There Is No iPhone 14 Mini: Here's Why [Updated]

[imdog]

iPhone mini should be a 4” display, regular 4.8”, max 5.4”
There is no human on earth who the iPhone mini is not too large to use one handed

 

[FlyingTexan]

It failed because the battery life wasn’t good and they didn’t do the thing everyone asked which was give pro features in a mini body. No zoom lens and no 120hz. I’d have paid much more for that. Overall love the mini 12 and 13. Unsure if I upgrade like I do every year or not.

 

[JM]

iPhone mini should be a 4” display, regular 4.8”, max 5.4”
There is no human on earth who the iPhone mini is not too large to use one handed

Try holding the mini in your left hand and pull down the control center shade. Yah can’t easily without shifting the hand around.

 

[FlyingTexan]

This. People who like the mini are also unlikely to want to upgrade annually. Could be a separate line entirely to keep a niche group of people in the Apple ecosystem.

I upgrade due to new features and better battery.

 

[xxFoxtail]

As someone who uses their iPhone mini less for content consumption, and more of a phone. I don’t really need the latest tech in it. But, would be nice to have some features like the Satellite SOS, Dynamic Island and maybe improved battery life. Don’t need the 120hz screen or extra cameras, would be nice to have an iPhone mini pro though.

 

[skiguy45]

The mini is the perfect size. I’m loathed to move to a bigger phone. The 6.1 inch phones are way too big. I truly believe the issue with sales has most to do with putting the three phones side by side. People trend to the middle and bigger seems better in the store. Living with a jumbo-tron in your pocket is a whole ‘nother story.

 

[gomichaelgo]

The mini should have been more like the SE, not an every year phone, but every other year. The folks that get the SE or mini don't upgrade as often, sometimes waiting 4 years or more. That makes sense that the folks that lined up for the 12 mini weren't there for the 13 mini.

 

[xxFoxtail]

The mini is the perfect size. I’m loathed to move to a bigger phone. The 6.1 inch phones are way too big. I truly believe the issue with sales has most to do with putting the three phones side by side. People trend to the middle and bigger seems better in the store. Living with a jumbo-tron in your pocket is a whole ‘nother story.

I had a 14 Pro ordered for my fiancé and one for myself. After I realized the 14 Pro is the same screen size as her XR, I immediately canceled my preorder. I thought it was going to be around the iPhone X size - which I already thought was kind of large coming from a 2016 SE before that.

I’ll stick with my 12 mini until it dies. Then I’ll consider a 13 mini or whatever mini is next. I’ll get to play around with her 14 Pro, but it’s not something I want to use as a daily driver.

 

[JMO1]

Screw all this cr*p about there being no market. We’ll never actually know if that’s the case or not, because Apple never gave the Pro crowd the option of buying a smaller device. The assumption that mini owners wouldn’t want better cameras or other premium features included in the Pro lineup means that Apple only tested the non-Pro crowd, who are more likely to be business users / slow upgraders.

There should have been a mini variant of the Pro. It’s that simple.

It’s high time Apple used their wizardry to go back to a dual-camera form factor to only include the ultra-wide and a telephoto lenses. They could definitely find ample middle ground between lenses using software at this point.

I wanted the pro features so opted for the Pro 12, but if it came in Pro Mini I 100% would have chosen that option

 

[TightLines]

There are lies and then there are statistics… personally, i think they we’re seeing the biggest sales impact on the higher priced models being cannibalized by the mini sales… and now they are getting an earful and seeing a lot of press talking about the 12 & 13 mini and the sales data still showing its very strong for them, and not so much any of the 14 models…

So Apples answer is to get its propaganda teams to start doing the stories about the “dead“ 13 mini and underwhelming sales data for them… sadly, they must be a kin to losing money, as they could have just reduced the production levels down to the levels that have been selling and discount the ones stuck on shelves due to the lack of demand… you know, use those statistics for good use… but no, for some reason we aren’t seeing any of that. Why would that be? Go back to my first sentence to answer that puzzling question.

 

[jpalley]

The iPhone 14 lineup is the first iPhone series to not include a display size below six inches, despite sticking with the 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch form factors of previous generations that included a 5.4-inch model. So why did Apple eliminate the "mini" device that some iPhone customers had come to love?

