Question about ipad games

AFAIK, there is nothing that WON'T run on a Mini 4, at least at time of writing. I have a Mini 3, and it can currently run everything too. It's a great machine, and I'd definitely recommend it for gaming. However, I would definitely spring for a Mini 4 if you can stretch that far - worth it for the extra RAM alone, let alone the faster processor. You should be pretty future-proof for a good few years.

 

The Mini 4 is still a great iPad, you won't find anything that won't run on it for now.

As a side, it may be stating the obvious but what the hey I'm in a chatty mood.


When it comes to iOS devices there is only one real limiting factor in deciding what will or won't run on a device and thats it's age.


By which I mean an iPad/iPad mini/iPad Air and iPad Pro differ only in their levels of computing power and obvious feature differences, there are no apps made specifically for any one device. Indeed an iPad can even run all iPhone apps that are on the store (doesn't work the other way round necessarily because of the screen size difference.)


When we make our apps we can have a target platform in mind on which the app will run at it's very best, but beyond that we are really developing for iOS, not a specific device. The vast majority will also optimise their apps to ensure that older devices still get an app that runs as best as it possibly can for the hardware it has.


We have to do this really, because when we launch an app we can't say to Apple, ok this should only be available on the 2016 iPad Pro 9.7" model. No, quite the opposite, we get no choice whatsoever. If we are releasing an iPad app then it is released for all iPads which can run the base version of iOS we release for.


And. there's the true limiter (and it's tied into the age and power as I mentioned) when any iPhone or iPad gets to a certain age, Apple stops releasing new versions of iOS for it. Simply because the device would be too slow to handle it.
When that happens, it's the only thing that stops you from running any app from the AppStore.
If you scroll to the bottom of an apps description you will get to it's information section. In here you will see it has a Compatibility section, which lists all of the devices it works on but more importantly it will state what the minimum version of iOS is.


So if your iPad mini has the required minimum version of iOS or newer, you can run the app.
It'll be quite a while yet before the iPad mini 4 stops getting iOS updates, so long story short you needn't worry about compatibility for quite some time. If anything you will get a game that runs a little slower on your iPad, until it stops getting iOS updates.