Apple Tuesday unveiled a new version of the iPad mini updated for the era of Apple Intelligence. The new arrival is powered by the company’s A7 Pro chip, bringing compatibility with Apple Intelligence, the company’s new generative AI offering.
The new arrival marks the first major update to the 8.3-inch device since 2021. The A17 Pro, meanwhile, was announced last year, arriving on the iPhone 15 Pro. That premium device, in turn, became the first of Apple’s phones to officially support Apple Intelligence. That changed with a September event, which brought the feature to the newly announced iPhone 16 line.
The A17 Pro sports a six-core CPU with two performance and four efficiency cores and a five-core GPU. Both should deliver significant performance improvements over the A16 Bionic that shipped with the 2021 model. The big news on tht front, however, is the neural engine, which delivers access to Apple Intelligence through iPadOS 18.
Highlights on Apple’s small-model answer to the likes of ChatGPT and Google Gemini include writing tools and a fully refreshed Siri experience. Apple Intelligence is still a work in progress, however. Other features, like Image Playground graphic generation and ChatGPT integration are still on the way.
The new iPad starts at $499 for 128GB of storage, which is double what its predecessor started with. the iPad mini with cellular connectivity, meanwhile, starts at $649. The tablet is up for pre-order today and starts shipping October 23.
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