Our review of the iPad mini 2, or to stick with Apple's naming strategy, the iPad mini with Retina Display, found it to be a really capable little device.
Somewhat surprisingly it shares most of the cutting edge technology of its bigger brother, the iPad Air, and finally adds the Retina display which it had been lacking so sorely.
But it's not perfect. It's still too expensive, has no Touch ID sensor and the base 16GB capacity is rapidly becoming too small for many users.
Release date
Somewhat surprisingly it shares most of the cutting edge technology of its bigger brother, the iPad Air, and finally adds the Retina display which it had been lacking so sorely.
But it's not perfect. It's still too expensive, has no Touch ID sensor and the base 16GB capacity is rapidly becoming too small for many users.
Release date
We may not have to wait long for the iPad mini 3, as Apple is reportedly holding an event on October 16 where it will launch the iPad Air 2, there's no mention of the iPad mini 3 but it seems fairly likely that the two would launch side by side.
Failing that the Daily Dot reports that Apple will hold an event on October 21 where the iPad mini 3 will be announced, though this information predates the October 16 date above and also mentions the iPad Air 2, so its validity has to be called in to question
In fact while October 16 is looking likely for the iPad Air 2, we may not see the iPad mini 3 so soon, as sources speaking to Taiwan's Commercial Times claim that the iPad mini 3 might not arrive until early next year. We'd take that with a pinch of salt though as Apple has so far released one mini a year and announced them alongside a full sized iPad, so there's no reason to think it would change things up this year.
Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst for KGI, claims that the iPad mini 3 will come out towards the end of the third quarter of 2014 and that disappointingly it will have the same form factor as the iPad mini 2, which is thicker than the original iPad mini (athough only by 0.3mm).
Rumors
Failing that the Daily Dot reports that Apple will hold an event on October 21 where the iPad mini 3 will be announced, though this information predates the October 16 date above and also mentions the iPad Air 2, so its validity has to be called in to question
In fact while October 16 is looking likely for the iPad Air 2, we may not see the iPad mini 3 so soon, as sources speaking to Taiwan's Commercial Times claim that the iPad mini 3 might not arrive until early next year. We'd take that with a pinch of salt though as Apple has so far released one mini a year and announced them alongside a full sized iPad, so there's no reason to think it would change things up this year.
Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst for KGI, claims that the iPad mini 3 will come out towards the end of the third quarter of 2014 and that disappointingly it will have the same form factor as the iPad mini 2, which is thicker than the original iPad mini (athough only by 0.3mm).
Rumors
In fact it doesn't sound like Kuo thinks the iPad mini 3 will be a big product for Apple at all, as he reckons it will be sold in limited quantities while the iPad mini 2 will remain on sale at a reduced price. This is one occasion where we hope the rumors are wrong, but thankfully that's all they are.
More positively he predicts that the new iPad mini will get upgraded to an A8 chip and come with an 8 megapixel camera (up from 5 megapixels on the iPad Mini 2) and Apple's Touch ID fingerprint scanner.
Adding credence to that last rumor, fragments of code from the Biometric Kit included in iOS 7.1 reference the iPad and mentions of both Touch ID and Apple Pay for the iPad have been found in the iOS 8.1 beta code.
There are also a couple of images of what is supposedly the iPad mini 3 doing the rounds. The first is as blurry as early images often seem to be and it was anonymously sent to Nowhereelse.fr, so it's impossible to say how reliable the source is, but it appears to show a Touch ID fingerprint scanner built into the home button.
More positively he predicts that the new iPad mini will get upgraded to an A8 chip and come with an 8 megapixel camera (up from 5 megapixels on the iPad Mini 2) and Apple's Touch ID fingerprint scanner.
Adding credence to that last rumor, fragments of code from the Biometric Kit included in iOS 7.1 reference the iPad and mentions of both Touch ID and Apple Pay for the iPad have been found in the iOS 8.1 beta code.
There are also a couple of images of what is supposedly the iPad mini 3 doing the rounds. The first is as blurry as early images often seem to be and it was anonymously sent to Nowhereelse.fr, so it's impossible to say how reliable the source is, but it appears to show a Touch ID fingerprint scanner built into the home button.
It's worth noting that this is apparently a prototype of the device, so even if it is legitimate it's possible that Apple could ditch the scanner before it finalizes the hardware.
But a more recent rumor also mentions that Touch ID will indeed be coming to the iPad mini 3 (as well as the iPad Air 2) and that Apple is currently working hard to make the sensor more durable than it is in the kids ipad air case.
The second leaked shot is clearer and appeared on the web viaAppleClub.tw with the posters claiming it not only shows the iPad Mini 3, but also the iPad Air 2 and the now released iPhone 6.
It appears that the two new slates both have the Touch ID ring we're now familiar with thanks to the iPhone 5S and iPhone 6.
It's also possible that Kuo could be wrong about the iPad mini 3 retaining its predecessors form factor, because we've now heard from hat it will in fact be 30% slimmer, bringing it down to just around 5.25mm thick. With a new size it would also apparently get a new name, going by the 'iPad mini Air', though we suspect iPad Air mini is more likely.
If it gets slimmer it's also likely to get lighter, but there's no word on what it might weigh yet and even with these few rumors there's still so much that we've heard nothing about yet.
However we can take an educated guess that it will have the same 7.9 inch 1536 x 2048 display as the iPad mini 2 and that it will run iOS 8 on the new Apple A8 processor that made its debut on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
But with so little set in stone, what do we want to see in the next model?
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