Apple debuted the iPhone 12 mini in 2020 following years of calls from iPhone fans for the company to offer a small-screen device with the latest features. When Apple did so, it was assumed that the small form factor would persist for several years – but it appears that the device has come to a premature end upon the release of the iPhone 14 lineup.

Concerns first arose when the iPhone 12 mini appeared to not be selling as well as Apple had hoped, making up just six percent of iPhone 12 sales in the U.S. in October and November 2020, according to data gathered by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP). Counterpoint Research reported that the iPhone 12 mini accounted for only five percent of all iPhone 12 sales in the U.S. in the first half of January 2021.

Morgan Stanley believed that Apple chose to cut production of the iPhone 12 mini by two million units to create more manufacturing capacity for the more popular iPhone 12 Pro. This was mirrored by a Taiwanese report, citing supply chain sources, which said that strong demand for ‌iPhone 12 Pro‌ models in China led Apple to increase its supply of the more expensive devices.

Most strikingly, JP Morgan Chase claimed that Apple outright halted iPhone 12 mini production in the second quarter of 2021. While the sales reports for the iPhone 12 mini did not bode well for the iPhone 13 mini, Apple plans its iPhone production and supply chain operations well in advance of launch, meaning that the iPhone 13 mini was already well on the way to production by the time the issues with the iPhone 12 mini's sales were clear.

In April 2022, CIRP released more data suggesting that the iPhone 13 mini accounted for just 3 percent of iPhone 13 sales – half that of the iPhone 12 mini. These continued poor sales were likely the main reason behind the demise of the "mini" form factor iPhone.

With the iPhone 14 lineup, Apple has opted to replace the "mini" device with an all-new "Plus" device. In some respects, the iPhone 14 Plus mirrors the iPhone 12 mini, offering the latest iPhone's features in a different display size. Instead of offering a lightweight small-screen option, customers can now choose an even bigger battery and 6.7-inch display – the same size that iPhone "Max" customers have been used to for four years now at a price of $1,099 – but at a lower, $899 price point.

Article Link: There Is No iPhone 14 Mini: Here's Why

Love my mini! Nobody realizes it’s an iPhone given the size.

Only complaint about it is the battery life.

 

[sorgo †]

It failed because the battery life wasn’t good and they didn’t do the thing everyone asked which was give pro features in a mini body. No zoom lens and no 120hz. I’d have paid much more for that. Overall love the mini 12 and 13. Unsure if I upgrade like I do every year or not.

>Good battery life
>Pro features in a mini body

Pick one

 

[tridley68]

The market has spoken and bigger is better.

 

[seanmcbay]

Enjoy your degrading wrists, I’ll stick with my mini.

 

[samuraiQ]

For me, even the mini's 5.4 inches is too big.
I am waiting for the appearance of a model with a full screen display in the original SE (4 inch) housing.

 

[Slash787]

I would prefer to have a better battery life rather than the Pro features. My 13 mini is really great, perfect in size, everything is smooth, great camera and gets everything done.

I still don't understand how people even use the Plus/Max, like even the normal one is TOO BIG for me.

People who own the non mini versions, really don't you find your phones to be too big?

For me if I wanted something big then I would get an iPad.

I really hope the XR doesn't becomes the next SE. I hope they release a mini version next year, if not then I will be keeping my current mini, I would put in a new battery and keep it for the next 2 to 3 years.

I think Asus recently launched a mini phone, my problem is that I just find android weird, I have been an Apple user since the beginning. The UI for android is really strange, any idea how can one make it look like iOS? Another problem with Android is that it doesn't have FaceTime which I use frequently.

What other good mini phones are out there apart from Apple?

 

[kpluck]

Interesting, but I think it was far simpler than that.

Apple makes less profit on the Mini than their higher priced phones and production capability is constrained. So they choose the more profitable path.

The slow sales didn't help but Apple could have solved that, or at least greatly helped sales, by giving the phone better battery life.

This isn't the first time Apple delivered a product with an intended purpose/market in mind that didn't sell well because what Apple choose to offer wasn't quite right. Then Apple says, "see, it didn't sell well, people don't want that sort of thing" and they move on. They would never admit to missing the mark and going back to the drawaing board to fix the product.

