumb (very awkward movement on a Pro Max). In none of these cases my right thumb comes in contact with the screen or even close to it. Maybe because I use the backside of my pinky finger to lock the phone in place.

I think he meant your palm hits the screen, which does happen to me sometimes.

The right hand large stretch with the thumb into the top left area - the pad below your thumb on your palm can make contact with the screen.

I'm always managing to tap the top of the phone resulting in either

- opening some app that recently used location services

Or worse

- making whatever app I'm in jump to the top of its page with no way to get back to where I was short of doing a load of scrolling

Well its not that they couldn't do it but the iPad has always had bezels and the apps are expecting bezels not thumb rejection. They could be but they're not built with an on screen safe area.

When I’m on boardgamearena in bed with my iPad pro on my belly, I often trigger touch events at the bottom of the screen from the folds of my shirt.

somewhere to grab it without putting your fingers on the screen?

> Why is the bezel so thick?

How else were they supposed to make room for the extra 4GB of RAM required to support Apple Intelligence?

So that they can release a successor model with thinner bezels.

In reality this may be to (1) to keep costs down and (2) to distance the iPad mini from the more premium iPhone Pro Max.

All in all, this device leaves me wondering who this is for? iPads are mostly used for media consumption, no matter how Apple wants to position them. Not sure why this necessitates AI hardware, but perhaps people really start using iPads for productivity/creativity workloads that can make use of “Apple Intelligence” (the silliest moniker since “Spatial Computing” and “Retina Display”).

The comparatively small difference in screen real estate between an iPhone Pro Max and the iPad mini makes the latter rather pointless. Perhaps they are targeting people with a smaller iPhone who want another device to watch YouTube. What could have made a difference is a folding display. I think the iPad mini would have been the ideal candidate for that.

>Not sure why this necessitates AI hardware

New Siri and iOS notification summaries seem like it should be enough of a reason for apple to want to ship an iPad with ai hardware.

> for apple to want to ship an iPad with ai hardware.

You mean the dedicated neural chip they've been gushing over for half a decade saying how it's an amazing dedicated chip for exactly this kind of work?

I mean they’ve made a product decision that they’re going to limit new Siri to their new chips and 16GB of ram.

Regardless of how justified that decision is, or how truthful the marketing about their old chip was, they need an iPad mini that fits their stated requirements.

Lots of aircraft pilots love the iPad mini. Ideal sized tool for having strapped to a yoke, or to one's knee.

I plan on buying one for exactly that use-case. I have a mini 5 that's showing its age and doesn't have enough storage (downloading flying charts takes up a surprising amount of space) and I didn't want to upgrade to the mini 6 considering how long in the tooth it was getting. The mini 7 isn't some massive improvement, but it's improvement enough in a very good niche for flying.

Edit: For the non-pilots reading this, it's also worth noting that the most popular flying app by far for general aviation at least, ForeFlight, is iOS only. So your choices are generally small iPad or big iPad, and a lot of people don't like big iPad in a small airplane cockpit.

Three size options now, the mini at 8.3"; regular, Air, and Pro at 11"; Air and Pro at 13"

I hate that ForeFlight does not run on Android. It is is keeping me from getting rid of my last overpriced, closed, proprietary Apple device. Not that Jeppesen (Boeing) has a good record on any of that either.

> All in all, this device leaves me wondering who this is for?

You know, you could just read all the other comments on this post talking about why they like the mini.

People like to spend 1 minute looking at a product and pretend they've done a market analysis by only looking at their own consumption patterns or those of their very close group of people around them combined with some stereotypes like "people use tablets for media consumption" (and never do anything else on them in between).

> All in all, this device leaves me wondering who this is for?

I know children who study with their iPad minis and prefer them over notebooks. This isn’t necessarily a pro-Apple statement, but rather a reflection on how different user groups may engage with devices in ways that are cognitively distinct from what we discuss here on HN.

There are also comments here about specific use cases, like pilots using tools such as ForeFlight. While this kind of usage may not drive overall demand, it highlights how certain groups find unique value in the iPad mini for their specialized needs.

> The comparatively small difference in screen real estate between an iPhone Pro Max and the iPad mini

Due to the aspect ratios, there are significant differences in viewable area. It is not a "small" difference at all. Once you add in the ability to deal with specific aspect ratio content, the difference becomes even larger.

https://displaywars.com/6,9-inch-d%7B19,5x9%7D-vs-8,3-inch-d...

> All in all, this device leaves me wondering who this is for?

Not for everyone I would suggest. But I have people in my circle who will be very pleased. As they use a Mini as their phone/portable machine out of the house. They have little keyboard cases and use VOIP services for communication.

> but perhaps people really start using iPads for productivity/creativity workloads

Part of the appeal for most people is the seamless usage of features and functionalities across their sweet of products. People expect to be able to pick up where they left of, and have access to the same functionality as they largely do on the rest of the devices.

It's nice even if something is not your primary productivity device, to be able to execute or perform things on them if that's what happens to be in front of you at the time.

> All in all, this device leaves me wondering who this is for?

Who is any iPad for? They’re nice screens attached to good processors.

I bring mine to work to either read or watch videos over my lunch break. Don’t want the full size of a regular iPad. Don’t want to use my work laptop with my personal service accounts like YouTube, Netflix, kindle, etc.

And while the Mini is small, it’s still a substantial screen size increase over using my regular sized iPhone for that purpose.

> Perhaps they are targeting people with a smaller iPhone who want another device to watch YouTube.

Hi, it me.

I have an iPhone 13 Mini that will have to be pried from my cold dead hands because it's about as big a phone as I'm willing to carry (I'd still rather have the 5s form factor.)

I also have an iPad Mini that supplements it perfectly.

Really don't want anything larger, because I like to handle it with one hand while walking or I'm propping it up in a tight space like when I'm watching a how-to video while doing a home-improvement project or working on my car.

There is absolutely no way I'd buy a phone as gigantic as a Max.

Honestly not sure how people walk around with those things.

> There is absolutely no way I'd buy a phone as gigantic as a Max.

It's not gigantic for everyone to be fair. I'm 6′1″ with largish hands I suppose and the Max is a single hand device for me. Small devices look comical in my hands. I was one of those very well served by Apple starting to make larger devices, and it's when I shifted over from Android full time to iOS devices. (I was very fond of the early generation Galaxy Note devices prior to that.)

> Honestly not sure how people walk around with those things.

The same way as I do anything of that size. It goes in my pocket or i'm holding it?

I get where you are coming from those because my partner has a much smaller 13 line device and we've done some basic testing and like you, shifting to a Max sized device...well, its just not very likely. My phone looks absolutely jumbo once you put it in her teeny hands.

I mean yeah, of course I know how people hold and walk around with these devices. I was being silly.

Everything you said about large hands rings true for small hands and the mini form factor, but instead of just looking silly it's a hinderance.

We need both form factors. What I don't think we need is the weird middle size (current regular iPhone size), but I'm sure that's probably the one most people actually want if they could only pick one.

I dunno, I'm 6'2" with corresponding hand size and I'm in the "won't go larger than a 13 mini" camp.

I think preference probably plays a bigger role than size. I see a lot of tiny people manhandling pros and maxes too.

For most people, preference likely plays a bigger role, but for me, it’s all about the size of my hands and fingers. I find smaller devices uncomfortable for anything beyond basic phone use. As a computing device where touch is the primary interaction, I prefer something larger, which is why I stuck with Android when Apple wasn’t making bigger phones. It’s also about being able to have it further from my face.

At the time, many Apple users claimed no one wanted larger phones and that Apple’s size was perfect. I disagreed and voted with my wallet. For me, there are no downsides to a larger device—I can still use it one-handed, it fits in my pockets, and going smaller wouldn’t make it any more portable or usable.

For others, it’s the opposite. A smaller phone may be easier to handle or fit better in pockets or everyday carry. So I agree there should be different sizes to meet different needs, including smaller options if the market supports them. Among my circle, smaller phones tend to be the preference for those who primarily use their device for calls and texts. Anything beyond that, like browsing, moves to a tablet. These people are generally in their mid-30s to mid-40s.

Interestingly, the ‘non-techy’ people I know with larger phones say it’s because they use a popsocket or view their phone more as a computer than a phone. They’re willing to trade off size for a bigger screen. Many of them don’t own another personal computing device, aside from maybe a tablet. They’re typically in their 20s to 30s.

I feel like I’m part of a shrinking group that still uses both a laptop and a desktop as my primary computing environments.

for me, my desktop and laptop are the main go-to. the mobile is an extra device with different, more specific use cases

and so I've been a little disappointed with how these devices keep getting bigger and bigger. I was pretty happy with the size of the Pixel 3

I think I like to be able to access the whole screen comfortably with one hand, not fumbling it about. easy to manipulate, easy to pocket. the Pixel 8 shrunk a bit over its predecessors so I nabbed that, and it's probably at or just over the limit for me, size wise

There are dozens of us big humans whose ideal form factor is the 12/13 mini. Dozens!

Why do I need to carry around a huge screen to text, make phone calls and take pictures?

I'm 6'7" (with corresponding hand size) and prefer the mini too

I'm 5'8" and have no problem at all using a Max one-handed (provided it's not in a case). Is it difficult for you to shift the grip on your phone while you're holding it?

If I didn't have to spend the $, I'd totally have a small phone for when I leave the house, and a bigger device like this for when I'm at home.

I really dislike larger phones. I had tried out iOS with the iPhone X and it'd been a few years. Then Apple killed the Mini the year I was going to give them a go

> who this is for?

I dunno, every Boomer guy I know with disposable income seems to have settled into Big iPad, iPad mini and iPhone as their compute stack.

I think for them it's like desk/table computer (Big iPad), sofa computer (iPad mini), out&about computer (iPhone).

I know guys like this who haven't even really owned a computer-computer (MacBook or otherwise) for 5+ years.

“ The comparatively small difference in screen real estate between an iPhone Pro Max and the iPad mini makes the latter rather pointless.”

While the linear diagonal size of the screens are not so much different, the area of the iPad Mini is significantly larger. I ran the numbers a month or so on it when someone was making the same claim of equivalence. I don’t recall the specifics now but I think the iPad screen had at least 60% more area. That is significant.

“ Not sure why this necessitates AI hardware”

It would be hard for Apple to put in a chipset now that didn’t support AI. All of their SOCs for the past 10 years have had neural processors. This A17 Pro has 8GB of RAM. All of their recent SOCs have the 8GB of RAM needed to run AI. Why not?

Screens come in standard sizes. It might simply be that they can't fit all the parts inside, including the battery, without making the device bigger than the standard screen size and so you get bezels. Bigger devices have more room in them and many of the parts are just the same size.

Are "standard" screen sizes really something you have to care about at Apple-scale?

Yes, LCDs are made as giant sheets that are cut into panels. They will want to cut those sheets in a way to ensure the least amount of waste as possible. They are not making them completely arbitrary sizes.

That giant sheet of mother glass is 2940mm x 3370mm. Cutting efficiency dictates the size of TVs, but it's basically irrelevant for phone or tablet displays.

Each block or piece of mother glass can be used for dozens or even hundreds of LCDs but it seems obvious that there are only so many ways you can effectively slice it.

While manufacturers can theoretically produce custom-sized LCD panels, it's more economical and efficient to stick to standard sizes that align with their production lines. Producing custom-sized panels can involve retooling. Choosing a standard size also ensures greater availability.

For a low cost product, I don't see why Apple would mess around with LCD sizes.

Still, this is just a guess. Only Apple knows for sure.

No. Screen sizes come in whatever size Apple orders them in.

