However, as the iPhone 12 and 13 mini demonstrated, the people who like small phones are a very vocal but extremely small minority (only 3% of US sales were the mini). They both sold so badly, it serves as a reality check for how small voices on the internet are compared to the market.
This is all relative. In absolute terms, the iPhone SE alone would be one of the most successful products in the world, more successful than the original iPhone back in the day.
iPhone as a category is so massive now that small percentages are still millions of people.
It's kind of sad that Apple itself has become so huge, because now the company ignores people it used to care about.
I guess a lot of people don't really have a computer or laptop anymore, their phone is their computer which they use for everything, so it makes sense to want as big a screen as possible.
For the kinds of people who frequent HN, I'd wager we all do have a computer, heck there's probably a laptop in your backpack right now, so it makes sense to have a smaller phone for 'phone stuff' and whip out your laptop to do anything more involved.
Still though, surely Apple made money from the mini, even 3% of iPhone sales is a lot of phone sales! I wish they would keep it around.
I feel like the 12 mini was objectively a subpar device, and maybe if 13 mini had come out first (after a long hiatus of not having smaller phones), then there might have been a chance. But probably not.
You're assuming most people even read the spec sheet and knew it was inferior on paper. I assure you, most did not. Most just looked at it, decided "too small," and that's about it.
I meant the people who wanted a small phone experienced it, and were disappointed, and it gained a bad reputation, potentially turning off others who also wanted a small phone.
There was a big gap (5+ years?) between the small iPhone SE and the 12 mini, so a lot of people jumping on 12 mini and being disappointed by the small phone may have resulted in disappointing sales of 13 mini.
But I’m sure the phone sellers know what they are doing, it just would have been nice to even be able to still buy a 13 mini. None of the new phones have any capabilities I care about.
Edit to respond to below:
I am not assuming that, I am actually assuming the opposite. There may have been pent up demand due to the long gap between the small iPhone SE and 12 mini, so when the 12 mini came out and disappointed, people who had been waiting to upgrade chose a non mini reducing the total number of minis sold. And then the 13 mini was discontinued by the time those people needed a new phone.
You're assuming that people upgrade phones every year, which (again) most do not. A badly received 12 mini would have almost no broad market effect on the sales of the 13 mini. Not unless most iPhone sales are by word of mouth.
If they're going to buy a regular iPhone for $100 more anyway, and the likelihood they buy a small Android instead is near zero (what small Android?), then yes, I absolutely would say to cut it and simplify the engineering, manufacturing, and checkout process.
If you start serving every 4% of needs in each product category, watch the portfolio balloon to catastrophic proportions. The very principle of the thing is anti-Apple; they would quickly become Samsung, complete with Samsung level naming schemes and weird decision making. Next thing you know, we'll have the Apple Vacuum Cleaner, the Apple Door Lock, the Apple Ice Cream Scoop, the Apple Exterior Camera, and so on.
This slippery slope argument doesn't click for me. They obviously perceive the value of segmenting the market by device size. I'm just asking for the smaller size to be actually small.
Or maybe opportunity cost is a real thing. They have decided it isn’t worth it to pursue that niche. I think Apple believes it has addressed a lot of the small screen needs with the watch.
