Size was a big part of it, but it was also that the SE was a really good design that should last for years. Up until this announcement, I was going to have the battery replaced on the SE. The bigger issue is if Apple will continue to support the 1st gen SE with iOS.

My wife prefer the bigger phones. She has aphantasia. I don't, and often hold visualizations of things I can't see.

It eventually dawned on me that people buy those things to attach to the back of their phone because you _couldn't_ safely hold and operate the bigger phone with a single hand without that attachment.