Ipad Mini is such a good size. My friend lent me his Mini2 when he borrowed money from me and used it for a good 6 months i think and it was marvelous. I didn't use it all that much but later got an Air 2 and used it maybe slightly less. Then I got an iPad Pro 11" but only used it for a while and don't really touch it too much anymore. I feel maybe an ipad mini I would use more. But the jelly scroll really has me urked and I kinda want OLED on it, so there is definitely room for a Pro version if they wish, but the iPads are overwhelming with 5 sizes already.

> overwhelming with 5 sizes already.

without jobs it's just a matter of time they go back to being "just an expensive dell" like before

What makes you say that?

Not OP, but...

That very behavior was troublesome for Apple in the past, twice.

Two times Steve Jobs swooped in and saved Apple from Dell-ifying themselves. Twice.

Since Job's demise, Apple has relentlessly marched toward Dellification once more. The immediate revenue is tantalizing, it's the dilution of ones own market that ends up killing the golden goose, and the eggs they lay.

Don’t worry, locking you into their services will make it impossible to leave!

The one overarching success of the Tim Cook era is ruthlessly pursuing consumer lock in at all costs.

There are a lot of customers locked in the ecosystem, sure. The question is whether the ecosystem is still able to attract new customers, as it once was.

Not sure. But is it possible that the reason could be for such a statement - just open eyes, ears, and more importantly an open mind and immunity from iFandom?

I mean please just look at their product pages on apple.com.

Steve Jobs has been dead for 13 years. Whatever was going to happen without him already has.

It can take a long time for corporate culture to rot. It took Google about 15-20 years to fully reach their villain arc.

Currently they have Tim Cook at the helm whi is good at continuing Job's vision as the two worked very close for a long time, so the big question is what happens after Cook leaves.

> It took Google about 15-20 years to fully reach their villain arc.

Google has only been around for 26 years, Gmail for 20. I agree they have reached the villain arc but I disagree with the timeline.

>Why is the bezel so thick?

So you have somewhere to actually hold the bloody thing.

Bezelless gadgets look great in photos but are impractical as fuck to handle.

because the target audience of mini ipads are babies.

It's likely they're repurposing slightly older display inventory to preserve margins, recoup R&D costs and to bring overall component costs lower since this is meant to be a cheaper device.

It's about 9mm which is not that thick. It really does make a difference in how you can hold it one-handed and without accidentally touching the screen. Most phones and thin-bezel tablets need to be held very carefully.

Maybe I'm weird, but I don't mind having a bit of bezel around the screen. It makes the device easier to grab without extra touches or fingerprints on the screen. It's also a good place for cameras and front-facing speakers. (Although I don't think any iPad has front facing speakers.)

I only ever saw one tablet with front facing speakers and I am to this way still baffled why I only saw one altogether, it seems like the most sensible design for a tablet.

Honestly with a tablet I prefer some bezel so I can hold it without touching the screen. I have both a 9th Gen iPad and an M2 iPad Pro, I use the “inferior” one almost exclusively.

My thoughts exactly, when I first saw it I thought I had landed on a launch article from 2014

Bezels are useful for devices that you can’t just hold in the flat of your hand. Provides a place to hold on to.

Also, this is an LCD screen. The substrate is rigid. An OLED, like on the iPhone is on a flexible substrate and can be bent at the edges to connect to the circuit board. That lets you put the screen closer to the edge.

I have had phones and tablets with IPS displays with way thinner bezels so that argument is void.

Only on 3 sides I think though? You still need an edge connector on one side (i think)

Yeah, but even on the "thicker" side they're stil way thinner than the current iPad Minis.

Which argument? Pretty obvious the bezel is that way for usability (so you can hold the device). That other devices exist with thin bezel does not prove anything.

The technique you mention is very outdated and not used anymore. Current thin-bezel OLED panels (even on flexible substrate OLED) use a packaging technique which can be used in the exactly same way on rigid LCD panels. Folding the substrate with driver bonded is expensive, affects yields, and doesn't even get you the thinnest bezels

There are no LCD panels in recent phones that use COG packaging (chip-on-glass) for the display driver and run into the limitation you mentioned. Almost all current LCD phones will utitlize COF (chip-on-film) where the TFT array is attached to a flex-pcb which also contains the display driver.

You can achieve bezels just as thin or thinner using this technique, and Apple has used the technique you mention only once, COF is used even on flexible OLED panels.

The iPad mini is a second-class product in Apple's lineup. It rarely gets updated, and if you use one you will see how poorly UI is scaled. I was really hyped up and really wanted one, but after using one I gave up on the idea. The 60 Hz LCD screen is also among the worst screen of all the products Apple currently sells.

Wow, so negative! I use mine heavily, including right now. Mostly with Chrome and Google apps, though, along with Kindle. Also, Genshin Impact to play games with the kid.

Best tablet I’ve owned. Genshin Impact uses a huge amount of space, though.

Why don’t you want to use a bigger iPad? I play, read graphic novels and watch videos on the larger iPad as more screen estate is better.

Why don’t you want to use a bigger screen? I play and watch videos on a 75” TV as more screen estate is better.

Bigger is not always better, but it’s almost always costlier and less convenient.

My wife has one and it seems too big and heavy for most things I do. Good for sheet music, though.

I have an iPad mini and it's pretty much perfect as it is for my use case. I use it as a device I can pick up and watch videos while on the go or doing an activity (cooking etc.), show videos to my kid and as a device I can travel with.

The only complaint I have with it is that it only supports one profile but I think that applies to all ipads

I'm at my second iPad mini, and finally bought a new Apple Pencil. I'm still angry about the pencil battery not being replaceable, and the iPad is the device I use the least among laptop and phone, but there's something really nice about the mini form factor.

My single use case is reading research papers. I also do that on pc but the ipad mini is great to take a paper and read it entirely without distractions and with the ability to take handwritten notes. That was a nice combo with the lab couch when I was in PhD. Also the fact it can be held in one hand, especially nice when presenting or walking.

that's a pity. I had a regular iPad, I used it for document browsing and regular reading. I eventually gave up on it because it was just too big and too heavy and required two hands to hold it.

I really wanted something that'more Kindle-sized, which the iPad mini seems to be, which is the perfect form factor for one handed usability.

The device can have a bigger battery with a thick bezel.

Can have or does have?

I upgraded to an M2 Air from an iPad 7 a couple months ago, My biggest complaint apart from the worse battery life is that there is no way to safely hold the thing one handed while walking while not be interacting with the screen.

Give me somewhere to hold the thing!

I recently purchased the M1 iPad Air and was also shocked that the bezel was a lot thicker than my much older IPad Air 2.

I don’t know why we put up with this regression in technology.

> Could it be that since this device is only $650 USD

It's $499 USD. And if it's like the previous gen it will be on sale for $399 in a year or so.

I own it, the bezels can't really be much thinner on the small device, they're well sized. They don't look as big on the real thing in person.

I have it. The bezels make it easier to hold. I like them, never understood the appeal of borderless devices to be honest

Bezels are good. Bezels are GREAT. They give you something to hold without interacting with the screen.

If you've ever used a device with edge-to-edge, you know you have to hold it like a diva with 10-inch nails—it is neither comfortable nor effective.

In my opinion, the industry's trend towards smaller-and-smaller bezels has made it MORE difficult to interact with them than the advances gained by having a few millimeters larger screens.

Leave the bezels alone, bud

What's wrong with virtual bezels? Seems to me to be the best of both worlds. People who can't handle an ipad without bezels can just configure whatever they want.

I didn't know that was a thing. Granted, I don't own one... but my grandmother does and would benefit from this feature. I suspect the people who need it the most are the least likely to know it's an option. With real bezels they don't need to.

AFAIK it’s not a thing on my iPad. Maybe parent was expressing a desired feature?

Makes me think of my MacBook Air. The only part of the screen with fingerprints on it is over the front facing camera.

My Boox device has small bezels around three edges and one large bezel around the left edge. It's terrific, I can hold it comfortably and there's a quick button to switch orientation if I want the bezel on another side.

I have 12 inch Honor Mate Pad 9 and I think the bezels are smaller than this thing. The tablet cost €250 and is great value for money. I never have any issues with the thin bezel ever. It's a tablet after all. You don't hold it and control it with one hand. Even to do so on an 8 inch tablet would be a stretch.

It's probably just that though. If the bezels were smaller, the device would be too close to an iPhone size and cannibalize sales.

I don't know but I have a Galaxy Fold and I hate the tiny bezels it has in tablet mode. Trying not to touch the screen while holding it adds unnecessary cognitive load and just makes it feel fiddly. I also have a previous gen iPad mini and I love the thicker bezels.

In many ways (no pun intended :-)) I would relate to having an iPad mini and a much much dumber phone which was just text/chat and voice. I have gotten there because I'm constantly in this weird tension between wanting a bigger screen on my phone because the app I'm using and wanting a smaller phone so that it is easier to pocket and carry around. A friend of mine did the folding screen phone thing and that has its advantages but I really like a small phone (and ideally with a long battery life so no 1000 nit screens on it). Definitely first world/21st century problems :-). I do find engineering tradeoffs in product design an interesting thing though.

What was the pun? Many/mini?

Yes.

You can safely put 'no pun intended' after actually having no puns in the text. It can be disorienting but such is truth sometimes.

Pun intended?

    typeof(x) y = (typeof(x))x; // no pun intended

Back when I was coding for a living, I tried things like that almost a dozen times to see if they would make anyone laugh, but no pun in ten did.

But why cast to it’s own type?

For me its a very nice bedside ebook reader, reddit machine, and video device. Its a perfect size for all those things, perhaps a bit too small for video but good enough. It can fit into a large coat pocket or a medium sized purse too.

I keep trying to get into my kindle but just can't for some reason. E-ink is nice but being able to get a nice glowing black background with white text is really nice and the page changes are so much more fluid than e-ink.

Way more distractions on an iPad, though.

Do not Disturb mode on to disable notifications

Self control to not get distracted

I don't get this whole "Too many distractions" shtick. If you don't have the self control to swipe away from your book to sneak in a round of Angry Birds, you'll probably end up pulling your phone out every 2 minutes to check your Reddit feed

Assistive Access can limit user interactions to a few apps.

https://support.apple.com/guide/assistive-access-iphone/set-...

Most of the modern "dumbphones" (or "feature phones") would do this just fine for you.

If you want one that can survive anything life will throw at it, look at the Sonim devices - the XP3+ (flip) or XP5+ (candybar). They're Android Go, have exceptionally good (week and a half, easily) battery life, hotspot just fine, and handle actual use a lot better than the KaiOS toys out there. Maybe 3.x is better, but KaiOS 2.x couldn't handle actual use for more than a few weeks without starting to lag, requiring you to remove texts from it so the interface wasn't glacial, and mine eventually just stopped bothering to notify me about incoming calls and texts, which is your one job... The Android Go stuff seems to actually hold up to sustained moderate use.

Do any of these Android Go phones have semi decent cameras? That’s a big holdup for many people.

In the context of this thread, that’s what the iPad mini is for.

https://www.sevarg.net/2023/12/30/more-flip-phone-sonim-xp3-... has some sample images from mine - it's an 8MP camera. Not amazing, but also not a 2MP potato.

Thanks! That's exactly the kind of info I was looking for! :)

I used a KaiOS device for about 6 months. My expectations weren’t high, but texting and T9 input were a mess:

A) I had to manually enter captital I, apostrophe, and ‘m’ every time I wanted to write “I’m”.

B) New words (like brand and place names) displace common words in the built-in wordlist - that is, T9 gets worse the more you use it.

It was still an OK digital minimalist/detox device - the GMaps web app with voice search was good enough.

The Android Go devices you mentioned sound far better – I’m never touching KaiOS again.

Funny, but for number one in your list, PalmOS 3 could do that in 1998 on a 16mhz 32 bit Motorola processor. It was just one of those attention to details that made the platform so nice to use.

> Most of the modern "dumbphones" (or "feature phones") would do this just fine for you.

