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Comment by mdasen | Hacker News Reader

There isn't that much demand on the Apple side. Apple discontinued the iPhone mini because they weren't selling.

The iPhone SE's popularity is driven by price, not the demand for a smaller phone. The iPhone SE is 5% taller and wider than an iPhone mini. People didn't buy the iPhone mini at $100 cheaper than an iPhone. If they were going to settle for a smaller phone, they wanted half-off.

It allows Apple to be in the $400 market by putting out a device that won't compete with the regular iPhone. If Apple offers an iPhone SE sized device at $700, people don't want it. iPhone SE buyers mostly want a larger phone - they just don't want to pay for it.

I love the iPhone mini, but people didn't want a small phone. They wanted a cheaper phone. I'd love it if this weren't the case. I do want a 5" phone, but when Apple put out a 5" phone, people wouldn't buy it. They'll only buy it if you price it at half-off.

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There certainly was some market for a small phone, although how much is beyond my current knowledge. It's definitely a niche market segment.

I think Apple's misstep was to make it a small version of the yearly models rather than a nicer version of the SE. The SE is on a 2-3 year cadence rather than yearly, and the hardware in the 2022 SE is very similar to the 13 mini. So I think the angle should have been to market the SE in 2 flavors: the current "Touch ID" model with hella bezels for US$429, and a "Face ID" model (the "mini") for US$499 or $529.

It could keep just the single camera, notch instead of "Dynamic Island," no MagSafe, worse screen and glass, etc.

This wouldn't eat into the market for the more expensive models while still delivering enough performance for most people. Sure it wouldn't please the "literal flagship, but smol" crowd, but would have reduced engineering and make inventory easier.

>Apple discontinued the iPhone mini because they weren't selling.

I've read somewhere that they sold several millions of them in the US alone. Is that not enough to make a profit?

But I think they could sell it with a slower CPU (cheaper) and it would still be fine. People who want a smaller phone probably have a computer at home.

Reading this post... I think that probably the mini's failures are due to it being so much more than the SE, but people wanting smaller screens are also people "OK" with less tech in the phone as well. SE likely canabalized the mini sales way too much.

The main hope for the future would be the SE getting the 12 mini form factor... but then Apple probably would be worried about it canabalizing bigger phone!

> The iPhone SE's popularity is driven by price, not the demand for a smaller phone. The iPhone SE is 5% taller and wider than an iPhone mini.

seems like you are talking about the "new se" models, not the original one that everyone wants.

seems obvious that there is a small group of people who will pay for a premium small iPhone, priced the same as regular sized phone

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