Pi Morning Brief: Apple releases iPad mini (A20 Pro), OpenAI releases GPT-6.1…

Tuesday 27 Pi Morning Brief: Apple releases iPad mini (A20 Pro) and more 08:27 7-minute read Morning Brief at a Glance

Apple releases iPad mini (A20 Pro)16

Eight internet companies sign the "Internet Marketing and Promotion Self-Discipline Convention"3

CHERRY launches MX EMERALD REEF mechanical switch1

On October 26, Apple released the iPad mini (A20 Pro). The new iPad mini is available in Midnight and Starlight, starts at 128GB of storage, has a body thickness reduced to 5.4mm, and weighs as little as 255g (Wi-Fi model). It uses the A20 Pro chip; the 128GB and 256GB models have a 5-core CPU + 16-core Neural Engine, while the 512GB model has a 6-core CPU + dual 16-core Neural Engines. It features an 8.5-inch OLED Super Retina XDR display with 600nits full-screen brightness and 1200nits peak brightness, and the 256GB and 512GB models can be configured with nano-texture display glass.

The front camera has been moved to the long edge and is a landscape 12-megapixel Center Stage camera with a wider f/2.0 aperture. It is equipped with the Adaptive True Tone flash previously used only on iPad Pro. The speakers use Acoustic Display technology, providing stereo sound without additional openings and enabling a sealed body, making the iPad mini (A20 Pro) the first iPad to support IP67-level splash, water, and dust resistance.

All models are equipped with the Apple N1 wireless chip, supporting Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, and cellular models additionally feature the Apple C2 cellular modem. It supports one external display at up to 4K (60Hz). The battery capacity is 18.9 Wh, and it can fast-charge to 50% in 30 minutes. It supports Apple Pencil Pro and Apple Pencil (USB-C).

In terms of pricing, the Wi-Fi version starts at 5,499 yuan (128GB), the model with nano-texture glass starts at 7,099 yuan (256GB, Wi-Fi), and cellular models start at 6,799 yuan (supporting China Unicom). Pre-orders begin at 1:10 a.m. on October 29, and it goes on sale on November 6. Source

Also launched is a new Smart Folio with a dual-panel architecture and technical fabric material, available in Navy and Light Brown, priced at 599 yuan.

Has the battery life of this thing improved? The iPad mini 7 can be said to lag far behind phones in battery life. Only Apple can do it. The mini's price isn't mini at all. The A20 Pro only supports 4K 60Hz external displays—deliberately cut down? It's probably just that their individual capability isn't up to it; it feels like it's getting more and more expensive~View all discussion 164114

Eight internet companies sign the "Internet Marketing and Promotion Self-Discipline Convention"

The 33rd China International Advertising Festival, co-hosted by the China Advertising Association and the People's Government of Haidian District, Beijing, opened in Haidian District, Beijing, on October 23. At the opening ceremony, under the organization and guidance of the Beijing Municipal Market Supervision Administration and with the coordination and promotion of the China Advertising Association, representatives of the first batch of 8 internet companies—Ocean Engine (the digital marketing platform under Douyin Group), Baidu, Tencent, Kuaishou, JD Group, Meituan, 360 Group, and Phoenix Net—jointly signed the "Internet Marketing and Promotion Self-Discipline Convention," committing to consciously regulate marketing and promotional behavior, uphold the bottom line of truthfulness and compliance, and work together to create a clean and orderly internet marketing environment. Source. Is Phoenix Net even considered an internet company? If so, the new car-making forces of recent years should be included too. Good days are here! Huge crowds! Gongs and drums resounding! Firecrackers going off! Oh my~ self-discipline.4219

CHERRY launches MX EMERALD REEF mechanical switch

On October 22, CHERRY reorganized the MX Lumina series into the MX ILLUMA platform and launched three new switches: MX ILLUMA RED, MX ILLUMA BROWN, and MX EMERALD REEF. Among them, MX EMERALD REEF is an all-new switch with a silent tactile (brown-like) design, a total travel of 3.8mm, an actuation travel of 2.0mm, an actuation force of 41cN, a bottom-out force of 60cN, a patented bottom-out and rebound silencing solution, reduced stem wobble, and a rated lifespan of more than 50 million presses. Source

Silent tactile switches are really rare; silent switches are already few, and most of them are silent linear switches.

