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a) Re PRO as replacement for min???? It's not about the price of the - it's about the size. Less is more.
b) The article is misleading by quoting mini sales only in the USA. The mini is much more popular in Asian countries than in the US.
 
I still have my iPhone 7. I may upgrade to the SE or 13 mini (I want dual-SIM while keeping a physical SIM). I use my phone to make phone calls. I don't have a data plan, I use my iPad for that.
I had the iPhone 7 and upgrading to the 13 mini was a great decision, now as they have reduced the price, you should really get the 13 mini, it is a great phone!
 
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Yes, the raw number it represents is large, but that raw number is very small in comparison to the raw number of total sales, thus why we use percentages (not raw numbers) to get the proper perspective.
Percentages are a narrow way to look at things. If you only care about percentages, that means that you're going to negatively impact large numbers, but small percentages, of people. If you're posting here, then presumably you're a power user who benefits from, at the very least, software features that are used only by small percentages of users. It would be a real shame if Apple started removing features like Services, Spaces, batch file renaming and the ability to disable Gatekeeper and SIP.
 
This was more About greed than demand, demand was high enough to be profitable, just not profitable enough for apple….. I’ll hold on to my 13 mini until they decide to revisit or if they ever bother to make a dick Tracy version of the watch I might give up a phone entirely, just a basic camera , browser, text and maybe phone features with the AirPods and that would probably be good enough…. Could really care less about the health stuff which is probably the reason I don’t have the watch…. I suppose a basic camera for FaceTime or quick snap shots would be enough to make me go phone less , I use my iPad 99% of the time anyway
 
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Heh - those talking about numbers - how many of the Apple Watch Ultra's do you think they'll sell? :D
Probably 10 times as much as the Watch "Editions" (so, around 1000?).

Otoh, it's just €100 more than the stainless steel version and offers more functionality.
 
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I downsized from the 12 pro max to the 13 pro in less than a year, and was ready to downsize to the 14 mini this year. I am tired of phones. I'm 28 and looking to not spend my time endlessly scrolling through social media or YouTube.
 
I think the “mini” had to deal with the connotation of being “cheap”/less luxurious due to the name. Gives a “I couldn’t get the real new iPhone for another $100, I got the mini version” kind of feeling. Which was maybe the point of the phone all along, to upsell?

I can’t imagine a still big 5.4 inch phone appeasing people wanting a smaller phone lol
 
I've got a XR now and am either staying with it, getting a 13 mini, or going 14 Pro. The 14 makes zero sense at this point.
 
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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.
If the 3% figure was close, then there's no market for the Mini. "But if it was a PRO Mini!!!" - it probably wouldn't make much difference, even if it was technically feasible. People who truly want those features aren't going to prioritize the size. By definition, the most important thing to a person who really wants the features in the Pro is... the features. For the Mini customer, the most important thing is... the size.

And, say it got total mini sales to 5 or 6%, doubling what it was producing. That's still tiny. So to speak.
 
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All of this is contradictory. Do you want a full featured phone in a smaller package, or a budget phone made even more affordable because it's small?
There is nothing contradictory. I am clearly stating that the iPhone Mini failed at those price points. I am of the belief that the iPhone Mini in 2022 is a niche device. At its current price point there was little demand. I believe it will sell much better at a cheaper price. The appeal of the device is its size. Make it less feature filled and it will sell well.
 
But then you'd lose sales from people disappointed that they "dumbed down" the phone to get it to that price point. Many people out there want to have their cake and to eat it too.
One thing already failed. It no longer matters. You need to adapt to what needs to be done to make the iPhone Mini a viable option for consumers. And that is to offer it at a much cheaper price point.
 
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Heh - those talking about numbers - how many of the Apple Watch Ultra's do you think they'll sell? :D
It’s actually a missed opportunity to not redesign the watch for us non health freaks…. Make it nerdy with great FaceTime , improved browsing, even a 4 megapixel side cam…. They must be terrified such a device might make many people abandon carrying a phone. I don’t see any technical hurdles and yeah I would pay big bucks for it if it meant giving up my phone
 
Small form factor smartphones need to cover their cost of R&D, and with only 3% of total sales, there's no way anyone's willing to amortize hundreds of millions in expense over a million or 2 phones.

For example, just the different antenna design alone could be a hundred million dollars, since the fully loaded cost of an experienced antenna designer is easily north of $500k per annum.
Modern radios in smartphones are so complex that just tweaking and shrinking it a bit costs mega-bucks.

It seems that the only way forward for this category is as a niche, boutique product. Much like super-thin watches, lightweight bicycles, etc.
 
As some one who has worked as a store manager for AT&T 7 years and will leave this Wednesday I can speak with certainty. The mini does not sell, whatever batch we would get at launch would go virtually unchanged for the rest of the year.

I hated the minis as they took up valuable space in our safes that could be used for essentially the rest of the models.
 
