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iPad mini Losing love with iPad Mini 6, likely will return it
- Thread starter 3SQ Machine
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iPadOS is basiucally iPhone OS blown up.There are not a lot of iPadOS specific features that are specific to iPads or take advantage of the iPad hardware. Not yet anyways. The fact Apple seperated IOS for iPhones and iPadOS (they used to run the same OS) indicates they plan are making iPadOS more useful on iPads in the future.
What drove me a little crazy with the Mini was that iPadOS 15 has massive dead space margins on the home screen, so all the apps, widgets, etc. are crunched into an even-smaller space. What's more, everything is more "mini" on the Mini (text size, icons, etc.) so I couldn't understand why the OS wasn't taking full advantage of the limited real estate. I can see this on my Air with the '15 update, but it's less an issue as the icons and all text is larger on the Air with even more real estate. Also, the split-app functionality was VERY buggy on the Mini's aspect ratio. It's like Apple hadn't tweaked the OS at all for the Mini.
Since I don't have it anymore, I can't show you a screenshot of it, but together all the things created an unrefined experience. Again, taking any one complaint in isolation wouldn't have been enough, but for my use case I just didn't enjoy it.
Just got home from returning a mini and completely agree with you. I have a lot of Apple devices and the mini is the only one where the UI looks ‘off’ with regards to size and scaling. That wasn’t the main reason I returned it—just didn’t fit into my device life—but it was something I regularly noticed in a negative way.
Here a picture of the mini 5 vs mini 6
I say the older mini 5 icon layout looks much nicer & better then the new mini 6
Copied from this youtube review
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Yes and the last reason you noted was the main one for me, too. I wanted it to handle a few functions very well, but it was just mediocre. It didn’t slot into my work well enough at all. For the price, it just wasn’t good enough.
One thing I didn’t try was using it on the road to handle importing and editing photos/videos. Perhaps it would have been very useful for that function, although I was underwhelmed by the brightness and I could see that being an issue if trying to do work outside.
Thanks..
So would the ipad mini 5 home screen icons look exactly the same (Large space between icons & edge of screen) if it had ISO 15 installed ?
IPadOS 15.0 was released Sept 20, The first day iPad mini 6 was available at stores was Sept 24, so it had to be using iPadOS 14.8 (September 13, 2021) or older from the factory. Announcement was Sept 14th Apple event.
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The iPad mini 6 arrived pre-installed with iPadOS 15 (albeit there were some day 1 bug fixes, I think). New firmware is often available before its official release to the public.
Yep, mine came with 15 straight off and there are no 14.x builds available for the Mini 6.
Yes I see that in this instance they did do this going by a Sept 22 video and the dock showed the App Library suggestions icon. Back when these were made it likely they were beta 6 or 7 timeframe of iPadOS 15. They did the same with the new iPhone 13's. I do recall people needed to do first day updates for bug fixes. Unusual for Apple to do that. But then everyone was worried about the security vulnerabilities also right then also.
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I'm the same since I got my 14" MacBook Pro, my iPad has gone back to being my bedside device which I don't need a cellular mini for - the basic iPad would actually be better.
I couldn't get on with digital note taking so sold on the Pencil. Meaning my iPad only gets used for video consumption which it isn't amazing for because of the screen size! I just don't have place for an iPad in my workflow, iPhone and MacBook is perfect for me.
I don't have the option to return and I'm tied in to a cellular plan for the next 10 months so will just have to go with it
I couldn't get on with digital note taking so sold on the Pencil. Meaning my iPad only gets used for video consumption which it isn't amazing for because of the screen size! I just don't have place for an iPad in my workflow, iPhone and MacBook is perfect for me.
I don't have the option to return and I'm tied in to a cellular plan for the next 10 months so will just have to go with it
Personally, I love my mini 6. Incredibly convenient form factor.
I love my Mini 5 and feel hopeful that Apple is still continuing the Mini product line. It’s my primary “conference and user groups” computer pre-pandemic.
Nowadays it’s still still my primary portable computer when I go out, namely for reading and writing. I’ve discontinued its cellular service, and rely mostly on tethering since I don’t go out much often now.
Indoors, the mini is also my e-book reader and note taker. I used Notability a lot; bought it before it switches to subscriptions, and thus got grandfathered. But you might want to consider GoodNotes if you don’t like subscriptions.
Granted I don’t use Zoom much. My job is mostly on Teams and I have a MacBook on a 3-monitor setup for WfH.But for FaceTime, the Mini 5 it’s pretty good. Front-facing camera looks fine on 5W LED warm-white lighting, which is the lights in our bedrooms.
Nowadays it’s still still my primary portable computer when I go out, namely for reading and writing. I’ve discontinued its cellular service, and rely mostly on tethering since I don’t go out much often now.
Indoors, the mini is also my e-book reader and note taker. I used Notability a lot; bought it before it switches to subscriptions, and thus got grandfathered. But you might want to consider GoodNotes if you don’t like subscriptions.
Granted I don’t use Zoom much. My job is mostly on Teams and I have a MacBook on a 3-monitor setup for WfH.But for FaceTime, the Mini 5 it’s pretty good. Front-facing camera looks fine on 5W LED warm-white lighting, which is the lights in our bedrooms.
I’m glad I don’t spend all my time staring at a Home Screen. I spend almost 100 percent inside safari, kindle, Reddit, Outlook (stupid work) and other apps that work great. Maybe it’s my workflow that makes it work for me. Maybe I’ll add ‘random Home Screen staring time’ into it in the future /s.
Unfortunately the native music & TV (Movies) app do not support reading from external storage making it a deal breaker.
I can see now how much problems iPad poses to some people.. that choose to do the things the old way. Idunno what to tell you. Is putting music to apple cloud with itunes still an option? Can you do that maybe? Im not sure. I dont use my library really, which is a shame, but I dont… I just stream now, albeit I like it that way. Its simpler.