HTC unveils pocket AI interactive companion VIVEE

On October 26, HTC announced a pocket AI interactive companion called VIVEE, with a presale price of $99.99. When users pet, pat, or rotate VIVEE, the device responds with fun interactive reactions; it also supports chatting and playing games, and through interaction with the user, this pocket companion gradually develops its own little personality. HTC also offers VIVEE Suits styling accessories, which give VIVEE a new look while also unlocking different on-screen UI expressions. On the hardware side, the HTC VIVEE measures 60×60×50 (mm), weighs 114g, features an OLED screen, offers all-day battery life, supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and NFC connectivity, provides haptic feedback, and is IPX4 water-resistant. The device has hardware switches for the microphone and speaker, and HTC promises that users' personal information will not be used to train AI models. Source

How do you pronounce this word? It's rare to still come across HTC news. Wait, HTC? AI?! HTC is still alive.

OpenAI releases GPT-6.1 Terra

OpenAI released GPT-6.1 Terra, focused on visual reasoning, computer operation, and writing capabilities. It is now available to Plus, Pro, Enterprise, and Edu users of ChatGPT Work and Codex, and is also offered via API. The standard API charges $1, $0.05, and $5 per million input, cached input, and output tokens respectively, 50% lower than the standard prices of GPT-5.6 Terra and GPT-6.1 Sol. According to tests published by OpenAI, on Agents' Last Exam, which measures professional computer tasks, GPT-6.1 Terra at medium reasoning effort improves by 15 percentage points over GPT-5.6 Terra, at about one-third of the task cost. On Terminal-Bench 4.0, its task completion rate at the highest reasoning effort is 50.3%, higher than the 21.5% announced for the previous generation. In OpenAI's internal error-prone prompt tests, the new model's error rate at low reasoning effort dropped from 53.6% for the previous generation to 16.7%, and fell to 4.3% at the highest reasoning effort. OpenAI said that GPT-6.1 Sol and GPT-6 Astra remain better suited to the most complex programming tasks. Source I tried it this morning; everyone's assessment of it as the American version of DeepSeek is quite apt.

Anthropic initiates IPO

Anthropic announced on October 26 that it has submitted an S-1 registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a proposed initial public offering of Class A common stock, to be listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol "ANT." The number of shares to be offered and the price range have not yet been determined; market reports say its valuation could reach $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion, potentially placing it among the largest IPOs in history. The public offering document shows that the company's revenue in the first half of this year was $16.286 billion, compared with $1.163 billion in the same period last year, a year-on-year increase of about 1,300%; its net loss in the same period widened from $12.969 billion to $80.748 billion. As of this announcement, the registration statement has not yet become effective, and the securities may not be sold nor offers to buy accepted before it becomes effective. The company has not yet announced a specific listing date in the announcement. Source Today's big AI companies tell everyone how fast their revenue is growing and how cheap their prices are, while losing huge amounts every year and still spending heavily on compute. That's real strength! Even if my account gets banned, I'll still find a way to criticize them while using their models. 1

Brief news worth a look

With the release of iOS 27.2, Siri AI language support expands to French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish. Apple also announced that by the end of the year, Siri AI will further support Traditional Chinese, Norwegian, Turkish, and Vietnamese. Source

Microsoft confirmed in a support document that, starting with new chip platforms launching in 2026, the Microsoft Pluton security processor will no longer serve as a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) on AMD and Qualcomm platforms. TPM 2.0 functionality on these platforms and Intel platforms will be provided by chipmakers' firmware TPM or discrete TPM. Microsoft Pluton is a chip-to-cloud security technology built around zero-trust principles, providing a hardware-based root of trust, secure identity, secure attestation, and cryptographic services. Microsoft did not explain the reason for this change. Source

Kimi apologized for recent issues with the K3.1 Pro experience and announced compensation. The problems causing rate limiting and unnecessary quota consumption have been fixed, and a reset will be carried out once for subscribers at all tiers; all members within their validity period will receive 25% of the monthly total as compensation; if current usage is less than 25% of the monthly total, it will be reset to 0. The usage progress bar will show the adjusted result before the end of October 26. Source

According to ETNews, Samsung will cut Galaxy A series phone production by 20% in 2027, about 10 million units, in order to allocate more resources to flagship models. Source

In a letter to employees on October 26, Microsoft introduced a "voluntary departure program," offering financial support and career planning resources to eligible employees. Microsoft confirmed to GeekWire that about 60,000 employees are eligible, more than a quarter of its total workforce, covering employees at level 70 and below in teams in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and India; whether each department participates depends on business needs. Source

Microsoft added a quick reminder to renew Microsoft 365 in the settings of the latest Windows 11 Insider preview build. Source

Microsoft still can't compare with us; here, everyone leaves voluntarily.

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