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"Poor sales" - it might be because of the fact that the iPhone mini (despite it is called mini) is still too big and too heavy compared to the original iPhone SE or iPhone 5S (mini is 20% heavier than SE). If it were smaller and lighter, the sales figures would be certainly much, much higher.
 
Give me an iPhone Pro Mini with the same camera in the 14 pro and I'll be THE FIRST pre-ordering.

Make it small and premium and people will buy it. I'm not intersted in a small budget phone. I know more than a handful of people that are waiting for a truly great small phone. Not a budget device.
 
If they had made a Mini Pro and made it thicker for battery life, or heck - a half inch thick, I would have bought it in an INSTANT. I want the cameras, I want the battery life, and I want a small phone.
 
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If they had made a Mini Pro and made it thicker for battery life, or heck - a half inch thick, I would have bought it in an INSTANT. I want the cameras, I want the battery life, and I want a small phone.
But what's most important to you - size or features? And even if you say "... a half inch thick, I would have bought it..." - Apple isn't making devices for you. They know that most people will not buy that, so they're not doing it.
 
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Give me an iPhone Pro Mini with the same camera in the 14 pro and I'll be THE FIRST pre-ordering.

Make it small and premium and people will buy it. I'm not intersted in a small budget phone. I know more than a handful of people that are waiting for a truly great small phone. Not a budget device.
I agree I wish it was a Pro model but Portability is a feature too. It’s an objectively superior phone than the Pro because the Pro is a tablet. It’s like carrying a brick phone from the 90’s
 
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One thing already failed. It no longer matters. You need to adapt to what needs to be done to make the iPhone Mini a viable option for consumers. And that is to offer it at a much cheaper price point.
I don't think the price is an issue. Further, lowering the price removes sales margin and thus an incentive to create it in the first place.

The iphone 12 mini was the first iphone I bought (and the first without keyboard in over a decade), and one of the reasons was that it was one of the most miniaturized phones available. Bigger phones (e.g. fairphone) are cheaper, but they are harder to handle, especially with one hand, and thus I would be inclined to pay less for them. A phone to me is a device that is primarily used on the go, while walking, shopping, working out, hiking etc.
Anything slightly bigger and still mobile, I use my ipad. Then my MacBook. And at home I have my workstation anyway with multiple 4k and 2k screens if I really need to do stuff.

Battery size doesn't matter that much to me. Smartphones don't last long anyway, a bigger phone is not going to give me 1 or 2 weeks of battery life like in the olden days. And whenever I'm out of the house for more than a couple of hours, I carry a bag with me anyway that can hold a charger and/or a power pack. Switching to 4G (5G uses power and is only needed in access point mode for me) and low power mode, the mini has more than enough battery life.

I'd be happy to have a mini every 2 or 3 years. One of the big upsides for using apple phone is the long software support they come with. Spare parts are also available (even though costly).

One last thing: the mini to me isn't actually mini. It is bigger than the Blackberry Q10, which was my favourite phone of the last decade. With the missing keyboard, it features quite a big screen size. I can even read ebooks in public transport comfortably while standing.
 
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Absolutely not. The appeal of the Mini is the size. It didn’t fail because it lacked anything. It failed because it’s a niche device and it was too close in price to the iPhone 12/13. A Pro Mini is an even more niche device.

I would say a non pro mini is as niche as it gets.

You need to find people who don't care about specs,
but still want to pay a lot more than they would for a similar sized SE.

For these people the SE or "the bigger screen for $100" looks like a much better deal.

The market is there for a one handed flagship,
but not so much for a not-so-cheap cheap-phone..

I just bought a mini last week anyway since I thought Apple might remove it from the lineup.
The size is nice but the fact that its built like a 13 and not a 13 pro sucks.

Quite sure they would've made at least as much money,
if they built it like a PRO and priced it the same as the PRO MAX.
 
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One thing already failed. It no longer matters. You need to adapt to what needs to be done to make the iPhone Mini a viable option for consumers. And that is to offer it at a much cheaper price point.

And like I just said, you'd then lose sales due the the sacrifices that would have to be made to get it to that price point. The market is simply not there right now for either the higher priced Mini with better features or lower priced Mini with stripped down features. If Apple thought there was a viable market for the latter, then they'd have gone for it. Things may change in the future, but currently it's simply not viable.
 
Probably 10 times as much as the Watch "Editions" (so, around 1000?).

Otoh, it's just €100 more than the stainless steel version and offers more functionality.
ROTFL. That is sure, it's full of wannabe rich that would appears elite with a 799$ watch. It's a little less full of someone who could spent 1500$ on Ceramic Apple Watch or 17.000$ on gold Apple Watch. Trust me, it's more honest someone with a ceramic or a gold, at least the recognize of premium watch its more subtle than SouthPark Kenny's Watch. XD
 
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