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You’re missing how the SE was created: it’s a relic of old supply chain parts, now sold at a cheaper price. The original SE was a rehash of the 5/5S casing, with 6S internals.

It wasn’t mace because of any particular belief about size. 5/5S was just the old phone. It was easy to continue that size for a while, but probably hard now without a market.

The new SE is the same story: old iphone 8 casing, iphone 11 components. Easy to make from supply chain detritus, so why not make it?

But, you might be interested in the rumours of a small iphone 12 this year. It sounds like Apple has been listening to small phone advocates, and appears to actually be making them.

But that will be a new phone. The SE style phone’s type is instead dictated by whatever was current 2-3 years ago.

Yeah, I'm not blind to the fact that the form factor was dictated by the spare parts and manufacturing process investment for older phones; I'm really not denying that at all.

I'm just indicating that some people are buying the SE not because it's cheap, but because it's the best (or only) option for a 4" high end phone, and while I can't quantify the proportions of price-sensitive vs. size-sensitive; my anecdotal evidence that it's more size-sensitive than price-sensitive. At least in the circles I travel in.

> But, you might be interested in the rumours of a small iphone 12 this year. It sounds like Apple has been listening to small phone advocates, and appears to actually be making them.

There's always something on the horizon which never seems to materialise, the iPhone 11 [Pro] was supposed to be small, then the SE2 rumours which are now bunked. At some point soon I'll just go all-in on an iPad Pro or some other tablet and interface with it very sparingly, via headphones and the watch.

Fair enough. I’ve been using an SE since my 8 broke and the size is quite nice. Indeed less distracting and easier to handle.

The small iphone 12 rumours are from Ming-Chi Kuo, who basically has not been wrong about this sort of thing. I dom’t recall there ever being rumours of a small iphone 11, or that the SE 2 would be small. Certainly not from him. So, I’d rate it quite likely.

> There are two markets I see:

> 1) 4" phone users who have no viable option, even in Android-land.

Yessssss. I have a Pixel 3A, the smallest decent Android phone on the market, and it is waaaay too huge, so I'm really excited about this release. While I've been on Android for over a decade, I'm willing to switch if it means I can use my phone one-handed again. But more importantly, maybe this release will convince the Android copycats to make a human-hand-sized phone so I don't even have to switch. I figure I'll give it 6 months and, if no one has announced smaller Android phones, I'll just switch to iPhone. I'm done with phablets.

I don't think this release is what you're after - it's 4.7 inches, not 4 inches.

I'm an Android developer and generally prefer Android as an operating system, but I switched to a 128gb iPhone SE a year ago and still love the phone. I can still recommend that model if you find one second-hand.

Look, I have an iPhone 11 Pro, I just don't want to carry the fucking thing around. So I have an iPhone SE which is what's in my pocket unless I know I'll want a really good camera. And I tried to find a digital camera as good as the 11 Pro's for less than $1000!

I have an iPod Touch too, which is what I use around the house. It's the iPhone SE only half as thick and no cellular or Touch ID. Until I got the refurbished SE I was carrying the iPod Touch and a Verizon MiFi around – still more convenient than the 11 Pro!

I'm in the former camp. I'd pay $6-800 easily for a properly small, one-handed device that runs iOS. The fact that it's cheap is just a bonus for me.

I'm going to switch to Android because (a) I'm kind of priced out at this point and (b) I'm a nice headphones kind of guy and want my damn 3.5mm jack.

Sadly, a lot of Android phones are dropping 3.5mm jack too.

> but I can't imagine how it is for girls

Girls love their large phones, they are easy to type on, and visual content consumption is much more comfortable.

Xperia XZ2 compact is small enough and powerful enough to be considered as iPhone SE replacement

Sadly that is already multiple years old (2, at this point) which makes it only 1 year younger than the iPhone SE (And the SE is actually more powerful based on benchmarks).

I don't want to go into "who supports hardware longer" or "how long phones last" but I don't think this is a true successor.

I have one. It's kind of heavy for its size though and slippery due to the rounded edges. The touch display is not the best in terms of responsiveness.

Plus for someone considering an iPhone SE, the XZ2 doesn't have iOS.

One thing I'll note though: Surprisingly my XZ2 did get the full upgrade to Android 10 from Android 9. So that's pretty great considering it's 2 years old.

It's only slightly smaller and 50% thicker than an iPhone 8.

well I have been considering buying my parents the Apple Watch, however this requires an iPhone to pair with even if you just have watch without cellular connectivity. An iPad will not work.

So a low entry priced phone pair up would make it more palatable to me if not others.

Wow, you're right[0].

I guess that means I wont be continuing with the apple eco-system as the phones are simply too unpalatable at this point, as soon as the SE is out of support I'll have to find an alternative. That's distressing.

[0]: https://www.businessinsider.com/does-apple-watch-work-with-i...

If size wasn’t the issue, I would probably have the biggest monster iPhone today. For the SE form factor (maybe reduce the top and bottom bezel for some more screen size) and USB C (because lightning in 2020 is insulting) I’d switch back from Android for nearly any price. SE was my last iPhone. Also, a headphone jack would be nice, but I’d live without.

For anyone who has been following Apple closely, we should know [0] and [1] are simply false. ( Most if not all of those mainstream media are wrong every time with Apple I dont know where to start ) Not to mention they are not "entry level low cost phone". It is the same narrative every year. Apart from the trade war in 1 quarter every iPhone release has been within Apple's guidance, and more.

The truth is Apple may know better than most of us. Out of the small group of user who bought iPhone SE, most of them bought it for its price and not its size. If there was indeed a market for smaller smartphone, you could bet Android would have at least a few selection. But there are none. Zero. Even the king of SKUs Samsung doesn't ship a single small Android phone just proves the market is simply not there. Or at least for the Android targeted market.

Truth to be told, As much as I love to have an updated iPhone SE, if it was priced the same as the iPhone 4.7" where everything else being equal, I would likely have pick the the 4.7" just to be safe. Basically it comes down to market want cheap AND small, not cheap OR small.

Another point worth mentioning, Once Apple perfected the All Screen narrow bezel OLED manufacturing to the point it becomes a commodity, the 4.7" Screen Size ( With 19.5 : 9 Ratio ) will be exactly the same as the iPhone SE 4" Size.