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Apple introduces iPad mini built for Apple Intelligence

(www.apple.com)
252 points diwank | 2 comments | 15 Oct 24 14:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.409s | source
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234120987654 ◴[15 Oct 24 13:39 UTC] No.41848485[source]▶
A17 Pro huh, that's a first for putting a pro chip in a non pro iPad, isn't it? I guess it's, as they advertise, to handle Apple Intelligence although I don't understand why they are doubling down on this _now_ while nothing from the newly announced AI stuff is available as of today...
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1. jsheard ◴[15 Oct 24 16:24 UTC] No.41850211[source]▶
It makes sense, the iPad Pros graduated to using full blown M series chips so the A Pro chips they used to use can filter down the stack.

edit: oops I mixed up A Pro and A X

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2. JonathonW ◴[15 Oct 24 16:32 UTC] No.41850312[source]▶
The A17 Pro (originally in the iPhone 15 Pro; now also in the iPad Mini) and A18 Pro (currently only in the iPhone 16 Pro) are the only chips Apple has produced with a "Pro" suffix.

Apple used to use the X suffix for bigger versions of their phone processors that went into iPads (starting with the A5X); that went away when the M-series was introduced.

And the "Pro" suffix itself doesn't seem to denote anything in particular-- there was never a non-Pro A17, and the "A17 Pro" going into the iPad Mini is itself a cut-down version of the chip that went into the iPhone 15 Pro (it has one GPU core disabled).