New iPad Mini 7th Gen Adds Apple Intelligence, But The Best Part Hasn't Changed

On October 15, Apple introduced the new iPad mini, featuring an A17 Pro chip, along with features and support for Apple Intelligence — the company's AI-driven personal intelligence system. According to Apple, their AI significantly innovates and improves the overall user experience, without violating privacy. 

The A17 Pro chip also promises better performance, with a faster CPU, GPU, and a Neural Engine that's twice as fast as the previous-generation iPad mini. The new iPad mini supports Apple Pencil Pro, features a 12MP wide back camera with an increased dynamic range, and utilizes machine learning technology to detect and scan documents. 

Bob Borchers, Apple's vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, said in a statement that the "iPad mini appeals to a wide range of users and has been built for Apple Intelligence, delivering intelligent new features that are powerful, personal, and private. With the powerful A17 Pro chip, faster connectivity, and support for Apple Pencil Pro, the new iPad mini delivers the full iPad experience in our most portable design at an incredible value."

Starting at $499 with 128GB of internal storage, the new iPad mini offers excellent value for money. The price remaining unchanged since the release of the previous model is certainly welcome news for Apple fans, and potentially a signal that Apple's goal is to get customers to reconsider tablets.

As The Verge noted, the Mini has always been a unique device as far as Apple devices go, much like the iPhone SE. The smaller size appeals to a niche audience, but these new upgrades — combined with the same price point — might attract a wider audience that may have been on the fence about buying the compact tablet.

The A17 Pro chip provides a 30% increase in CPU performance, while the 5-core GPU boosts graphics performance by 25%. Designers, pilots, and other professionals can take advantage of these advancements and run more demanding apps, according to Apple, while gamers should enjoy the hardware-accelerated ray tracing that is four times faster than software-based ray tracing.

It is clear from Apple's press release that artificial intelligence is something the company will rely on extensively in the future. The press release states that "Apple Intelligence harnesses the power of Apple silicon and Apple-built generative models to understand and create language and images, take action across apps, and draw from personal context to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks."

ChatGPT is also integrated into iPadOS 18, which allows users to access its capabilities within Siri and Writing Tools for free without creating an account with OpenAI. Notably, Apple has built in certain privacy protections, so users' IP addresses will not be stored, nor will the requests they send to ChatGPT.

It has long been speculated that Apple is gearing up to compete more aggressively in the AI space, and the result of this is the increased investment in Apple Intelligence. Similarly, reports suggest that Apple will pour significant resources into Siri, with the goal of making the voice assistant better at automating tasks.