Assuming you use something like WhatsApp, Facebook or something alike. Modern "feature phones" include built-in applications for messaging and calling, and you generally can't install anything custom on them.

I was just pitching this yesterday to my friend. My Pixel 8 Pro is a great phone, but in many situations I only want a phone that can show me my messages and answer my phone calls, and it's OK if its interface is my smartwatch and/or earbuds. I want it to be able to take over my mobile number on-demand, and relinquish it to my Pixel afterward.

I am moving away from my phone to just using my Apple Watch/AirPods then pulling out the mini when I need something it can't cover.

I wish I could do this but I have yet to find a good Apple Watch replacement for owning and syncing music (rather than streaming it)

I wish I could do this but I have yet to find a good Apple Watch replacement for owning and syncing music (rather than streaming it)

Is it not possible to sync MP3s to Apple Watches anymore? I have a really really old model, and I selected a few playlists on my iPhone, and when they change, the songs automatically sync to my Apple Watch.

That was myexperience also but haven’t done that in some time.

You can sync your own MP3s using iTunes Match -- it's about $25/year. https://support.apple.com/en-us/108935

Incredible. I never heard of this paid feature before.

I use streaming now but historically I had no issues syncing music and playlists to my watch.

There's this really old product that Apple use to sell for all your music. I think it was the youPod or something...

Apparently Steve's posthumous roadmap focused on the idea that personal computers get 'smaller and closer to you' as time goes on. So the idea that an Apple Watch and AirPods could be all you need when travelling, etc. follows that premise.

I would love to do this.. if only there were Uber/Lyft options on the watch

There were back in the day. Apple really screwed up the development story for the watch as the initial watches just couldn't really do apps. They should have waiting for Series 3 before introducing apps and they still could do a lot to make things easier for devs.

Lame the Watch still can't be managed with an iPad or else you could go all in on this idea.

more that is is lame the watch isn't just an fully independent device yet.

I find it incredible that I can't make calls on my iPad. I would just carry an iPad in my back pack if people could call me on it.

VOIP clients work on iPad.

If I was approaching the dumb phone thing I’d try something similar to this video - “dumbify” Home Screen app for iOS, setting as gray scale, screen time limits, etc. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7jVb1lLniEw

Apple keeps a lot of owners addicted to their phones by making Watch support exclusive to iPhone.

I’d love to go dumbphone and a Watch synced to an iPad at home, but this is not an option.

What keeps them addicted to their watch?

I've never found a compelling use case where I'd willingly buy another Apple watch.

Keeps them addicted to their phone by not allowing them to just go watch only.

My best use case for the apple watch is I can keep it on everywhere. If I constantly have to think of the thing it’ll get annoying enough I want to get rid of it.

Exercise tracking is a biggie for me.

Integration with Fitness on Apple TV is extremely slick for HIIT and yoga.

Also, the third-party Intervals Pro app has been my go-to running app. I started with Apple+Nike since 2010 and a Fitbit Charge in 2015, but nothing let me customize my workouts as much as the Intervals app.

Do you really need it though, or is it some sort of placebo effect in place? I can bet most professional athletes don't use such devices.

you'd bet wrong. A lot of them use chest strap/HR variability monitors to guide training/track illness + fitness

I own a Concept 2 rowing machine; I have detailed stats on every workout going back 19 years, and for the last 7 years or so I have heart rate info as well.

I have cognitive issues from treatments following an incomplete spinal cord injury and autoimmune problems. Managing my care is complex, with multiple drugs, appointments, symptom tracking, and scans required by a large team of specialists. My short-term memory is poor, though my long-term memory remains sharp. The drugs and chronic pain make it even harder to stay focused and manage these responsibilities.

My watch is essential in helping me keep up. It’s on my wrist from the moment I wake till the moment I sleep, ensuring I miss nothing important. I’ve restricted notifications to medical needs and use it to log symptoms or adverse effects immediately, preventing forgetfulness which was a problem previously.

Outside of my unique use case, many people I know with a watch have stopped carrying a phone altogether. They find it freeing, as the watch gives them essential tools without the distraction of a larger device. Its limitations are a benefit, allowing them to focus on the moment and carry less.

Super cool the Watch can be so beneficial to someone like yourself with actual important use cases, unlike most of us (read: me) where it's mostly gravy.

RE not carrying a phone, I think what mostly makes them something people need to detox from is notifications and social media fomo. Take those away and it's just a pocket computer.

For that reason I've leaned heavily into Focus modes and limiting notifications and have left most social media. Those have really helped a lot with being present.

You can probably get fairly close to do this by using an apple watch with a sim card

I used to leave the house with just my watch and it was great - I could read and send text messages, email, even take calls on my watch and have everything synced up to my phone at home. You can even download music to it and pair it to your airpods.

The missing piece here is just having a dumb phone - somehow I think that with some ingenuity you might be able to something that serves 80% of your needs here or something like that.

My closest solution would be to piggyback off my partner’s iPhone using family watch pairing, and use my own dumbphone.

It is the smallest, most annoying things that keep Apple Watch from being an actual phone killer for me - like getting an Uber.

I wonder -- does the iPhone have to be on a service plan? Or is wifi good enough?

Wifi is good enough. Actually, might not even need WiFi.

>…addicted to their phones by making Watch support exclusive to iPhone.

Buy a Garmin watch, battery life measured in weeks, and you’ll never have to re-enter your pin again because it moved on your wrist. You’ll still get great fitness tracking though and also notifications if you choose to sync them.

I would love to buy a Garmin watch but Garmin Pay doesn't support a lot of banks yet. It's a shame because their battery life is on a league of its own.

> and you’ll never have to re-enter your pin again because it moved on your wrist.

Is this a problem for others? I’ve never had it happen to me.

You want an Apple Watch imo, I often leave my phone behind now, I’m contactable without distractions.

Back in the day when Android was KitKat and full of possibilities, I ran a Nexus 7 2nd gen and a cheap phone from my carrier. I'm not sure if it was enlightenment but it was closer to it than today, where I carry around a smartphone that's too big to use comfortably but still too small to use frequently for media.

I didn't get the pun......

Maybe they pronounce “many” as “mini”?

many/mini are very similar if not identical in casual US English pronunciation.

A lot of people (myself included) want that, which is exactly why it’s not going to happen - Apple would much rather see you pay twice as much for an iPhone Pro Max

A pro of foldables is that you mostly use the outer screen, but the battery is big enough to handle the inner screen. So you get excellent battery life for daily use. If you only use the inner screen for reading in dark mode the battery life is also excellent.

Also at least for the Galaxy Fold, when folded the phone is narrow enough to use one-handed and hold securely.

I've gotten myself a Honor Magic V3 and I am blown away by how good this phone is. Screen quality, battery life, camera. For me this is the holy trinity. Unfortunately now I can never go back to normal phones. I am waiting for the Huawei Mate XT second gen and making the switch.

An alternate setup is LTE smartwatch, tws and foldable phones. You can do almost all dumbphone tasks and some more from the watch. It can be relatively distraction free, and you can leave phone at home for swimming/jogging/workouts. Foldable will give you decent camera and tablet when you need it and can be kept in bag or far enough.

I use the Unihertz Jelly Star alongside my iPhone 14 pro. It's a 3" android 14 phone running on a powerful soc with 8gb ram and 256gb storage. I have the same sim on both phones but I no longer carry the iPhone with me, I use it at home as an iPad micro.

The fingerprint reader isn't accurate enough so I use pattern lock for NFC payments. Texting on a 3" screen isn't much fun either, but I don't like texting anyway. At least it manages to run FUTO voice keyboard (whisper based) fast enough.

The combination of an Iphone Mini and an Ipad Mini really works well - alas apple decided that they no longer will make reasonably sized phones...

I often feel this way as well, but given the phone has replaced GPS in my car and my camera, I end up wanting newer stuff to keep those up to date. I've given up on Apple producing a magic device just for me, and accept that what we've got is pretty amazing considering the alternative is a backpack of devices to carry around.

It is interesting that one of their examples is a "community repair fair", they want to market a sheen of social responsibility without actually taking part themselves.

It is interesting that one of their examples is a "Mahjong Club", they want to market a sheen of board game enthusiasm without actually taking part themselves.

Lowkey wish their laptops would be as they used to be. Being able to swap RAM or hard drives is so basic but so useful.

Drives in particular. Let them solder the memory if they absolutely have to, but exposing even an empty NVMe slot should be standard for laptops. Unfortunately, Apple makes a pretty penny off the storage surcharge so I wouldn't really anticipate that anytime soon.

I will accept the trade off for the performance boost tbh.

What performance boost? As in, same software running for comparison on the hardware of interest, one soldered and the other not. I never heard that soldering your SSD on makes it faster...

It doesn't, Apples SSD performance is fine but unremarkable. Their current machines will do around ~6GB/sec read and ~5GB/sec write, which isn't even at the limit of socketed PCIe4 NVMe drives, nevermind the bleeding edge PCIe5 drives which can do up to ~14GB/sec read and ~12GB/sec write (albeit with excessive heat and power consumption for a laptop).

Soldering the RAM has legitimate performance benefits, but soldering the SSD is just to save space and upsell overpriced upgrades.

It's crazy that some people think it's apple so it must be special and better not realizing NVMe is a industry standard.

Sorry I was referring to the boost you get from having ram integrated into the chip vis-à-vis apple’s M-line of processors.

Having replaceable ram is not really a marketable feature these days.

This might be nitpicking but 1) the ram is not integrated into the chip, per se, it's still discrete and soldered on a PCB right next to the CPU, and 2) the increased speed comes from additional memory channels built into the M-series CPUs, not necessarily the fact that the memory is closer to the CPU.

It is true that it's not currently feasible to have socketed memory in a laptop offering 8+ memory channels to enable 200GB/sec+ bandwidth, but you can absolutely get the same (or greater!) memory speeds as an M-series CPU from an x86 desktop workstation.

If Intel/AMD wanted to prioritize memory bandwidth, they could probably work with JEDEC or another industry org to develop a new standard for socketed memory with multiple channels per socket, to enable the kind of speeds that Apple offers. The fact that they haven't (to my knowledge) indicates to me that they don't see it as a big enough priority or benefit.

> 1) the ram is not integrated into the chip, per se, it's still discrete and soldered on a PCB right next to the CPU, and 2) the increased speed comes from additional memory channels built into the M-series CPUs

Thanks, I did not know this! I would have honestly have bought into Apple's marketing that the soldering is what allows them to make it more integrated and faster

You're welcome! In fairness to Apple, having shorter traces between the CPU and main memory does in fact decrease latency and power requirements. It's just not the only, or even the best, way to get more performance out of memory chips.

The CAMM2/LPCAMM2 standard is a new way of having replaceable memory which takes up less physical space and is faster, if you're interested. There are a few laptops (and desktops) out there using it already. It still only supports dual-channel memory, though.

As I said originally, my suspicion is that "200GB/s+ memory bandwidth!" might be good marketing copy and make for good synthetic benchmark results, but just isn't actually that beneficial for the average computer user in the real world. This could be why you don't see other computer manufacturers pursuing it, at least not in laptops.

> replaceable ram is not really a marketable feature these days

A week ago, I helped a family member select a laptop. One of the criteria is either sufficient RAM to begin with (16GB puts them into a price class above what they actually need for other specs) or upgradeable RAM. It's definitely something I look at for myself and for those around me also -- more so than in the past because nowadays it has become a problem...

They no longer even have a "memory" chip anymore, it's all part of the same SOC AFAIK, so they cannot "solder" it.

The RAM is still very much bog-standard DDR4/DDR5 chips, soldered on a PCB right next to the CPU. Here's an example pic of an M3 motherboard. The CPU/GPU is under the metal piece with the Apple logo on it, and the memory is the two rectangular chips immediately above that.

https://cdn.wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/M3-Macs....

You are thinking of the iPhones.

