iPad Mini death watch, 9/12/2018 edition

I mount my mini2 with a Ram suction out to the left side flat-is portion of the windscreen in the C172 when I fly IFR. Works well for me and doesn't obstruct the view of the instruments. I too am hoping for a mini refresh, but I'm nearly convinced it isn't happening. I use an iPad Pro (the smaller of the 2, whatever size that is) in the work airplane. Its fine for a "full sized" airplane, but no bueno in most small GA airplanes. I carry it when flying GA as a backup, but I dont like having to look down to my lap while shooting an approach. I might have to get used to that, or switch back to paper approach plates while using a full sized iPad for enroute tasks.
 
AK737pilot said:
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Lake Clark? Awesome! Port Alsworth is my home field. If you're in the area again drop by for coffee.
 
I use my mini 4 on every flight and the 9.7 simply will not fit on the yoke. Maybe I need to go buy a spare mini 4 before they are gone.

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I had to look to see what model Mini I had ~ it’s a Mini 2.

It’s my knockabout iPad, in a clunky Otterbox case and cellular enabled. I’m posting from it now.

Still works fine. Yes, it’s a tiny bit slower than our two more modern ones, an Air 2 and a Pro first generation, but not objectionally so. Still runs WingXPro7 just fine.

Still, may consider getting a 4 if and when the Mini is discontinued. Then again, a model with a larger screen size, sans bezels, might not be a whole lot larger than the Mini is now.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, my iPhoneX is serving as my go-to cockpit navigator. Screen is fine, but like Foreflight the feature set is less on the phone than the iPad, which is a shame. The new “Max” would only be an incremental improvement.
 
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I took my mini 4 down to see what a screen repair would cost. $180. Now I have to figure out if that is worth it.
 
John221us said:
I took my mini 4 down to see what a screen repair would cost. $180. Now I have to figure out if that is worth it.
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How much memory does it have? That would figure into its replacement cost.
 
Palmpilot said:
How much memory does it have? That would figure into its replacement cost.
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128 GB and it is cellular, so maybe I should do it, but it is about 3 years old, so the battery maybe a bit old too (another upcoming expense?).
 
John221us said:
128 GB and it is cellular, so maybe I should do it, but it is about 3 years old, so the battery maybe a bit old too (another upcoming expense?).
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Does the battery lose charge when asleep? If yes, then it’s degrading, I can leave my new IOS devices overnight with maybe a 1% loss of battery power unless I have an App that’s running in the background, like almost any GPS app.
 
teejayevans said:
Does the battery lose charge when asleep? If yes, then it’s degrading, I can leave my new IOS devices overnight with maybe a 1% loss of battery power unless I have an App that’s running in the background, like almost any GPS app.
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It makes it through the day, no problem, but yes, if I forget to plug it in at night, it usually is at half charge or less in the morning. I went ahead and made an appointment to get the screen fixed (they had to order the part). I guess I am not ready to go to a bigger iPad, so I will kick the can down the road a bit.

Edit: I just bumped it to IOS 12 and that did help performance quite a bit.
 
John221us said:
It makes it through the day, no problem, but yes, if I forget to plug it in at night, it usually is at half charge or less in the morning. I went ahead and made an appointment to get the screen fixed (they had to order the part). I guess I am not ready to go to a bigger iPad, so I will kick the can down the road a bit.

Edit: I just bumped it to IOS 12 and that did help performance quite a bit.
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Were you on 11 before, or 10? I still haven't put 11 on my iPad for performance reasons, but maybe I should go 12. :dunno:
 
I've upgraded to iOS 12 on my mini2 and am pleasantly surprised (so far). I'll hold off on the mini4 for now.
 
John221us said:
128 GB and it is cellular, so maybe I should do it, but it is about 3 years old, so the battery maybe a bit old too (another upcoming expense?).
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Does it still hold a charge well?

For $180 you’d have a better tool than the new ones, and for less, seems like a easy choice
 
James331 said:
Does it still hold a charge well?

For $180 you’d have a better tool than the new ones, and for less, seems like a easy choice
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That is the choice I ultimately made (I ordered the part and it should be in today). Yes, it gets through the day fine on a charge and I charge every night, but it is 3 years old.
 
Walmart.com has the Mini 4 128 for $300, pick up at the store. Oder through thru Walmart.com. Just ordered one.
 
John221us said:
That is the choice I ultimately made (I ordered the part and it should be in today). Yes, it gets through the day fine on a charge and I charge every night, but it is 3 years old.
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Guess if you’re performing surgery anyways
 
Re: built in GPS...

I have a non-cellular iPad mini 4 and have always had a position fix for my Garmin Pilot. It must get its position from the GDL 39? Which, I believe, gets its position from my Aera 660...

Do the Stratus units send GPS data to iPads running Foreflight?

For those who recommend cellular iPads, are you wanting the internal GPS for use as a backup?


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mscard88 said:
Walmart.com has the Mini 4 128 for $300, pick up at the store. Oder through thru Walmart.com. Just ordered one.
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Good price. Apple sells the same thing refurbished, not new, for $40 more. That is the non cellular though without the GPS.
 
AK737pilot said:
Re: built in GPS...

I have a non-cellular iPad mini 4 and have always had a position fix for my Garmin Pilot. It must get its position from the GDL 39? Which, I believe, gets its position from my Aera 660...
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Nope - GDL 39 has its own built in WAAS GPS.

