Same for the iPhone mini. ;)
From an engineering standpoint, it was the most impressive iPhone Apple had ever made, but that fact doesn't translate to sales numbers.
There's a very vocal group of people online saying they want smaller phones, who make it sound like there's massive untapped demand for these phones, but when you actually give it to them, it turns out they're just a tiny slice of the market.
But when I looked up the sales numbers for all of the smaller phone versions I had to admit I must be pretty far outside the normal buyer. The market really spoke on this.
It turns out that the reachable nature of it wasn’t really that much of a benefit compared to the downsides: short battery life (going from the 12 mini to 13 mini helped, barely), small text/interface (my eyes literally started hurting), reduced area to see content while typing, compromised cameras compared to the Pro models.
Add a $30 PopSocket to your phone and all the problems with a bigger phone are resolved.
The iPhone mini competed with a $30 accessory.
Compared to the iPhone Duo now in the lineup? And the iPhone Air was announced with some pride from the Apple hardware team for its special miniaturized hardware.
There may not be a market for an iPhone Mini-sized device when looking at the buyers, but the custom hardware and tweaks to software aren't a clear consideration for Apple when you look at their behavior with other products.
I think with the iPhone Duo you at least have a larger screen that the user can utilize. On the iPhone mini the screen was as big as it was going to get.
If the experience of using a specific app is bad, the user can open the phone.
It was, to the contrary, the non-mini iPhone 12 that introduced a new resolution and required adjustments.
So every ipad , watch, mac sku that sells < 5% of the overall product line is immediately taken out back to the wood shed?
I guess, but when my iPhone is no longer supported, I’m migrating my entire family on to something else. 3 watches, 3 ipads and 2 phones…so its not always about the % sold.
Looking at the earlier smaller iPhones and the budget SE line, at least the “miniaturized” part isn’t very convincing.
For most of the world, the phone is the only screen they have, so of course they want a big one. People who carry a laptop and want a light portable phone for messages, maps and payments are a minority, and a fairly wealthy one.
The Mini also outperformed in Japan, which sales are now declining in.
Unwieldy overpriced bricks being forced on everyone doesn't seem like a good long term strategy.
I somehow live in a bubble where the mini has a huge market share, every third person I know have one. And guess what, they’re all non-techies.