All the ARM Macs are separate memory chips.

Even when Apple laptops had removable solid state storage, it used a non-standard connector[1]. Very consumer and repair hostile. While OWC still made thirds party drives for these[2], few (no?) other companies did.

[1] https://beetstech.com/blog/apple-proprietary-ssd-ultimate-gu...

[2] https://www.owc.com/solutions/aura-n2

Hot air rework is more accessible than ever. This video is kinda over-the-top breathless, but removing components and reballing new ones isn't rocket science.

https://youtu.be/apEKAY11NQs?t=328

It is and will always be rocket science to most people, and orders of magnitude more difficult than swapping a drive or ram sticks.

I disagree that the current state of an art will not change. Consider the solution-state as a vector. 18 years ago people were performing reflow repair with candles! [0] Pathfinding hackers are able to perform the task now more precisely and with consumer priced tools.

SMD and BGA are definitely headed in a direction of non-specialized solubility at an individual level. What will drive it most quickly is that it is easier and more precise than holding an iron, solder wire and two components together.

0. https://www.geektechnique.org/projectlab/726/diy-obsolete-ib...

Apple has been gluing down the NAND on their phones: https://youtu.be/KRRNR4HyYaw

If that practice spreads to the MacBooks, you'll also need a CNC mill.

I have a mac, absolutely love it, hate windows and yet my next laptop will be windows because of that.

You don't realize how much it matters until it does, and then it changes everything. Always having to carry an external drive just because my email takes 150gb of the 256gb MacBook storage is even more annoying than windows puting candy crush saga on the start menu.

> just because my email takes 150gb

You have a very different email life than me. Is that like, all emails received in your life, or just huge attachments?

He's replaced Github repos with local email archives because a Medium article said "One trick to enhance your version control"

It's only a few years but lot and lot of attachment. Unoptimized pdf takes a big chunk.

Could look into email attachment optimization tooling like https://unattach.app/

The total size isn't so surprising to me, many have large archives, but why would it all be local to your main or external drive instead of just loaded on-demand over IMAP or whatever?

Unfortunately with DDR5L speeds, they need to be embedded to keep signal stability, so you need to find at least a 16GB laptop which is STILL pretty gatekept with a higher chip like i7 so you have to pay $300 more for that extra 8GB, pulling a page from Apple. Luckily m.2 is still a thing and 99% of Windows still use it.

Why do you need 150G of mail locally? and why did you think it sufficient to bug the absolute minimum spec available?

I’m afraid though that the core premise of your comment is flawed. Storage and especially memory are increasingly soldered to thin and lights. Even professional grade laptops such as the Thinkpad X1 Carbon have soldered memory.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-scourge-of-fully-soldered-...

Did you consider Linux instead?

If you hate Windows, you should really consider Linux instead. Gnome is quite enjoyable and can be relatively easily made to behave similarly to the macos DE. Fedora works pretty well OOTB on most hardware. If you buy as Frame.work[1] laptop, Fedora will install and run very well.

[1] Dislaimer: I'm a community investor in Framework but have three of them because I like them a lot.

My next self-purchased laptop is also going to be one that is not a Mac and buying a 2-3 year extended warranty wouldn't cost half or one third of its price. It will also not increase its price by 25-30% if I choose to double the RAM (and by double I mean 8 to 16, not 32 or so). I asked an Apple fan once why Apple still has 8GB RAM even in their pro models and I got the response because it's Apple, you don't need more than 8GB RAM. And I actually realised why Apple gets away with such practises. They are like the 99.978% of Apple's customer base. They stand in queues to get the latest Apple device and then cry out of joy.

I bought a Dell laptop in 2007 and I was able to "deselect" Windows and it actually had reduced the price. I could do that in the third world and online and in 2007 (again!). I also got home repair in not a tier 1 city of that third world country. I think we went degradingly backwards from there.

It's a bit of filler text in a demo. You might be reading a little too much into it.

At least the iphone 16 has electrically released adhesive. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41623251

That is actually innovative and a feature. It shows what smart engineering can do when the design goal is not user hostile.

I spotted that too, I got a laugh out of it. Committed non-commitment.

If it were possible to do so, I would possibly buy this as my new "phone":

   - I almost never hold my phone to my ear
   - I don't need the dual-lens features of the new iPhones
   - Standby battery life seems up to the challenge
   - Apple doesn't offer the iPhone Mini anymore, which is what I'm carrying now. If I'm going bigger, why not actually go BIGger.

Things holding me back:

   - Not actually sure about the battery life
   - As far as I know you can't transfer your actual phone line to a Mini

Google Voice?

Samsung has a Galaxy fold which I’m interested in buying as a second device. I’d imagine Apple has to have something similar as a prototype as it seems like a no brainer

Problem with current folds is that I want the screen to open/extend. I don't want to open YET ANOTHER LARGER screen. This makes most sense tbf. You want a phone to extend into a tablet, and actually have the first screen still be usable. It cuts down cost and waste of always having at least one screen always off.

Original Huawei mate x and the new trifold does what I'd like. But then again... Huawei so can't in US lol.

iPad Mini cellular is data-only. PSTN calls and SMS require a VOIP client or separate dumbphone. E2EE audio/video are available in several messaging apps, including FaceTime, making good use of the larger screen.

TouchID is good for fast and reliable unlock.

I've been using data-only SIMs (and now eSIMS) since 2015. Bria voip client with voip.ms providing DIDs. Works wonderfully well and I can highly recommend going voip-only if you can.

The thing holding me back from going iPad Mini instead of iPhone was Apple Watch needs the iPhone (for some reason you can't use an iPad or Mac). Not an issue anymore. But now I rely on the amazing 16 Pro camera (with Halide shooting RAW) to mostly replace my mirrorless RX1, so yet another reason to stay iPhone.

Does voip.ms work with 2FA services e.g. those used by banks? I have heard it doesn't and that's a dealbreaker for me.

It works for most of them, but not all. And sometimes a service originally supports it, but then changes and doesn't, which means you need to get in touch with them to fix it.

I now have a Tello eSIM ($5/mo) that I use just for the 3-4 services that don't support voip.ms. And only turn it on when I need it.

Ok, thanks, as rumoured then.

I was trying to use Tello but despite supposedly activating the esim in my supposedly supported phone (6a), it reuses to do anything. I've just switched to tossble digits which a) works for me, and b) is much cheaper!

Last last point makes me wonder: why have phone numbers at all?

There are still lots of services requiring a phone number (at registering or using it for 2FA). No one likes it but that's the reality.

And no, virtual numbers like Google Voice are often (but not always) blocked.

I can see why people want a phone number now. I was thinking more about why society doesn’t move away from phone numbers (for me, it’s been a hastle to be linked to a carrier and a country)

What better system can you think off? That allows calling the doctor, a restaurant, or that friend-of-a-friend who is selling a tractor? Without requiring people self-host a brunch of infrastructure (I like self-hosting stuff, most people wouldn't)

Also, inertia

i think the problem isn't the phone number, but the special hardware/vendor lock in that is required for it. if you travel a lot or live in a country where it is just easy to cross borders as a part of life, it quickly becomes obvious that being tethered to a regional provider for your phone number is a problem.

you end up paying ridiculous roaming fees to keep your number active in the other country, or you lose any ability for people to contact you by phone. it's incredibly frustrating when voip is so close, but not the 100% solution. couple that with providers still charging ridiculous fees to call numbers in other countries and it gets even worse.

> if you [] live in a country where it is just easy to cross borders as a part of life, [] providers still charging ridiculous fees

What places other than the EU does the "easy to cross borders as a part of life" apply to?

why does it matter? but to answer: literally near any bordering country.

> I was thinking more about why

Good question - e.g. why isn't a phone number like an email address.

My guess is that it functions as an anchor - not to help motion, but to guarantee immobility. Like a physical address, the inconvenience of changing makes for fewer changes.

A low-pass filter, for system stability, if you want to look at it that way.

I'm pretty close to skipping out on my cell number. I very rarely use it. But that said, I do use it every so often, and when I do I need it pretty strongly. Also, I've had the same number for something like 15 years, and that's hard to walk away from.

You'll likely run into frustrating app availability issues. Releasing iPhone apps on iPad is not universally done. (looking at you WhatsApp)

> dual-lens features of the new iPhones

Dual? I guess some of the iPhone 16 models might have 7-8 of them by now. (I have not checked the whole 16 lineup yet, they have not bumped up the lens count, or have they?). My old 14 has 2 though. Yup, just checked - it's two. I guess it must be like two plane engines. If one is broken the other will work (I also guess/hope that's how plane engines work).

> iPhone Mini anymore, which is what I'm carrying now

I tried. The battery was atrocious. To make the battery last till early or kinda late evening I had to actively not use the phone, so I finally gave in and moved to the smallest iPhablet i.e iPhone 14 at that time (actually there was 15 as well but I guess the only difference for me between the two was the price difference). It's been said iPhone Mini 13 was the last of the small phone lineage and there will be no more.

> I almost never hold my phone to my ear

Please tell me why people do this.

When you around other people (so speaker phone is inappropriate) and don't have earbuds.

The mini is the absolute sweet spot for me - enough portability that I don’t mind the many restrictions of iPad OS. But the A-line chips and low-quality screen are problems, and not being able to properly dock it at a monitor is a real hinderance. None of those are addressed here, unfortunately.

Considering the bestselling laptops at Walmart for $400-500 still sometimes have Twisted Nematic displays, I think the screen is fine.

I also don’t get the complaint about the A-series chip. What does an M1 unlock in iPadOS that the A17 doesn’t?

I think stage manager? And the A1 can get hot sometimes (PDFs and Procreate).

I can’t find any mention of Stage Manager being supported on this device - so either it doesn’t, or the help pages haven’t been updated yet.

I will say though the criticism of the A-series getting hot doesn’t make sense. If the A-series gets hot, the M-series is going to be boiling in that tiny chassis.

> I will say though the criticism of the A-series getting hot doesn’t make sense. If the A-series gets hot, the M-series is going to be boiling in that tiny chassis.

Depends on a particular A and M chip, tho.

The screen has the same pixel density as the iPhones'. Which is better than any other iPad model's.

If were picking random stuff to compare it against, for $250 Motorola will sell you a phone with a 6.7", 395ppi, 120hz OLED screen. It also comes with a stylus and has 256GB storage standard.

Obviously these aren't directly comparable products but neither are iPads and budget laptops, and Apple asks $750 for a model with equivalent storage and a cellular modem. For a lot of people the screen probably is perfectly adequate but I can also see why some potential buyers would be pretty disappointed given the price point, especially since unlike the air apple doesn't even offer an upsell option at this size.

The M1 allows you to use it like a proper laptop for productivity: hook it up to an external display, keyboard and mouse, and it’s a perfect machine for ms-word, PowerPoint or excel. I have my iPad Air connected to a 32 inch monitor for video editing with Final Cut Pro.

> and not being able to properly dock it at a monitor is a real hinderance

Can you expand on that? It seems to support DisplayPort over USB-C, and there are a number of 1st and 3rd party adapters that have DP out, power in, and a USB2.0 plug for your other devices. What does “properly” docking it look like?

The A-series chips only support screen mirroring; with the M-class iPads you can have stage manager and multiple windows across two displays; and the main display runs at native resolution. It’s a far better (though still flawed) experience.

There are a bunch of UX differences between an iPad and a laptop while connected to a docking station that make using an iPad in that manner not quite satisfactory. For example, the iPad's screen always has to be on - while you can choose to either mirror or extend your desktop environment, you can't use only the external monitors and shut your case like you can with a laptop.

Was patiently waiting for the mini getting an update - i don’t care as much for the screen, CPU etc. but not moving the front facing camera to the side, hence landscape friendly position is beyond me.

