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I'm really glad to see this. I have never been a fan of big phones. I liked my 5S a lot and went to a 6S and then an 8. I specifically didn't upgrade to the X because of size increase and stuck with the 8 (and would have stayed with the 6S if not for an unfortunate pool situation).

I do want FaceID though. So, looking forward to this. (A better camera would be really nice too.)
 
I don't like the idea of "making the smaller one dumber feature-wise". I'd pay the price tag to have a full feature smallest model. Why do would I need to use between "better colors" and "convenient in pocket and can be used with one hand"?
Because there are the "oh my gawd it's so small why does it cost more than the bigger iPhone 12!!!" people. Also physically wise it is probably much harder to fit the third lens, have a more battery hungry display, without increasing the battery size, which will then increase the thickness, making the fabled almighty one-hand use case less than ideal.

You know if Apple released this at 649 and the 6.1 inch at 749, the mini's components are definitely NOT 100 dollars cheaper than those of the 6.1 inch model. But people expect that to be the case. The margins on the 5.4" are likely to be the lowest.
 
I wonder if the smaller notch is because it won’t have the Face ID camera array & instead it will have the new iPad Air Touch ID power switch?

To be honest, for the price + size factor, I don't even mind that. Obviously I wish Face ID was also there, but I'm not bothered at all by its absence, especially when everyone's masked up nowadays. It's not like Touch ID is some broken-down, buggy mess, it works pretty damn well to me and is quite secure, even when I actually experienced people trying to get into my phone.

For me screen real estate is the single most important thing. It is my one & only interface with the entire phone so of course that's the first thing I need to be absolutely perfect! That's why I'm baffled by a lot of people who defend the notch on this forum. Like, how does one purposely NOT want a full-screen, seamless display? 😐

I'll wait for under-display camera tech to develop. In the meantime, I'm happy with Touch ID!
 
I'm not sure the iPhone 12 mini's target market is people coming from previous iPhone X/XS/11 models; also the likelyhood of a substantially lower cost is not mentioned.

Apple hasn't been targeting YoY upgrades since the release of the iPhone X. The market indicates that far fewer people are upgrading every year, so they've stopped trying to aggressively perk the interest of those who do. Each phone released now is targeted at people running phones 2 - 5 years old.

A lower cost is not likely at all. Rumors for months indicate prices are going up. Apple has elected to remove $60 worth of accessories from the box, and raise the price, allegedly because of the addition of 5G that no one needs nor cares about.

As long as it has a form of Touch ID, I'll buy it.

This is not being talked about at all, but I feel it should be. Touch ID in the side button would be a boon for iPhone, and it seems almost impossibly unlikely that Apple would have developed this and deployed it in a mid-tier iPad. Had schedules not been borked, iPad Air likely would have been announced on the same day as iPhone 12.

So many reasons....

1. It is incredibly unlikely for Apple to have developed a 3rd generation of biometric security just for a mid-tier iPad.
2. Right now during the mask era, Face ID is causing a lot of grief, and for Apple to come out with a solution to that inside the new iPhone would draw a lot of attention to the new product.
3. I feel this is needed anyway regardless of the mask thing. Face ID devices are hampered with the awful double-click-the-side-button-to-confirm UX which needs to go, and could easily be replace with a better 2-factor than that...simply touch the side button.
 
It would be awesome if they put TouchID in the power button like the new Air, but no rumor points to that, unfortunately.
No rumors pointed it to being in the iPad Air either. Screenshots of the user guide/manual leaked a week before it was introduced, which was the first and only indication of it happening.
 
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That has not been corroborated by any physical leak at all. I would drop that talking point, as it was never going to be the case.

hey, a man can still dream 🤷‍♂️

a smaller notch is really important for my decision to upgrade, so as long as that rumor is in the air, i'm gonna hope. obviously until i'm disappointed or vindicated. we'll see.
 
Coming from an iPhone 7, this will probably be my choice.

likewise. It almost seems like this article is trying to get all site visits ore to upgrade to the pro models. Like marketing for Apple.

pretty sad actually.

better to right an article of what features each model is likely to have and phrase it lke that especially in the title.
 
hey, a man can still dream 🤷‍♂️

a smaller notch is really important for my decision to upgrade, so as long as that rumor is in the air, i'm gonna hope. obviously until i'm disappointed or vindicated. we'll see.
It's still going to be a significant percentage of that smaller screen no matter how small it gets without scraping face id.
 
who cares about 5g lol 6g is already being developed haha

finally i can buy a phone at a reasonable price
 
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5G is overrated.

