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There Is No iPhone 15 Mini: Here's Why
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Y'all just want to rub salt into the wound that us mini lovers have right now
*sniff*
😭
now In all seriousness though, now that I have to accept the mini will no longer exist, I have a two step strategy:
1) buy a new-in-box 13 mini for when mine inevitably dies.
2) when that replacement dies, buy the absolute largest device I can (perhaps an iPad mini with VoIP plan) which is unequivocally a two handed device. I wont bemoan that I can't reach the whole keyboard comfortably or palm it because it will be impossible.
Of course, there may be a 3rd theoretical option ... a future foldable with the closed footprint of an iPhone mini?
*sniff*
😭
now In all seriousness though, now that I have to accept the mini will no longer exist, I have a two step strategy:
1) buy a new-in-box 13 mini for when mine inevitably dies.
2) when that replacement dies, buy the absolute largest device I can (perhaps an iPad mini with VoIP plan) which is unequivocally a two handed device. I wont bemoan that I can't reach the whole keyboard comfortably or palm it because it will be impossible.
Of course, there may be a 3rd theoretical option ... a future foldable with the closed footprint of an iPhone mini?
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Thank you for thinking for the rest of us. We will all defer to you.
He’s not wrong. Phablets aren’t meant for mobile use, they’re for sitting on the couch.
I'm one for whom the 12 mini timing potentially hampered the sale as I'd bought a new SE before it was announced. Had I known I might have waited.
I wonder if one of the factors for the relatively poor sales is because the demographic that prefers a smaller form factor may be more generally practical in a way, in the sense that proportionally more of us don't need to upgrade to the latest and greatest if an older iteration is still working fine.
For me, I'm not a power phone user or photography enthusiast, I tend to defer things like browsing, email/text or media consumption to my iPad or Mac, so don't need much beyond basic functionality and as long as my phone is still compatible with whatever is the current iOS I don't really feel a need to upgrade. But if they make a new SE in the 13 mini form factor with both a Touch ID button and Night Mode for the camera it will be an instant buy.
I wonder if one of the factors for the relatively poor sales is because the demographic that prefers a smaller form factor may be more generally practical in a way, in the sense that proportionally more of us don't need to upgrade to the latest and greatest if an older iteration is still working fine.
For me, I'm not a power phone user or photography enthusiast, I tend to defer things like browsing, email/text or media consumption to my iPad or Mac, so don't need much beyond basic functionality and as long as my phone is still compatible with whatever is the current iOS I don't really feel a need to upgrade. But if they make a new SE in the 13 mini form factor with both a Touch ID button and Night Mode for the camera it will be an instant buy.
Agreed. But an iPad Mini costs less than any 6.7-inch iPhone - and is considerably larger.
Because people who care a lot about price already have the SE.
Love my iPhone Mini 13. A great size when out and about on hikes and rides on my bike, etc. Would hate to have to get anything larger in the future.
That's impossible, since a Touch ID button would require the big bezel at least on the bottom. The great thing about the Mini is that it is slightly smaller than the current SE but has a significantly larger screen.
This. This was me. I got the 12 pro max at the end of 2020. I was worried about portability but I never went anywhere. Fast forward 1 year and I hated it. I sold it and bought a 13 mini and love it.
I’m still annoyed they kept the regular 13 over the mini. They already have the 14 available as a bigger screen that’s basically the same phone.
Not exactly.
They could incorporate a pill shaped TouchID such as the iPad Mini 6 has. I use one every day and it is been quite good.
My current 13 Mini already pushes the limits on how big a phone I want to carry around. I loved how small the 4/5/SE were.
My daughter's 12 Mini has been giving her battery issues lately so we discussed upgrading her on this round. Was looking at a 14 since she doesn't need the latest & greatest but AT&T is offering us $830 trade-in value on her 12 Mini. I asked her if she wanted to keep close to the same size and she went the complete opposite direction and we ordered a 15 Plus. She said she liked the portability of the 12 mini, but really wanted a larger screen size this time.
Apple messed up the SE, they are still using the iPhone 6 design. The iPhone 12 & 13 Mini should have been the SE model. As someone else pointed out, the killer for the Mini is the camera. I personally went for the 13 Pro because I wanted the better camera. But if they had the 13 Pro in Mini size, I would have certainly picked that one. Also, what's up with these Pro Max phablets. Steve Jobs is rolling in his grave.
“People wanted Pro features” is a surprisingly popular opinion but what Pro features did the 12 Pro have over the regular 12/mini? It was just the 2x camera and nothing else really. So the reason wasn’t that.
What it boils down to is I just don’t believe it was meant to be kept around. It gave them an easy excuse to keep the same starting price while raising the price of the phone everyone buys by $100. Then when they dropped the mini they can say it’s the same price as last year for the respective model.
Additionally, Apple wanted for everyone to see it as “iPhone 12 but smaller” and charged the respective price, but the battery was so bad that everyone went for the larger models instead, as you wouldn’t be paying much more for that. The small amount of people who would’ve paid so much for a small phone because they genuinely want a small phone ended up getting the mini. That’s a lot of people on forums but a small amount among the average consumers at scale. Society has simply gotten used to bigger phones.
What it boils down to is I just don’t believe it was meant to be kept around. It gave them an easy excuse to keep the same starting price while raising the price of the phone everyone buys by $100. Then when they dropped the mini they can say it’s the same price as last year for the respective model.
Additionally, Apple wanted for everyone to see it as “iPhone 12 but smaller” and charged the respective price, but the battery was so bad that everyone went for the larger models instead, as you wouldn’t be paying much more for that. The small amount of people who would’ve paid so much for a small phone because they genuinely want a small phone ended up getting the mini. That’s a lot of people on forums but a small amount among the average consumers at scale. Society has simply gotten used to bigger phones.
As suggested by the above, to the extent most want a Mini, it's not for the lower cost, it's for the smaller size. Thus I think they'd have more success if they instead made the Mini part of the Pro lineup. Not sure how many of the Pro features they can fit in a Mini, though.
I understand these reasons, but I hope Apple understands that if they never release another 5.4-inch device, I'll just buy the cheapest phone they offer after keeping my 13 Mini going as long as possible. I'm already pretty much over this device category and not having one that is the size I prefer will just push me further in that direction.
Unfortunately I think the case is that R&D and SKUs for a smaller device that doesn’t sell that well cost them more than they lose from people buying an SE over the regular models. If that changes I can see the mini coming back.
“We choose to make an iPhone Mini Pro. We choose to pack all of the pro features into a miniature form-factor in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.” - Future Apple CEO
The luddites need to let go already. Smaller phones are objectively worse.