Plus, Apple knows even if they don't deliver exactly what people want, that no matter how much people grumble about it, in the end, they will still buy whatever Apple chooses to give them.

In short, Apple knows for the most part they can do what they want, and what they want is to maximize profits. To be clear, I don't have a problem with that.

-kp

P.S. FWIW, this is coming from someone that has been using Android phones since late 2012 and has just made the decision to switch to the iPhone 14 Pro.

 

[spcopsmac21]

hoping next year the mini to become the next SE

I doubt it. The next SE will be an iPhone 11 with an A15 chip.

 

[spcopsmac21]

I would prefer to have a better battery life rather than the Pro features. My 13 mini is really great, perfect in size, everything is smooth, great camera and gets everything done.

I still don't understand how people even use the Plus/Max, like even the normal one is TOO BIG for me.

People who own the non mini versions, really don't you find your phones to be too big?

For me if I wanted something big then I would get an iPad.

I really hope the XR doesn't becomes the next SE. I hope they release a mini version next year, if not then I will be keeping my current mini, I would put in a new battery and keep it for the next 2 to 3 years.

I think Asus recently launched a mini phone, my problem is that I just find android weird, I have been an Apple user since the beginning. The UI for android is really strange, any idea how can one make it look like iOS? Another problem with Android is that it doesn't have FaceTime which I use frequently.

What other good mini phones are out there apart from Apple?

There are apps that emulate IOS on top of android. Gives you almost the e-card same functionality

 

[madrigal77]

LOL at the mini fans desperately trying to make excuses why it was cancelled. It bombed catastrophically because only a very vocal minority wanted it. The sales speak for themselves. Just be happy that you got 2 models of it because you’ll never see it again.

 

[TheSynchronizer]

LOL at the mini fans desperately trying to make excuses why it was cancelled. It bombed catastrophically because only a very vocal minority wanted it. The sales speak for themselves. Just be happy that you got 2 models of it because you’ll never see it again.

It will one day come back as the iPhone SE. It's in the same size range, and they won't make the SE any larger than mini as they don't want to reduce the sales of the larger models as to not harm profit margins.

Want a larger display? No choice but to go for the more expensive models. Want a smaller display / just want a phone for all the essential phone functionality? Get the SE / mini (i.e. the SE target audience of mostly more casual phone users).

 

[heikkipekka]

”In some respects, the ‌iPhone 14‌ Plus mirrors the ‌iPhone 12 mini‌, offering the latest ‌iPhone‌'s features in a different display size.”

I find this argument a little FAR OUT. I’m not in love with my iPhone 12 mini (and with my one day old iPhone 13 mini) because of it being a “different display size” to regular iPhone — but instead the reason is: it’s smaller.

 

[JM]

I had a 14 Pro ordered for my fiancé and one for myself. After I realized the 14 Pro is the same screen size as her XR, I immediately canceled my preorder. I thought it was going to be around the iPhone X size - which I already thought was kind of large coming from a 2016 SE before that.

I’ll stick with my 12 mini until it dies. Then I’ll consider a 13 mini or whatever mini is next. I’ll get to play around with her 14 Pro, but it’s not something I want to use as a daily driver.

Believe it or not, the X is the same width as the 14Pro, just a little shorter.

Apple iPhone 14 Pro vs Apple iPhone X - Visual phone size compare

Compare Apple iPhone 14 Pro vs Apple iPhone X sizes against each other in real-time with our phone size comparison tool.

www.phonearena.com

 

[iRockMan1]

Firstly, 6% of iPhone sales is a lot of sales.

Secondly, as others have pointed out, the iPhone mini is still too big. I don't want to have to awkwardly shift my hand up and down in order to use my phone one-handed. When Steve Jobs was still around, the iPhone display never exceeded 4 inches for this exact reason, despite there being pressure to make larger phones.

If people want larger phones, then fine. It's just a damn shame that there are virtually no options for people who just want a phone they can comfortably use.

 

[ttyRazor]

This. People who like the mini are also unlikely to want to upgrade annually. Could be a separate line entirely to keep a niche group of people in the Apple ecosystem.

Given how little the 14 changed, it seems like it just got bumped to 14 just to match the new plus size. I doubt a 14 mini would have actually changed at all.