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(Image credit: Apple) |
With a quiet announcement revealing a few minor but welcome hardware upgrades, the iPad mini 7 became the third Apple-branded tablet to launch in 2024 after being heavily predicted for an impending update.
Despite the fact that the improved storage, Wi-Fi 6E update, and (slightly) degraded A17 Pro chipset are all good, Apple hasn't specifically indicated one improvement that might be included in the hardware.
As anticipated, co-host Jason Snell disclosed on the most recent episode of the Six Colors podcast that the iPad mini 7 finally fixes the "jelly scrolling" problem that plagued users of the previous model when holding the tablet in portrait mode.
Snell disclosed his knowledge that an unidentified modification has been made to the iPad mini's display hardware, with the "implication" that the modification was made to address jelly scrolling in the segment that MacRumors initially noticed. "I think it's different," he remarked. "And perhaps even better. and possibly gone.
For those who are unfamiliar, jelly scrolling is the phenomenon where one half of the screen refreshes at a notably different rate than the other, giving the impression that the screen is wobbling somewhat when moving, such as when navigating a web page.
Although the effect is hard to explain, Vincent Teoh's video illustrates what's happening at extremely slow motion speeds, which helps to explain why some users find the iPad mini 6's scrolling to be uncomfortable.
An iFixIt deconstruction video offered one explanation for why it's particularly noticeable on the iPad mini 6. The display's controller board is now positioned vertically instead of horizontally as it was in earlier versions, which appears to alter the way the screen refreshes (from top to bottom to left to right).
Since most people don't hold the iPad mini that way when reading web material, you won't see jelly scrolling if you're browsing the web in landscape mode, where both scrolling and refreshing happen simultaneously.
When the tablet is sent to early adopters next week, we won't know for sure how well the issue has been resolved, but it would be shocking if Apple hadn't made an effort to reduce it in any manner, even if it was only by relocating the controller board. Even though Apple would argue that jelly scrolling is typical for LCD screens, rumors of a class action lawsuit especially targeting the iPad mini 6 persisted.
According to Teoh, however, upgrading the mini to a ProMotion 120Hz display—something the firm hasn't done this time around—would be one method for Apple to eliminate jelly scroll. Jelly scrolling is also available on the iPad Pro with its vertically mounted control board, as the iFixIt video demonstrates, although the refresh rate is so high that it can only be seen in slow-down video.
Here are five reasons why our computer reporter, Tony Polanco, is eager for the iPad mini 7 to arrive; we should have a comprehensive review of it soon.