Do the Stratus units send GPS data to iPads running Foreflight?
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Yes.

For those who recommend cellular iPads, are you wanting the internal GPS for use as a backup?
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And convenience - I can get a GPS fix without the Stratus being powered up, and I can "pack" for my flight from anywhere, no WiFi (or connecting to a phone hotspot) necessary.

That said, I could probably get along without it. Were I not grandfathered in to the unlimited data for $30 plan on AT&T, I might switch my iPad over to Verizon so that either my phone or my iPad would have signal pretty much all the time. Both VZ and ATT have holes in their networks, but one or the other works almost everywhere.
 
JScarry said:
There is an Apple event on October 30 to announce new products. If there is no mini announced then, it is dead. I’m hoping for new Mac Minis since I’m happy with my iPad Pro. https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/10/18/apple-event-30-oct
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When I first read the story on it last night, I read "Mac mini" and for a second thought they meant the iPad mini. But it says Mac. The story pretty much names everything but the iPad mini, so I'm not hopeful.
 
John221us said:
I just cracked my screen last week (Mini 4). :(
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John221us said:
I took my mini 4 down to see what a screen repair would cost. $180. Now I have to figure out if that is worth it.
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JScarry said:
There is an Apple event on October 30 to announce new products.
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for anyone interested....
BestBuy has the Mini 4 128Gb on sale for $299 right now. (wifi only)
If they happen to announce a new version Oct 30, that is now within the two week return period.
 
Skyrys62 said:
for anyone interested....
BestBuy has the Mini 4 128Gb on sale for $299 right now. (wifi only)
If they happen to announce a new version Oct 30, that is now within the two week return period.
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My repair is done. I bit the bullet. Mine is a 4G version, though.
 
Watching the Apple event closely. If no news, my wife and I likely need to upgrade our pair of 4G WIFI/LTE mini 2s to a pair of 128G WIFI/LTE mini 4s.
 
JScarry said:
There is an Apple event on October 30 to announce new products. If there is no mini announced then, it is dead. I’m hoping for new Mac Minis since I’m happy with my iPad Pro. https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/10/18/apple-event-30-oct
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Well, it's good to hear they're having another event. And there seem to be plenty of rumors about "iPhone X-ifying" (my term) the iPad, removing bezels and giving them bigger screens in smaller cases. Hopefully the smallest of them isn't too far off in size from the Mini. I do not expect we'll ever see another Mini named as such. The iPod Mini gave way to the iPod Nano, but an iPad Nano is an iPhone. ;)
 
I'll be ordering a new iPad shortly after this announcement, I really hope it's a mini 5.
 
It doesn't seem like the iPad mini will be updated this year, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's being dropped for good. It's not uncommon for less popular variants to have a longer update cycle. As long as they continue to sell the mini 4, there's still hope.
 
Brad Z said:
It doesn't seem like the iPad mini will be updated this year, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's being dropped for good. It's not uncommon for less popular variants to have a longer update cycle. As long as they continue to sell the mini 4, there's still hope.
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I hope you're right!
 
Brad Z said:
It doesn't seem like the iPad mini will be updated this year, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's being dropped for good. It's not uncommon for less popular variants to have a longer update cycle. As long as they continue to sell the mini 4, there's still hope.
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You win the eternal optimist award. The iPad Mini hasn't been updated since 2015. That's an eternity in the tech industry!

And frankly, the iPad Mini was already lagging a year behind the larger ones. The Mini 2 and the concurrently-release iPad Air both had the A7/M7 chipset. When the Mini 3 came out, it was identical to the Mini 2 except that it had Touch ID, thus lagging a year behind the others released that year, and the Mini 4 likewise lagged a year behind. Had they kept the Minis up to date, I would have bought a newer one. I think this is one of the main reasons for the Mini's poor sales - They didn't keep it up to date, so it sold poorly, so they didn't keep it up to date... And here we are.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
You win the eternal optimist award. The iPad Mini hasn't been updated since 2015. That's an eternity in the tech industry!

And frankly, the iPad Mini was already lagging a year behind the larger ones. The Mini 2 and the concurrently-release iPad Air both had the A7/M7 chipset. When the Mini 3 came out, it was identical to the Mini 2 except that it had Touch ID, thus lagging a year behind the others released that year, and the Mini 4 likewise lagged a year behind. Had they kept the Minis up to date, I would have bought a newer one. I think this is one of the main reasons for the Mini's poor sales - They didn't keep it up to date, so it sold poorly, so they didn't keep it up to date... And here we are.
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Apparently I'm not the only one...

https://iphone.appleinsider.com/art...-but-may-not-be-at-october-ipad-pro-mac-event

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbre...d-mini-update-airpower-launch-2019-kuo-report
 
Brad Z said:
Apparently I'm not the only one...

https://iphone.appleinsider.com/art...-but-may-not-be-at-october-ipad-pro-mac-event

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbre...d-mini-update-airpower-launch-2019-kuo-report
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Well, Ming-Chi Kuo does seem to be the most correct of the analysts, but he does still get things wrong from time to time.

So, if there's an iPhone X-ified iPad on the 10/30 launch (something with an edge-to-edge 9-10" display) I'm likely not going to wait to see if he's right or not this time.

FWIW, if the Mini 4 had an edge-to-edge display, it'd be 9.5" diagonal, which is awfully close to the 9.7" iPads currently being sold...
 
I’m happy. New Mac Mini’s. 64GB RAM and 2TB SSDs.
 
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