The whole chassis is weak, old... One camera still? Lame... The thermals are mediocre, at best. And the iPhone 15 Pro I just got makes me look forward to the winter. I expect similar experiences with this. When you write/draw on it, it does get hot. Same battery life is not bad, but it could use some more when you use the Pencil. Touch ID is another very very weird thing to keep. I wonder what sort of market buys that and they don't want to upgrade anything... It feels so weird...

If you check Apple's comparison, at least on that overview, it seems they changed only the processor, networking, that HDR thingy on the camera, and... that's all. Everything else is the same.

> One camera still? Lame...

It's a tablet, not a phone. No number of cameras is going to make it into a good device for taking photos.

Speaking of screens, I wonder if they fixed the jelly scroll. It doesn’t bother me that much on my mini, but it would be ridiculous to keep that flaw as-is in the newer gen.

The what?

They are referring to the screen lagging/tearing while scrolling

I'm guessing Apple is using an IPS panel meant for landscape orientation (i.e. the image scans from the top/bottom) in a device mostly used in portrait orientation. This causes rolling shutter distortion when scrolling contents.

It's basically screen tearing, apparently because the top and bottom of the display (or left and right in other orientations) refresh at different rates. iFixit suggests its a controller issue.

> Update, 9/28/2021: In response to our inquiry, Apple has told us that the "jelly scroll" issue on the 6th-generation iPad mini is normal behavior for LCD screens.

> Update, 9/30/2021: An iFixit teardown suggests that the iPad mini's more noticeable scrolling issue is a byproduct of how the display controller is mounted.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/2021-ipad-mini-suffe...

FWIW, my 5th Gen Mini doesn't have this issue.

The real fix would be for them to stop being so stingy with 120hz panels, as long as they keep using 60hz ones they're going to be prone to jelly scrolling in one orientation or the other. With 60hz the best you can hope for is that the orientation you use the most often is the good one this time.

> enough portability that I don’t mind the many restrictions of iPad OS.

Would it be a sweeter spot without those restrictions?

I hate that I can’t code on my iPad Pro.

Get a-Shell, iSH, etc.

Yeah I mean sure, but they are all extremely limited emulators.

If you meant "not having Stage Manager", I'm genuinely surprised the A18 Pro wasn't considered powerful enough to run it, given that it outperforms the M1 that was. The only thing I could think of is that Apple thinks the smaller screen is too small for Stage Manager.

I still think they should support it anyway, even if only for three apps at a time on the primary display. iPadOS is weirdly bifurcated into two different window management strategies (Split View vs. Stage Manager) based on what device you bought, which is confusing. They should be expanding Stage Manager to as many devices as possible.

check out: https://github.com/straight-tamago/misakaX

it allows you to enable stage manager on an ipad mini without problems and without needing to jailbreak or similar :). the only gotcha is, that the ipad mini doesn't support more than 1080p output, therefore, if you connect a 4k screen it will remain blank.

would love to know if the ipad mini 7 now supports 4k - would actually be a meaningful upgrade then.

That's cool and all, but 18.1 killed the exploit this uses to write the MobileGestalt file. Which means if you buy a mini 7 now, you're probably not going to be able to force-enable Stage Manager like this.

We changed the URL from https://www.apple.com/ipad-mini/ but readers may want to check out both.

thanks dang

Selling machine learning stuff as "intelligence" raises false expectations and is ultimately fraud. I can't wait for this whole overblown hype to crash and burn.

I dunno, it could be construed as a marketing phrase well enough, not unlike other technologies they have - True Tone, Cinema, etc. I mean the Apple TV isn't a TV.

Autopilot is more henious I think because it was actually marketed as autopilot.

Autopilot literally does what it means

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot

That's an Apple thing. They developed this habit (if not addiction) after bringing features to their devices very late, sometimes a decade later than their competitors. They thought it was better to call those basic features with fancy multi word names with ™ symbols at the end and that resonates with their fan base in perfect harmony. So I think the habit stuck.

Oh yes, because the other companies don't call machine learning 'intelligence' ;)

Whatabout fallacy.

high dpi = "Retina"

high refresh rate = "Promotion"

vibrating phone = "Taptic Engine"

there are probably more. and calling AR "spatial computing" seems similar though I don't think its completely a made up marketing term

And the "magic mouse" is actually just powered by electricity.

"Intelligence", like magic, has vague and diffuse enough meaning that there's basically no chance of it being actual fraud.

Everybody knows that "magic" is not to be taken literally because it doesn't exist. Intelligence, OTOH, has at least some credible instances on this planet of ours, so those are not exactly comparable.

Apple will make smart light bulb and sell it as a revolutionary intelligent light control system. If it weren't for their brand reputation, they'd look like one of the worst scam companies in tech, right down to the spelling mistakes in their descriptions (for some reason they don't like to use definite or indefinite articles for their products which always make their marketing seem like a bad machine translation to me).

I just saw an AI ad with Keanu Reeves in it swinging a sword at drones. I wonder how much they paid him to be in such a stupid commercial?

Gave me the dotcom vibes big time.

I think that ship has sailed when the "smart" phone category was created.

They call their support personnel "geniuses" - what else would you expect :)

It's just their new brand name. I get the impression they are bringing genAI to boomers in a user friendly way. While everyone of us on HN have used chatGPT and knows the pros/cons, the regular users need a more gentle introduction using the basic use cases such as proofreading and simple image editing.

I was underwhelmed reading the link about the upcoming Intelligence features, but I put myself into the shoes of my dad and thought... well I guess that's a good starting point.

If Apple's listening.. a 120Hz would have sold this for me. I'm still on a 2018 iPad Pro because the upgrade isn't worth the enormous cost including a basic keyboard and pencil, and the only device that has a 120Hz drawing experience is that iPad Pro.

For anyone who thinks the pencil on a 60Hz screen is "great", you need to try it on an iPad Pro next time you're in the apple store. You'll see the difference between the "ink" trailing and lagging, and actually drawing as you move the nib.

But how else are they meant to make their trillions

Can I just get a a flagship iPhone sized like an iPhone SE please?

Rumor has it that the SE 4 will be released in early 2025.

It will have the new flagship A18 processor and adequate RAM for Apple Intelligence.

Unfortunately, it will be larger (6.1") than the SE 3 (4.7"). Probably with a notch and Face ID as well. :(

My theory is that this will only ever happen if battery technology improves enough that they can get the same battery life as current flagship models, but in that smaller form factor. People may say they don't care about battery life or charging, but if a year or two in you have to charge every night, it is an inconvenience, even if not front and center. I suspect this is one of the main reasons they don't want to do that right now, they don't want to create this image of oh damn, my Apple device is out of battery again.

I wish they had improved the screen a little bit as well.

It makes sense to update the model with apple intelligence but that might not be enough for a lot of people to upgrade.

Perhaps we're looking at a device that simply will be out of lineup soon (next few years).

I do like this form factor a lot though, well, eventually we'll get foldable phones to become mainstream I hope.

The alleged roadmap leak indicates they’re aiming for 2026/2027 foldable screens (no word on whether it’s horizontal or vertical) so if all goes according to plan, you would be right that this is the last update for the “iPad mini” device.

There was some chatter on Macrumors that they flipped the orientation of the controller board so that the Jelly scrolling will be gone when used in portrait mode. That was the #1 display complaint on the outgoing model, so if its true then I’d count that as a win on improving the screen.

Wouldn't that cause jelly scrolling in landscape mode?

I think so, but fewer people use it in that orientation when reading.

> It makes sense to update the model with apple intelligence but that might not be enough for a lot of people to upgrade.

that's fine? it's a very mature segment - medium-price small screen tablet. it hasn't even really been updated since 2021, and that was basically new case+usb-c.

I thought the case and USB-C were in iPad mini already?

Mature segment? Is there any other tablet with a square aspect ratio that is smaller than 10"? Two years ago I was on the market, I only remember Microsoft's Surfaces, which are all 10", no other square tablets.

Well.. technically you could say the Google Pixel Fold.

The iPads are basically appliances. They release a new model of fridge every year but I've never once considered "Upgrading" my existing one.

My 2014 ipad air 2 is only just starting to feel old.

The base models maybe, but the Pros have crazy OLEDs that almost have me drooling. The speed hasn't changed much, i just got a 11 Pro with M1 and it isn't any faster in normal stuff than the A12 on my 12.9". I always get my Apple devices from used shops and got my 11 Pro for $250 when it was 2 gens old and feel I won't get the OLED one till I find one for $300ish.

> I wish they had improved the screen a little bit as well.

What do you mean, the iPad mini has a higher ppi (326) vs iPad Air (264).

I think the issue is that, iPad OS is scaling the display to a weird resolution.

https://www.apple.com/ipad-mini/specs/

https://www.apple.com/ipad-air/specs/

Probably a 120hz screen like the Pro has

Then it’d also get the IPad Pro price?

120hz panels are dirt cheap at this point, look beyond the Apple ecosystem and they're everywhere at nearly every price point. Even barebones office monitors meant for doing spreadsheets are often ~100hz now, there's no reason to make them 60hz when faster panels are more or less the same price.

>120hz panels are dirt cheap at this point

So is storage and RAM but every OEM has their added vendor tax and so does Apple.

2TB Samsung pro nvme SSD is 170$, how much is 2TB Apple storage...

Same with screens.

> now, there's no reason to make them 60hz

Product differentiation.

Promotion is a way to make clients upgrade to iPad Pro. One of the very few left.

It's much less bright than the iPad Pro and iPhone in daylight. In a bright day it's barely visible.

And adding OLED would make it the great for nighttime reading.

Who mentioned DPI?

That page uses a lot of words to say,

"We added more RAM because there's no way we could make an LLM useful in only 4GB. While we were there, we updated the CPU. Might as well.(We grabbed the A17 Pro because we were in a rush.)"

One would think that they avoid the embarrassment of releasing another device before their AI features are even available. But no.

Remember folks, this is a US$3Trillion company and they can't get their flagship products shipped.

Something is very wrong at Apple.

I'm curious about users who do use something similar. I have an iPad pro, but I find either a notebook and pen, or butcher paper and pen to be far superior for capturing anything.

Can someone tell me how they're increasing their creative productivity with these outside of making illustrations?

I have a ton of ideas that I organize and illustrate, but I can't give up my pen/paper as I haven't found the killer combo yet.

> but I find either a notebook and pen, or butcher paper and pen to be far superior for capturing anything.

I have phases where I convince myself this is true, in between switching back to a note taking app (TickTick last few yrs) and every time I go back it's because it a) has total historical recall + a search box when I want to find something and b) I already carry my phone everywhere, like the grocery store, or I'm on my laptop for work.

Papers only true benefit is focus and "zen" stuff.

Using Goodnotes (because it has pretty good search) and https://shop.astropad.com/products/rock-paper-pencil, made it a much more enjoyable experience for me.

Of course, I'm also pretty bad at taking notes in general, so I don't use it nearly as much as I should.

ooooh neat, I'll check it out. Thanks

I want this but why no OLED? :'(

iPhone went OLED in 2017. And they didn’t OLED the poor iPad mini (the best iPad) in a newly released model in 2024!? :'(

They want you to buy the pro. Helps contribute to their trillions profits. Same with low iPhone models only getting 60hz now. Maybe they should have branded it with their usual marketing bullshit jargon

I love iPad minis, but a keyboard folio for this size would be great. I've used this form factor with the iPad Air for writing, and it's perfect for carrying in a small bag. I know this is an expensive toy, though.

[*] For reference, the iPad Air with the Magic Keyboard is about as heavy as a 13" MacBook Air.

I bought and returned a 13" iPad Pro M4 because I couldn't get a Smart Keyboard Folio for it. Only the Magic Keyboard is available. I'm still using my 2018 iPad Pro.

Same, I actually bought a few of the Smart Keyboard Folios to use as they die. Upgraded to the M2 iPad Air, as I think it's the last of this form factor...

