The big news, aside from a new iPhone duo, at Apple’s event last night was the iPad Pro. And we’ve been expecting it, for ages and ages. We were also expecting other tablets to make an appearance – it’s doubtful that anyone actually believed the reports that Apple would be skipping the iPad Air refresh this year.
And yet that’s just what happened, leaving us with the iPad Pro and this little guy – the iPad Mini 4. But don’t let its size fool you, the iPad Mini 4 has been given a substantial upgrade over last year’s mini-slate from Apple.
Apple says that the iPad Mini 4 has “…the the power and performance of the iPad Air 2” and they also seem to have the specs to back that up. The Mini 4 is set to have an A8 processor, the same thing running in your current iPhone 6. The processor is actually smaller than that found in the Air 2 but the 8-inch form factor could mean that Apple’s claims are spot on with regards to performance. We’re certainly looking forward to finding out for ourselves but we can almost understand why the Air wasn’t given an upgrade this year. Another update would have made the Mini 4 look quite dated.
The Mini 4 is getting an 8MP iSight camera (so that’s were the iPhone 6’s camera lenses are heading off to), an upgrade over the 5MP rear camera from last year. The front-facer remains unchanged, as does the display which is still that lush 1,536 x 2,048 LED screen we liked so much last year. The storage options also haven’t deviated so expect 16GB, 64GB and 128GB models when the iPad Mini 4 launches. As for the local launch and pricing? We’ll keep you posted.
