Product Review - App Works

The first thing you can’t fail to notice about the iPad Mini is how little it weighs: the regular 652g iPad seems like a brick after you’ve spent time with the 308g Mini! The second thing you’ll notice is the iPad Mini’s slender frame. With a depth of just 7.2mm, it’s fractionally thinner than the 7.6mm-deep iPhone 5 and a good deal slimmer than the iPad, which has a depth of 9.4mm. While these improvements may seem trivial, I think I’m far more likely to keep an iPad Mini in my bag at all times than I was an iPad. If you use — or feel you would use — an iPad mostly as a studio peripheral, these Mini qualities may not be all that important, but if you want a handy device that’s with you all the time, they’re definitely a bonus.

Aesthetically, the iPad Mini looks like the result of a particularly amorous night between an iPad and an iPhone 5. The black model is now completely black, with an anodised aluminium enclosure, while the white alternative retains its metallic-looking rear. And, like the iPhone 5, the iPad Mini’s design incorporates a diamond-cut chamfer that joins the aluminium back with the glass front, giving the device an elegant and seamless finish. The only aspect of the iPad Mini’s design that feels initially awkward is the width (or lack thereof) of the left and right borders when the device is in portrait orientation. However, I’m not sure this matters if you’re running music software, since the majority of audio-related apps seem hard-wired to use landscape mode anyway.

Apple have chosen a 7.9-inch display for the iPad Mini (compared to the iPad’s 9.7-inch screen), offering the same 1024x768 resolution as the original iPad and the iPad 2. This means that the iPad Mini can run existing apps without modification, although everything appears slightly smaller, due to the higher pixel density. I was a little unsure as to how comfortable this would be, since the size of user interface controls always seemed perfect on the iPad, but in practice, I can’t say I experienced any significant impairment. Apps like Garageband work just fine, and more complex apps, such as Wolfgang Palm’s brilliant WaveGenerator, are usable in exactly the same way they are with a bigger display. While the toolbar buttons seem almost Lilliputian in Korg’s MS20 app, I rarely made an erroneous tap. Even control surface apps like Neyrinck’s V-Control seem practical with the Mini, although some users may prefer the luxury of the regular iPad’s larger and clearer Retina display for such apps.