It is just such a shame they discontinued the keyboard. It makes for the perfect iPad with a full keyboard.

A17 Pro and WiFi 6E like the iPhone 15 Pro, not like the iPhone 16 series.

It sucks that Samsung doesn't have a 7 inch Galaxy S10 Tablet. I would buy that, and I own a tab S9 Ultra. Samsung, make a 7 inch tablet with a Qualcomm chip and AMOLED screen please! I'll take even an 8 inch screen.

Since Apple Intelligence won’t be available in the EU, this is a very underwhelming refresh.

I do love my iPad Mini to bits though. I use mine purely to read, sketch and take notes. It does not receive any notifications. I carry it almost everywhere I go.

In the EU , I don’t see any mentioning of “intelligence”. Just a “new iPad mini”

The lineup sizes are filling in, a bit like A-series paper.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size

This Apple Intelligence starts reminding about Tesla Autopilot. I hope they will not hire people on the other side of the world to click buttons on your phone.

That's not how Autopilot works.

I’m not sure it’s polite or technically correct to put “autopilot” and “works” in the same sentence.

I use it all the time and it works very well. Do you have any experience with it?

Does anyone here have insight as to the differences between the various versions of Apple's "Smart HDR" feature? Interesting to see it took the leap from Smart HDR3 (previous model) to Smart HDR 4 (new model), and yet the latest iPhones released last month apparently use Smart HDR 5.

The version is tied to the Image Signal Processor (ISP) of the A-series chip. So the A17 has Smart HDR 4, while the A18 has Smart HDR 5.

Smart HDR uses neural image segmentation for tone mapping and other processing. In my opinion it goes way too far; trying to grab a faintly blue sky and make it as blue as possible, identifying a face and lightening any hint of a shadow, etc.

When people complain about iPhone photos looking over processed, this is why.

Smart HDR 5 but Auto WB is still stuck in kindergarten. Priorities I guess.

Great point—the basics like WB and exposure still get confused by something as simple as a field of green grass or a white wall.

Too bad Apple hasn't released Apple AI at all; why bother with press releases featuring it? (EU)

All of this looks good, but if they want to retain trust with artists, the last thing they should be doing is integrating generative AI tools into their art programs.

Creatives are getting more and more frustrated with the AI tools showing up in places like Windows or in Photoshop. For the first time ever I am meeting career artists and designers who are actively looking to add non-AI alternatives to their usual toolchains because they feel betrayed by the addition of generative AI.

Apple is asking to lose the trust of a major market segment by charging forward with this stuff. You would think that the backlash to their "Crush!" commercial would have been an eye-opening moment for them about what Artists actually expect from them...

> Creatives are getting more and more frustrated with the AI tools showing up in places like Windows or in Photoshop.

I would be careful about bias here. The loudest people are often the most unhappy. I have several graphic design friends who have fully embraced integrating AI into their workflows.

It's not like artists have a choice. They've been abused by Adobe and similar organisations for decades now, and remain locked in their siloes.

Sure, in theory they could switch to Linux with Krita and Gimp or something, but every time I've heard artists chime in on this, they claim that the software is to immature or lacks features that they need. I _wish_ they could switch to open source software, but they've been putting up with Adobe's abuse for a long time now. This new development is unlikely to change anything.

And just to be clear: I wish I was wrong here. I wish they could and did move to open source tooling.

Yet "creatives" have been using PS etc this whole time as a way to magnify their skills anyway, the hypocrites. Using a PS brush the machine is doing 50-90% of the work for them, and therefore what they're producing isn't art, according to their recent dichotomy.

120hz would’ve been nice… since they likely won’t make pro modal in this size.

I luckily don’t care for higher refresh rate, but I’m disappointed this model doesn’t come with OLED.

I have an older (but not old) Mini, and I find it almost unusable, as screen elements don’t scale up. For example, Safari browser buttons are stupidly small. Is that still an issue with the Mini?

I am not sure I understand what you mean by the scaling issues, so, I guess, no? I have the 6th generation. The problem I have (and I do not see getting improved, somehow) is that applications do not care for it. Many times I have to turn it to landscape for some more room to fit everything. Most applications feel better on landscape, but then you lose vertical space. Affinity Photo 1 is very guilty of that, having buttons overlay each other on the left.

Elements such as buttons and scroll bars are too small for my big fingers and relative to the size of the device.

The mini display is 326 PPI vs 264 PPI for larger iPads, but the same scale factor so things will always be smaller. (iPhones with even higher PPI use a 3x scale.)

That said, you can embiggen things like Safari browser buttons under Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Larger Text.

I'd also suggest playing with the setting here if you just want everything to be scaled up a bit: Settings > Display & Brightness > Display Zoom > Larger Text.

Thank you. Larger text does just that and in some cases makes buttons even more difficult to use. My eyes are fine, and my fingers are big…unfortunately rendering the Mini mainly useless for me.

Yes. The mini feels like an abandoned product. In landscape mode, the keyboard takes more than half of the screen. UI elements are routinely covered up in various apps. For example, in Flighty, the flights "drawer" cannot be hidden in the way it can on the iPhone. This is probably fine in a larger iPad, but on the Mini, it covers more than half the screen, meaning it HIDES THE AIRPLANE ICON of the flight you're tracking. Apple Maps has a similar behavior with its drawer in portrait mode, but, IIRC, at least that one can be hidden.

I've owned 8 or 10 tablets in my life and never gotten along with any of them. The Mini6 is my latest experiment, and it's my favorite, but I still find myself rarely using it.

I wish Steve was still alive to have a rampage through the org and humiliate and fire all those responsible for this type of BS

Have you tried using the floating keyboard? I exclusively use it on my iPad not only for saving the screen real estate but also because I can swype on it (even though I can touch type on the big on-screen keyboard just fine; I still find it more convenient to swype with one of my thumbs, or the pencil https://support.apple.com/en-us/111789

Thanks! I haven't -- or, at least, not in a long time. Wow, the UX is terrible! I accidentally first dragged my kyeboard into split mode before reading the instructions. Then I've managed to get it into floating but it was hard to re-dock, and the first few times i tried to move it anywhere, i got some unintended feature enabled. Yikes.

I'll have to remember to use it next time i'm bothered by it covering some control. I still haven't made friends with swype, but I do use it occasionally.

Yes, I remember it being really finnicky when it was first released, and lots of head scratching getting the docked version back. I don't know which iOS version you're using, but I was pleasantly surprised by the newer ability to pinch/reversepinch to shrink/grow it between floating and docked in newer versions, I think that's a recent development.

What I want Apple to introduce is a multi-user option for the iPad. Then, I'm buying one of them for the family. We just don't want (or need) an iPad per person.

Bump up from 64 GB default to 128 GB is nice.

It certainly was, like eight years ago when I got the bigger SD card for my phone

At this point, the only word that can be applied to it is "overdue" for anything who uses it beyond a thin client for server-side storage or a streaming service

Uh, I'd be willing to bet that almost all ipad mini users use cloud storage and streaming services. That's an extremely common use case.

A17 Pro huh, that's a first for putting a pro chip in a non pro iPad, isn't it? I guess it's, as they advertise, to handle Apple Intelligence although I don't understand why they are doubling down on this _now_ while nothing from the newly announced AI stuff is available as of today...

I'm guessing the delays to Apple Intelligence came late in the process and it was supposed to release with the new iPhones? And then they just left hardware plans as-is when the software got delayed.

I'm guessing they were aiming for iOS 18 but caved to what they perceived was the popular demand at the time

It makes sense, the iPad Pros graduated to using full blown M series chips so the A Pro chips they used to use can filter down the stack.

edit: oops I mixed up A Pro and A X

The A17 Pro (originally in the iPhone 15 Pro; now also in the iPad Mini) and A18 Pro (currently only in the iPhone 16 Pro) are the only chips Apple has produced with a "Pro" suffix.

Apple used to use the X suffix for bigger versions of their phone processors that went into iPads (starting with the A5X); that went away when the M-series was introduced.

And the "Pro" suffix itself doesn't seem to denote anything in particular-- there was never a non-Pro A17, and the "A17 Pro" going into the iPad Mini is itself a cut-down version of the chip that went into the iPhone 15 Pro (it has one GPU core disabled).

i would've considered this if it had slimmer bezels or a 120 Hz display.

the current iPad Mini is laggy compared to other iPads, and i'm not sure why. an iPhone with the same processor is not laggy at all. it becomes obvious when scrolling or opening and closing apps.

Nice choice, always been my favorite size.

Surprised though that they don't have an option with cellular so you can have always-on data access (i.e., with a data-only plan).

Updated: my bad, it does come with cellular -- it's just not advertised on the main product page

I'm seeing it on the Ireland store, for 170 eur.

Same in US, $150.

Most carriers offer iPads as far back as I remember? You have to get it through their stores though.

Do you still need to buy the cellular version to get a GPS chip?

All I want to know is can it do windowed multi tasking with stage manager?

Apple Intelligence more like Apple Idiotic as ...

- Today the summary it gave to an iMessage was "Going to sleep, talk to you tomorrow." The girl and I scheduled a video chat date and she said nothing of the sort rather, "Getting ready for tomorrow (along with some other stuff), talk to you soon."

- Siri is still stupid especially compared to ChatGPT on the same iPhone. I use ChatGPT.. speak to it to count my calories throughout the day at the various places i eat at (Chipolte, Cava, Panera, etc) which it knows calories for everything, calculates and keeps track so i add later add my dinner calorie count .. it even knows how many calories i had on Saturday (still recalls it and speaks it upon me asking). Siri via Apple Intelligence is still the old stupid Siri one pony trick which you still can only speak to it once vs. ChatGPT have a conversation with.

What was this Apple Intelligence supposed to do and how was it supposed to be better? I want a ChatGPT phone and by Microsoft sure their Windows Phone was nice!

There's intelligence, and there's Apple intelligence.

Now turn off the Internet connection and try talking to ChatGPT again...

lol im sure it would be rendered useless... personally i dont care if chatGPT knows my life too like Google, Facebook and etc. All personal preference on how and where we spend our digital lives.

Funnily enough, your car doesn't float. So don't try using it as a boat.

The point is: Apple Intelligence works on your device. Nothing is sent to some remote server. That's also why Siri appears to be dumb compared to Google's, Samsung's and other assistants that work via a huge cloud where all your requests are sent to.

Is there somewhere where this Apple Intelligence can be used ?

Some of it is available in the beta's, but no, it's not released to stable yet.

Which boggles the mind… did nobody tell the software team that a release was coming?

Apple doesn’t have a reputation for letting engineers slack. I have to guess they are working like dogs to meet some standard before they are willing to release.

They don’t have a reputation for releasing hardware without software to back it either. One way or another, an unprecedented process failure has occurred.

Well, the phone’s software works great. They just haven’t released those new AI features - which are supposed to come out on some older devices as well. And it’s hardly the first time Apple delayed a release.

IMO, the only thing weird here is the way the iPhone 16 demo day kept talking about these unreleased features front and center instead of the actual capabilities of the new phone. Probably that’s because the phone is so incremental and there was not much to talk about.

Can you name another time the software team has lagged so far behind the hardware release and marketing? Nearly every ad I’ve seen the world over has touted “Apple Intelligence” as if it’s a thing that exits, not some Coming Soon^{TM} pipe dream.

My money is on it being a massive failure if it ever does come out, the only thing stopping me from buying options is I don’t have a clue as to the timeline for when they’ll give up and ship whatever they have.

Seems like a page from the Tesla playbook. Musk kept promising customers that if they buy a Tesla _now_, they will have full self driving and can make money having it go to work as a robotaxi Next Year (TM). Without these promises, a Tesla would just be another car.

Not quite the same Ponzi scheme, but they promise a device "built for AI", so that when those features are ready, you'll get them. Without these promises, the thing would just be another tablet.

