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Comment by hankman86 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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> 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

> 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.

“ 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?

> 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.

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?

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.

> 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).

>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.

> 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.

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