Taiwan’s Economic Daily News is reporting that the third generation iPad mini will feature a design that shaves 30 percent off the thickness of the device. It’ll also feature the usual internal upgrades, like the new A8 processor.
The source for this rumor is the supply chain, and it appears to be a very optimistic rumor. The Retina iPad mini was just 7.5mm thick and the first-generation iPad mini was 7.2mm. To reduce that by 30 percent would make it just 5.25mm thick: almost impossible to do whilst maintaining the power required and having a long battery life. The iPad Air did undergo a significant thickness reduction last year, from 9.4mm to just 7.5mm. However, the full-sized iPad was relatively thick to start with, so a reduction was possible.
The third-generation iPad mini is thought to feature the A8 processor, and a durable Touch ID fingerprint sensor containing tin. It’ll run iOS 8 at launch, which will give third-party developers the ability to use the fingerprint scanner for their verification purposes.