Do they have to necessarily keep that promise? Musk seems to be doing fine without. What's the alternative, holding firm against the hype? Not sure that'd do wonders for their stock price. Maybe Jobs' Apple would have done that. But I suppose the current Apple doesn't see much choice around riding hype cycles.

It clearly wasn't ready. My guess: the powers that be decided they had to make a public showing of being an AI company, hence the giant marketing push ahead of release.

It's unknown how useful any of this will be in day to day use-cases.

I don't think Apple can simply delay an iPhone. There's entire industries relying on there being a new iPhone out every September.

Apple of yesteryear would issue a patch update model and let this feature cook until it was ready for release. Current approach is sloppy in a decidedly un-Apple way.

And it’s not coming to the European Union.

You can get it in the public betas, but it’s very underwhelming and not useful. I’m surprised they’re talking this up so much to be honest.

I bought an ipad mini second hand this year, it is so fun. I use it heavily for note taking with pencil, audio notes and watching youtube.

Never had an iPad but I think I will buy this one.

I've heard through the grapevine that Apple is having trouble making Apple Intelligence not give lots of bad or wrong advice/suggestions/etc... (same as most LLMs).

I would be amazing to me (as in "get out the popcorn") if Apple decided not to ship Apple Intelligence and came out with a public statement saying LLM tech is not ready or is a dead end and effectively implying that other LLM companies are selling snake oil.

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/10/llms-cant-perform-genuine...

People just have less tolerance for errors using apple products.. that doesn't mean that other LLM companies sell snake-oil, people just have a higher error tolerance for them and are learning to work 'with' those LLMs

No they don't. They have more tolerance for errors imo, because they've been told "it just works" so many times that when it doesn't work, their brain has to skip it. So many iPhone friends point at some problem my Sammy might have like it's broken all the time yet completely ignore when their own phones have issues, or glaring design flaws like the lack of a consistent back button, a major os feature in 2024 being "you can have a custom lock screen and home screen wallpaper" lmao

working with llms as part of my day job and i wouldn't fault them one bit. the errors and reliability issues are not overblown.

What is going on with Apple's ratio on the iPads: all the original models had 4/3, then iPad Air 4 and iPad 10 got ~4.3/3, then iPad mini 6 got ~4.5/3

What could be Apple's rationale on this? why so many slightly different formats? and why those, they add black bars or crop to most normal content... pictures from the camera for example are still in 4/3 so they are cropped in Photos, videos are in 16/9 so they still have black bars, ...

This is especially amusing to me because back in the day when iOS developers would shit on Android, they almost all said (verbatim) "fragmentation" as the reason why iOS was great and Android sucked. "On Android you have a bunch of different screen sizes to deal with so it's hard to make a nice app. On iOS it's all standardized and simple. That is the Apple Way and the whole ecosystem is consistent like that which makes it a joy to develop for and use."

In a way having to dev for fragmented is annoying but valuable, as once you've done it it should handle everything. I imagine so many iOS apps are like a glass animal; fragile beasts.

I find it hilarious that Apple is selling the new iphones with AI features that only works on the new devices because they apparently don't require the cloud, and instead run locally.

Apple's logic:- saving private photos on the cloud is good for privacy, while doing AI computation on the cloud is somehow bad for it ?

The logic is sound. Storage can be end-to-end encrypted, but it cannot be used for computation.

Ugh, that bezel.

Will full coverage screens with a software driven, virtual bezel every be a thing?

Ugh, my batteries need recharging.

Will nuclear powered phones with built-in fusion reactors that never need recharging ever be a thing?

An edge to edge screen is entirely technically feasible tho. The iPhone has it.

I don't get why some people get so worked up about bezels. I like being able to hold my devices without accidental inputs, and to me they look better anyway.

I wouldn't mind 3cm wide bezels and accordingly larger batteries.

Virtual bezels and let the user choosing.

Dynamically get larger as battery life decreases

And pay for a screen size I won't use? No, thanks.

Could be dynamic, example, watching a movie, no bezels. Remove the bezels from the top and/or bottom, that changes on the device orientation. Placed in a stand remove the bezels, add them back when picked up.

That sounds awesome actually. Makes me wonder how hard it would be on a rooted phone to just have it tell the software the screen is a few pixels smaller so you can touch chose sides safely, and remove the restriction again when you're in movie mode

Never heard of anyone making that but this would honestly sound like the first innovation in several years, not incremental like "GPS now finds a solution 2 seconds faster" and "the mobile data now uses 7% less energy" but something that is now possible that wasn't a feature before

So what mechanism would you suggest to reliably detect when I want to pick it up so it adds the bezels before I'm able to cause any accidental input?

Imagining that with Apple you're paying for the screen size is a bit rich.

iPads need to have some sort of bezel, else how are you going to hold the thing? iPhones you can grip the sides, iPads not so much.

iPhone 16 pro max is almost there with the screen size, also a two-hands device

This. Phones are already a real trade-off between usability and screen size. I've reached (or perhaps slightly gone over) the minimum amount of grabbing space I want on a phone and mine isn't quite the sleekest model

I was just thinking the same thing. Why couldn't they give it a tiny bezel, with a software option to put a virtual bezel if you want to hold it in a way it matters.

They could even give it only the virtual bezel on the left and right sides, in whichever orientation you're holding it, since you don't really hold it on the top or bottom.

Looks like this is eSIM only - which is a show stopper. I'll have to research if they release a SIM mobile option somewhere on earth, if not, I'll probably stick with my current Mini 5 a bit longer (or pick up a discounted Mini 6 for the wait)

Why would that be a show stopper? eSIM is incredibly widely available (see [0] and [1]), you have a number of choices in most countries these days.

[0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/101569

[1] https://esim-world.com/

For me, it's a showstopper because Google Fi does not yet support eSIMs for their data-only SIMs.

Someone had to have the courage to drop the physical SIM slot

Pretty sure theres no stage manager, hard pass. Sticking to my 6.

Well, they call it stage manager, but in iOS 18 (too) it only offers split screen and one window overlaid to the side. There is an example in the page somewhere.

That’s not stage manger it’s Split View and Slide Over

https://support.apple.com/en-us/102576

You are correct. I would have sworn it was called Stage Manager in 17... For what it's worth, searching for "Stage Manager" in Settings returns only stuff in this multitasking page of settings.

All I’ve wanted is a pocket iOS device that I can dock and use for some desktop-like use cases. I had really hoped that the iPad mini would get stage manager for this reason. Oh well

Oh nice. Just in time for a barely upgraded Siri!

I'm wondering how advanced it can get with the math. If it had capabilities like decent symbolic math software, that'd be pretty interesting.

The size of the mini is really the best, but the external monitor support is very disappointing. Do jailbreaks etc. allow for native monitor resolutions or are we limited to the iPads screen resolution by hardware?

I think the official specs say it can display 4k screen over DP connector. Not sure if jailbreaks allow more resolutions

stil without terminal , brew and cc

Why would you want this on an appliance? Would you expect terminal or brew on your toaster?

i use it like Kindle

Would be nice if Apple also introduced a new base iPad with at least support for a decent Apple Pencil. I want to buy my wife an iPad, but she wants to draw and the Apple Pencil USB-C doesn't support presure levels, so it is either a base iPad with an old Apple Pencil 1st Gen (that still is lightining) or paying extra for the iPad Air and Apple Pencil 2nd Gen/Pro. The fact that Apple Pencil USB-C doesn't support presure levels at ALL is infuriating too.

If she's looking to sketch or just doesn't mind not having color, I can't recommend the Kindle Scribe enough. I bought it for reading but it's become my combination work notes/presentation board/drawing tablet, and I absolutely love it. The premium pencil honestly smokes the Apple pencil and it feels so nice to use. I just wish it did color too.

The Air is a significantly better drawing display.

She basically wants to draw notes and do some doodling, so it is not like it would make much difference and the price delta is huge between the base iPad and the iPad Air.

The older generations are still available and cheaper, they just don't support the newest Pencil Pro.

The Wikipedia article for the Apple Pencil has a compatiblity matrix that is very helpful in this regard, since it's so damn confusing.

I think if I was in the market for a drawing device on a budget I'd go with an iPad Air that supports the Apple Pencil 2nd generation. Something like the iPad Air 5th or 4th would do well.

It depends on her storage needs. If she’s making files she’ll probably not want the 64GB version. So you’d be looking at the 256GB base for $500 or the 128GB 11” Air for $600. That’s not that big a jump for the added utility.

I agree with the other poster; maybe look at refurb and a 2nd gen pencil.

Or just don’t get one. But it sounds like this is on the short list to buy for you two.

She lived with an iPhone 64GB up until last week and I expect that her tablet storage needs to be even smaller (e.g.: no photos). So yes, 64GB is fine.

> Or just don’t get one.

This is actually what I am going to do: wait until there is a better base iPad version. Unless I can get an older iPad Pro for a cheap price, but it is unlikely here in EU.

I would suggest the iPad Air 5th or 4th generation. They should be pretty close in price to a base iPad, probably less for the 4th generation.

It's sad that "ultraportable iPad" marketing works, but "ultraportable iPhone" does not make sense for most people.

iPhone 13 mini was the last flagship smartphone with such dimensions.

How long do we have on the 13 mini before it becomes so slow I have to get a new phone? I don’t know what I’ll do at that point. On the 12 mini now and can never go to a big phone.

Probably a couple of more years provided you can keep replacing your battery. I’m on a 13 Pro Max which has the same SoC as a 13 Mini and while I might want a battery replacement within the next year, the phone itself has no performance issues. I think the iPhone 12 model line is essentially in the same boat, just a little bit older and with worse batteries.

The battery was the main reason I moved from my 12 mini to a 15 (save for USB-C) — just wasn’t holding up, even after a replacement. I still hold out for a 17 mini, though.

A few years still. The XR is still supported with iOS 18.

My 3 years old iPhone mini 13 is still very fast, reliable, and I love every part of the phone. It's such an amazing phone that functions well. The only thing got worsened is the battery, now at 87% even though I always charge it to 80-85%, now I have to charge it to 100% to use through the day. I still have extra power (like 30%) for a whole day. Replacing the battery isn't a problem. If Apple does support it like other models, it should last another 4-5 years more. I have no plan to upgrade to anything as I don't see anything comparable on the horizon.

Nothing wrong with continuing to use the iPhone 13 Mini today: Apple CPU has been so far ahead of the competition that apart from on-device generative AI there’s nothing that hugely pushes it. For data, search for “single-core” and “multi-core” in https://infrequently.org/2024/01/performance-inequality-gap-...

The typical iPhone Mini product cycle:

Make iPhone Mini -> Mini only accounts for 10% of sales -> Cancel iPhone Mini -> Notice that 10% of iPhone customers haven't updated for 3 or 4 cycles -> Make iPhone Mini -> Suffer crippling corporate amnesia -> <...>

I'm expecting the brain worms to reach step 4 of the corporate consciousness cycle around the next generation or so.

One can hope.

I wonder if that was their attempt to make the iPhone SE have a legitimate place with the other iPhones? Not sure, but it is interesting that no matter what, they always sell the SE.

only the 12 and 13 had mini sizes, so not really. unless you are counting the SE1 as mini

Dimensions:

SE1: 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6

Mini 13: 131.5 x 64.2 x 7.65

Counting the original SE as a mini is perfectly reasonable.

It's also quite clearly what the grandparent comment was referring to.

In that case the first six years of iPhone models were also minis. None were cancelled due to low sales. The original SE was also not cancelled due to low sales, it continued to sell extremely well for years after its release. Apart from the 12/13 minis, the only model that had low sales was the 5C, which is actually a little larger than the 5S.

The rule for the SE is that it always has the design of second most recent hardware design, regardless of size.

If Apple re-introduces a mini, that will be the first such 'cycle.'

