The iPad mini is running out of reasons to exist

When it first launched, the iPad mini wasn’t just small. It was also cheap. This made its selling point extremely easy to understand, which is important in the tablet space. If you want a big screen and a fast processor, inexperienced customers were told, go for the full-size iPad 4. Otherwise, save your money and get a more portable mini.

Over the years, the mini’s appeal has become more complicated, and these days it’s more difficult to recommend. Not just because the product has been neglected by Apple, which hasn’t released an update since fall 2024 and hasn’t released a proper update since fall 2021. It’s mainly because there are now alternatives which surpass the mini in almost every way, including price.

The original iPad mini cost $329 in fall 2012, the equivalent of $477 in today’s money. Yet the 7th-gen iPad mini now starts at $599. Inflation has been bad, but not that bad, as demonstrated by the standard mid-size iPad decreasing from $499 in 2012 to $449 today. In essence, Apple has switched the places of its two cheapest iPads, turning the 8.3-inch mini into a mid-market device with mid-market features, while the basic 10.9-inch iPad has become the budget option.

This might not have been a problem if the iPad mini wasn’t crowded out by other choices. But despite being offered an ingenious roadmap for free, Apple has so far resisted the temptation to simplify the iPad range, making life incredibly hard for inexperienced customers, who make up a large proportion of the tablet market.

There are four iPad sub-brands, one of which is just “iPad” so you don’t know if someone is talking about the brand or the range as a whole. One of these sub-brands comes with or without special glass, two in multiple sizes, and all four in multiple colors and storage capacities. There are three separate 11-inch models and it isn’t obvious at a glance which is best for a user’s needs. And the different iPads all follow different irregular update cycles. It’s a mess.

In that context, the only thing the iPad mini has going for it is size. If you want to save money, you go for the standard iPad. If you want the very best specs and features you go for the Pro. If you want an elegant (and more recently updated) blend of value and power you go for the Air. If you find the omnipresent 11-inch form factor a little too bulky and are looking for something closer to a Kindle, however, then the mini is the only iPad that fits the bill. But what about the iPhone range?

At 8.3 inches, the iPad mini sits in an appealing sweet spot: stowable in a handbag or rucksack pocket, while still having a big enough screen to enjoy a movie. But even that isn’t in jeopardy. The last two generations of iPhone Pro Max have offered 6.9-inch displays, which are perfectly decent for movies (and are attached to vastly more capable all-round devices). More ominously still, the upcoming foldable iPhone Ultra is expected to have an unfolded screen measuring roughly 7.8 inches.

Once the Ultra lands, the iPad mini’s portability mandate will be completely blown. Its newer sibling/rival will have very nearly as much screen size, while offering the ability to fold down to a far more pocketable chassis. And, like the Pro Max phones, the ability to do far more. A customer with an iPad mini still needs a phone. A customer with an iPhone Ultra has much less need for a tablet, and no need at all for a tablet that measures 8.3 inches.

Of course, the iPhone Ultra will be more expensive, perhaps as much as triple the price of an iPad mini. It’s not like this is a direct one-to-one comparison, nor that many buyers will have narrowed down their options to the iPad mini or the iPhone Ultra. The issue is more that it’s just one more alternative that takes away the iPad mini’s final area of superiority. (Bear in mind too that Apple’s budget phones are bigger than in the past; the $599 iPhone 17e has a 6.1-inch screen, entirely respectable for TV and films.)

Once the Ultra launches, there will be clearly better options in every single respect, leaving the mini as the choice for an incredibly niche audience with a peculiar combination of needs. Those who want a small device that’s cheap, but not that cheap, with some slightly upgraded specs, but not that upgraded, and are willing to use it in conjunction with a separate phone. It’s like a Venn diagram where one of the segments has been almost totally wiped out.

The good news, for those like myself with a soft spot for the iPad mini concept, is that Apple is understood to be finally preparing an update. This, according to the source who broke the story, will be the “biggest overhaul to the iPad mini in half a decade,” including an upgrade from the longstanding IPS LCD to an OLED display. We don’t know much else about the refresh, but it will doubtlessly include a new processor and hopefully a landscape front camera. Maybe, maybe Apple will deign to redesign the mini in some eye-catching way.

Whatever happens, Apple can’t neglect the iPad mini any longer. Or the iPhone Ultra’s first achievement will be to finally kill off one of Apple’s own products.

Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too.

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