LiDAR is probably not a major selling point for most consumers.

Most consumers can’t even differentiate between OLED and LCD.

What will sell this phone will be the size and price point. Consumers aren’t interested in paying for $1000 smart phones, not when generally all these phones perform the same functionality.

sorry, I disagree that customer cannot see difference with oled display....

if you never tried oled before ok maybe, but as soon you use your phone in a dark room and you see (a bit strange to say that) the true dark of the screen and no clouding effect with Grey black due to lcd backlit...

Sorry but from my iPhone 7 or iPad 3 to my iPhone XS Max there is no question asked !
This is also the reason I moved to oled TV.

now the real question is more : does normal people care about that and willing to pay extra for it ? But definitely they will see the difference, same with 120Hz refresh rate, but will they care to pay more ?
 
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Moving forward Apple has nothing to make an iPhone SE3 out of so I feel that the spec of the 5.4" iPhone 12 is already targeted to being the shell of the SE3. Planning ahead all Apple will want to do is to up the processor in it and in the meantime, design it from the outset to be one, or two, steps below what would be the top end. Its unfortunate for those that what a full fat small phone but it would be quite a clever move on Apple's part to plan for their next low end phone.

Apple are unable to keep the iPhone 8 shell so need to make a new design for the future SE3.
 
hey, a man can still dream 🤷‍♂️

a smaller notch is really important for my decision to upgrade, so as long as that rumor is in the air, i'm gonna hope. obviously until i'm disappointed or vindicated. we'll see.
Well it is not going to happen. iOS was completely redesigned to accommodate the notch and the relative size of it is meaningless at this point. Smaller or not it still exists, still serves the same purpose, and the OS still works with it to show the same amount of meaningful content.

Short of a design that has not notch at all, a smaller notch does nothing and is not an obvious goal.
 
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Early on it was rumored the 5.4” would be a Pro model and was very excited. Sadly, the 5.8” Pro is going to 6.1”. I can give up most of these features, but definitely not the telephoto. Ugh.
 
I'm waiting for the 12 Pro w/out 5G rumored for early 2021 so I get a better battery, and don't worry about 5G with the low-speed antenna vs. both that suck power. I'll wait until they've got 5G worked out better.
 
Early on it was rumored the 5.4” would be a Pro model and was very excited. Sadly, the 5.8” Pro is going to 6.1”. I can give up most of these features, but definitely not the telephoto. Ugh.
Exactly how I feel. I don't know why they decided to keep the ultrawide lens in the mini and regular 12 instead doing wide + telephoto. (Probably to upsell people to the Pro and force an unwieldy pocket brick on everyone).

That ultrawide lens is an absolute waste. The regular wide lens is already too wide and I never use it on my X. First thing I do when I open up the Camera app is tap the 1x to turn it to 2x. Every time.
 
Well it is not going to happen. iOS was completely redesigned to accommodate the notch and the relative size of it is meaningless at this point. Smaller or not it still exists, still serves the same purpose, and the OS still works with it to show the same amount of meaningful content.

Short of a design that has not notch at all, a smaller notch does nothing and is not an obvious goal.

I don't necessarily disagree with you. I just want the damn thing gone completely, so I'll gladly accept any kind of compromise. I do have weird, organizational tendencies that some people call obsessive, so I can't deal with an intrusion that big dipping into my screen. It's what's kept me holding on to an older iPhone.

I love iOS so I'm not going to jump ship to Android, but I really wish this redesign cycle year was the year we finally saw a true design upgrade after the X.
 
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Moving forward Apple has nothing to make an iPhone SE3 out of so I feel that the spec of the 5.4" iPhone 12 is already targeted to being the shell of the SE3. Planning ahead all Apple will want to do is to up the processor in it and in the meantime, design it from the outset to be one, or two, steps below what would be the top end. Its unfortunate for those that what a full fat small phone but it would be quite a clever move on Apple's part to plan for their next low end phone.

Apple are unable to keep the iPhone 8 shell so need to make a new design for the future SE3.
The rumors are that a touch ID version of the current LCD iPhone 11 will become the next SE.
 
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