I still remember the Steve Jobs era when people would praise Apple for having a simple lineup of devices, in contrast to Android, which had some crazy amount of variants of every device. How times have changed.

Regarding variants, it continue to be more complex to buy a Microsoft Windows notebook.

What other large brand has a simpler lineup? Samsung released 22 phones just in 2024 with memorable names like C55 and M05.

Although I wouldn't mind if they got rid of one or two iPhone variants, or at least gave them more meaningful names. I have no idea what the difference between Plus, Pro and Max is. I only know that Pro doesn't mean pro, and that doesn't make it any easier.

Edit: also Steve Jobs was still alive when you could choose between four different iPod variants.

Google Pixel has one Tablet.

Within the first year of release there was also just one iPhone and one iPad.

Meanwhile there are 4 variants of the Pixel 9. So clearly Google shows the same trend over time.

9 years, 3 tablets, 1 active:

  Pixel C (2015)
  Pixel Slate (2018)
  Pixel Tablet (2023)

https://www.androidcentral.com/google-pixel-c-was-best-andro...

> I'll forever remember a different tablet, the Google Pixel C, as the best Android tablet ever made.. The Pixel C's design was just overflowing with potential.. like so many Google hardware products, few people ever had an opportunity to use a Pixel C. It never received a model refresh, and its spiritual successor, the Pixel Slate, was a total disaster. I felt at the time, as I still do today, that the Pixel C deserved a simple update with new components to give this hardware design more time to shine.

So far, no news on Pixel Tablet 2, other than Pixel Tablet being sold standalone without the dock.

It's mainly just the iPad lineup that's a mess, but it's optimized for there always being an iPad available for increasing budgets in $100 jumps, give or take. It's confusing to try and keep track of them all, but that's not really the point. What they have is anyone can walk into a store and say "give me an iPad, I'll pay $600" and they'll get a good device.

When Jobs did that Apple was close to bankruptcy. When the first iPhone was introduced in 2007, was less than $25 billion. It’s now $385 billion.

[dupe]

More discussion on official post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41848298

We'll merge those comments hither.

lol as if teachers have money to buy this to make their lessons plans.

You might be surprised as to how many are willing to make the splurge. Anecdotal, but I'm married to a high school teacher. She and several of her coworkers have been willing to eat the cost personally just to avoid using dated district-provided assets, which are often clucky and make the job worse.

This is the salary schedule for teacher in the district my kids were in:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BN_Q51d_wUFMs7ajdwI07ESmnmS...

Teachers get $55k-$72k depending on their qualifications. Not great, but not poverty levels either. If they want an iPad, they can probably get one.

BEZEL

iPad mini 2024 with Pencil Pro and Math Notes is going to revolutionize math education.

What is math notes?

Math Notes calculator allows users to type or write out mathematical expressions and see them solved in their own handwriting

https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/16/24194423/math-notes-ipad-...

wow, cool

Mathematician here. No it's really not. Having used it extensively it craps out all the time, fails to parse things properly, doesn't understand anything other than a very narrow undefined subset of anything that needs to be done and generally makes things harder.

It sure looks like it would though.

Noteful and a competent calculator with CAS functionality on the other hand might be a different outcome.

To be fair, “math education” usually refers to the millions that learn arithmetic, algebra, and geometry every year, not the (tens of?) thousands that take part graduate level courses in “real” mathematics. Although I’m curious; do you think it would handle basic calculus (aka as taught in Calc survey courses up through multivariate)? In other words: does it know how to evaluate integrals and derivatives? Because I’d guess more people take those classes than all their descendants combined.

Either way, and on a more fundamental note: I’m a little dubious that “completing equations” is a net benefit for math education. It really seems like a small nice-to-have-available affordance tacked on to the real game changer: a computer that can adaptively challenge a student and competently answer clarifying questions without making it too easy. Y’know, just AGI stuff lol

As we’ve all seen from ChatGPT’s impact on English courses already, this all will require a fundamental rethink of how we teach children and adolescents. Homework is a bandaid over capitalist failings, and it’s beginning to peel…

It has no idea about calculus at all. Not only that it's a numeric not a symbolic calculator. So taking it even further back to basics, if you do sqrt(12) it should really crap out 2+sqrt(3) [as a surd] but it just dumps the evaluation out. My £10 Casio can handle that better.

As for education, you don't really need a calculator. We don't really use them that much. Pen, paper, ears.

As for computers, programmed randomised questions with deterministic answers and documented steps to solve the problems are the right way. LLMs can't do that even if they look like they can. some universities actually have tools which generate those. Those are truly enlightening as you can see the reasoning properly.

Parsing traditional 2D math notation is super hard problem and this is first public version. Things will get better with time.

But you hit the nail on the head with "narrow undefined subset". Documentation on Math Notes is almost non-existent. There are standards for math notation, so I guess they will announce it when they match parity. Again, too soon.

I agree that capabilities are extremely limited. More than CAS I would like to see native support for differentiable tensors – https://mlajtos.mu/posts/new-kind-of-paper-2

I don't know which bubble you are in, but $499 + $129 for devices at MSRP is not going to revolutionize anything, especially just for maths.

A $200 Chromebook can do 10x. Guess what, that's exactly why schools buy Chromebooks.

iPhone did less than competitors. Ultimately, Math Notes will get copied and sold for less.

> revolutionize math education

math education is not likely going to be "revolutionized" with technology or that would have already happened

Ironic how one demonstrates a questionable grasp on maths if they think an expensive iDevice will revolutionise maths education for the masses.

Ironic how one demonstrates a questionable grasp on market dynamics if they think a feature of an expensive iDevice won't be copied by competitors and sold for less.

That's like saying giving students a better calculator revolutionizes math education.

Even giving students full access to Mathematica (which I think is worthwhile BTW) won't revolutionize it.

But better calculator does revolutionize math education. Math is about problem-solving – if I can use tool that speeds up the boring parts (those that can be automated), I can focus on what really matters. For example, doing logarithms with slide rule is slow. Computing logarithms with digital calculator is easy. Do person with slide rule has any advantage over person with calculator? What about reverse?

Wolfram Mathematica – it is designed for smart and highly educated people – CAS with M-expr LISP frontend isn't for everybody. Math Notes is designed for children of ages 6-99.

Calculating logs with a slide rule is fast! It's pure table lookup: slide the cursor to the input value, and read off the log from another row.

Computers are faster at lookup tables than humans.

I feel some nuance is needed here.

Handheld calculators that calculate logs require a human to hit buttons; that's the rate limiting process.

Both the calculator and slide rule are fast at the actual table lookup. The hairline mark on the slide rule's cursor performs a fast lookup; it instantaneously links the input value with its logarithm.

It's the button punching on the calculator, or sliding of the cursor of the slide rule, and the reading of the result, that are slow.

The limitations of slide rules compared to calculators are:

- precision: you can't get anywhere near a six figure logarithm or product. In engineering, you usually don't need this; but you do need intuition for being in the right ballpark. Forget slide rules for accounting/finance though.

- variety of functions: there are only so many tables you can fit on a slide rule before it becomes unwieldy.

- lack of registers for recalling prior values, such as frequently reused intermediaries. Even the cheapest, simples calculators usually have an accumulator register you can add to or subtract from, recall and clear. The user can have several slide rules to have multiple cursors left at different values.

The actual speed of calculating what is available, with the available precision, is not bad. The game-changing speed difference comes with programmable calculators.

With Math Notes, you just write with your hand `log₂(1024)=` and you'll see the result. No slide rules, no buttons, just magic paper that does math. In this case, the logarithm is the tool I want – not slide rule, not handheld calculator. The less UI, the better UI.

Writing that by hand is a lot of strokes compared to punching buttons or moving a slider.

Usually, people use slide rule and handheld calculator in combination with paper and pencil. Combo of writing tool & computing tool. Merging them is a good idea.

Can they stop with the iPad crap? I just want to see the macbook pro M4 stuff!

Looks really nice, wish could afford it, but Apple products are so expensive... Commodity products for premium price

I usually like to buy these 1-2 years old off Craigslist / Marketplace and that's been a sweet spot for price and quality.

Apple has always been about premium price and quality but I agree that it's not for everyone and their needs.

It's ok, lotsa people have the money for it.

Apple products are not commodity, because there is very little fungibility due to network effects.

Maybe their hardware is commodity (arguable), but the product + integrations are not.

Many of these devices aren’t actually fungible commodities though.I tried to buy a phone in the $200 range and Android phones were so much worse than used iPhones. I they would drop calls and freeze on the dial pad during long calls where I was on hold. Tried two different models and had the same issues. I could have tried a used $200 Android but I was not wanting to try for a third Android. All I wanted/needed was to make important calls.

So I guess I don’t see them as commodities which implies fungibility.

I realize that there are bad Androids out there and the abundance of choice makes it difficult to sift through the good and the bad, but there are good Android phones out there in the $200-$300 USD range. My current phone is a bit over three years old and it is still very usable.

Especially with companies like Motorola. The 2022 Edge cost $400 on release. A bit over a year later it was on sale for $140.

> All I wanted/needed was to make important calls.

Can I recommend you a 40€ phone? They've been making models that can do calls for a while now and they needn't cost as much as an Apple-branded device to do just that

> they would drop calls and freeze on the dial pad during long calls

Never heard that happen to anyone with any phone model. If you've ruled out some software-specific issue like a call recorder you've installed or so, that sounds borderline implausible. Then again, given the number of issues I experience with software (of any kind)...

Smartphones failing to make phone calls is not exactly an unknown concept.

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/some-pixel-users-cant-dial-91...

https://www.slashgear.com/842545/why-antennagate-was-a-compl...

https://www.online-tech-tips.com/android-phone-wont-make-cal...

What’s with the sour grapes? I can’t afford a Pagani. Doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the engineering.

Not sure why you're calling me "sour grapes"? I only lamented the fact that I could not afford the thing

"Commodity products for premium price" definitely sounds like sour grapes.

If the products are actually commodity, just buy something else.

I was curious what was meant by that too too, turns out it's a legitimate phrase in the dictionary:

sour grapes, plural noun, disparagement of something that has proven unattainable

> his criticisms are just sour grapes

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sour%20grapes

Its commodity you can buy from dozens of other vendors for much cheaper price.

Uh, where can I buy a cheaper iPad?

And while we're at it, can someone finally tell me where people find cheap ferraris? I really want a car but they're just too expensive!

Then buy it there instead of complaining?

They are hardly commodities. The build quality and lifetime of iPads is incredible compared to any other tablet I’ve ever used (typing this on a six year old iPad Pro that’s still going strong).

I recently traded in my 5-year-old iPad Pro because it was badly banged up, and they still offered me ~$400 in trade-in value. Great iPads.

True, but they last long enough that you can get them second hand, whereas used products from other vendors tend to be junk not worth spending money on even at a cheaper price point.

Also when buying second hand, you pay for that premium brand

There is a definite lack of worthy competitors to the iPad Mini in the market. Most other tablets are 10" or larger. The only other contemporary tablets I've found in that size have had very low-end specs in comparison.

True - long time ago I had the "new ipad", and it was really, really nice - lasted me for years, until I could no longer update it.

The iPad lineup starts at $350, and that's brand new, look used or refurbished and it becomes even cheaper. If that's too much for you, you'll be pressed to afford any computer.

So it's useless in Europe

Or: more free space and lower CPU usage in the EU.

I got an 8" Android tablet instead of an iPad mini. What I wanted, was to have something really compact that I could use emacs on, mainly for org-roam, notes and writing in general, not for writing code. It works well with termux, I don't think there is a good way to have a local version of emacs on iOS.

The keyboard is the most important part really (although I did want a good screen too). I'm on my second keyboard, they are only about $30 each, which is better than iPad prices. The first one wasn't so convenient to unfold quickly, the new one is working really well.

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