Claimed photos of unreleased iPad mini with redesigned antenna & no LED flash

A pair of photos published Tuesday appear to depict an unreleased iPad mini model in Rose Gold that seems to have a redesigned cellular antenna and no camera flash on the back.

As MacRumors noted, the antenna design is slightly different from the existing models.

“The current iPad mini 4 has a similar antenna design, but the rounded rectangle is filled in with plastic to ensure proper transmission of signals from the wireless chip inside,” per MacRumors. “Apple later improved its antenna design and only required a narrow band for cellular connectivity on 2017 iPad Pro models.”

The chassis appears to be in Space Gray but Apple currently offers the mini only in Space Gray, Silver and Gold, not Rose Gold. Other tidbits that can be gleaned from the image include volume control on the right side and the power button atop the device.

Some of the iPad Pro-only features, like a four-speaker system and a USB-C port for charging and data, don’t seem to be present on the leaked images, posted by Twitter user “Mr. White”.

According to MacRumors, the same user has shared many photos of what appear to be early prototypes of Apple products along with components in recent months.

Note that the poster does not claim that the photos depict a fifth-generation mini per se.

“iPad mini 4s, I think we can call it like this,” reads the tweet.

In December, leak aggregator SlashLeaks posted purported iPad mini 5 images, seen embedded below, that seemingly hinted at such enhancements as Apple Pencil 2 support, revamped cameras, the headphone jack port and no camera flash hole on the rear.

The latter doesn’t necessarily mean that the next iPad mini won’t have LED flash. Although previous minis did not have LED flash at all, iPad mini 5 could introduce LED flash built into a camera hump, which Apple started doing on iPhones with iPhone 7.

Thoughts on these newly-leaked images? Could this be one of the iPad mini 4 prototypes or an early iPad mini 5 prototype, do you think?

Let us know by sharing your thoughts in the comments section down below.