According to an analyst, Apple could release the refreshed iPad mini 7 by Spring 2024, featuring a quick specs upgrade but no significant design changes.
- What’s happening? Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes the next iPad mini will arrive early next year, with mass production starting in the first quarter of 2024.
- Why care? Earlier, Kuo wasn’t so exact about a possible iPad mini 7 launch timeframe. Still, his latest tweets give us a better idea of when we might be able to get our hands on the seventh-generation iPad mini.
- What to do? See Kuo’s Twitter account for details.
Kuo: Refreshed iPad mini 7 could launch in early 2024
A few weeks ago, Kuo said mass shipments of the next iPad mini model would start arriving either near the end of 2023 or in the first half of 2024.
His latest tweets pinpoint the start of mass production of the device early in the first quarter of 2024. If true, Apple might release iPad mini 7 by Spring 2024. It also means there won’t be an iPad mini refresh in 2023, as previously speculated.
The analyst didn’t say anything about potential new hardware changes to the iPad mini lineup that might be in the works. Earlier, Kuo made a prediction that the device might get a faster chip but wouldn’t fold. Of course, a faster chip is a bare minimum expected from any Apple hardware refresh, so it could be a better prediction.
Kuo says there may be no new iPad models this year at all, which he believes means that annual iPad shipments could contract by 10-15 percent.
Will the next iPad mini get ProMotion?
The next iPad mini should be a boring specs upgrade. The current 8.3-inch model, released in September 2021, brought a significant design change by adopting a fullscreen design with Touch ID embedded into the power button.
Whether or not the next iPad mini might adopt ProMotion remains an open-ended question. ProMotion is Apple’s technology that allows for dynamic screen refresh rates going all the way up to 120Hz for games and other fast-changing content to 30Hz or as low as just a few Herz (full-frame redraws per second) for content that doesn’t change as often, like watching video or reading a book.
In other words, ProMotion on the next iPad mini would allow for a maximum 120Hz screen refresh rate versus the current 60Hz limit. ProMotion is currently found on Pro-branded iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 models, the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro and all iPad Pro models. Read: 33 things to do after setting up a Mac