I don't buy this. The iPhone 13 Mini all by itself sold 6 million units in a year. That's about half the rate of Google's entire Pixel lineup. The market is small, yeah, but it definitely exists. I think a company could quietly make a high quality, straightforward, small Android device with maybe every-other-year hardware updates, and run away with a whole corner of the market all to itself.
For example, if 5.9 million of those 6 million people would have bought the larger iPhone model anyway, then you didn't actually gain much by offering the Mini unit.
I have no idea what those numbers are, though.
I know this probably is how the decisions get made. Especially if the alternative has a higher profit margin. I just have to say I think the world is worse for it.
And it only works when there are notable deficits in competition. Otherwise a company with less to cannibalize would make the smaller model and get themselves 3-6 million sales.
If nothing else, you could still give the mini a higher margin and make some gains that way.
If they don't offer a smaller phone, you'll eventually buy a bigger phone. Once you are in camp big phone, you'll probably be back on the 2-5 year device treadmill. And you'll be spending more on the big phones.
Apple is in a continuous state of not giving their customers what they want.
A convertible Macbook with a touch screen and dual MacOS/IOS personalities would sell out. They will never make it because no one will ever buy an iPad again.
A high quality TV with Apple TV built in at a premium but reasonable price would sell like hotcakes. It would compete with Apple Cinema displays, however.
A basic "good enough" 5 inch phone for $499 would also sell fast.
Apple won't do these things because you'd be happier but spend less.
With HDMI CEC controls, there is no benefit to anyone by combining Apple TV with a display. Plus almost all displays support Airplay these days.
> A basic "good enough" 5 inch phone for $499 would also sell fast.
This was the iPhone SE sold for many years until Feb 2025. It started at $430. It’s unfortunate they got rid of it for a 6inch 16E, but it is pretty reasonable on price at $600.
If you were a person that likes Apple TV, I imagine it would be nice to have a TV that was just that rather than a TV with whatever smartness the maker insisted on, plus a standalone Apple TV. (Even nicer would be a TV without smarts, but those seem to be extinct)
But from all reports that you can find with a quick search it seems clear that it did not sell well by Apple standards.
I would love them to bring it back and I’m not sure what it is about the Hacker News crowd that makes this phone over-represented. Maybe the tech crowd also uses laptops more, so we think of phones as our “small device” and use other devices more as appropriate?
Yeah. The question I'm trying to answer is not "does it make sense for Apple to make a small phone?", but rather "does it make sense for anyone to make a small phone?" I'm using the 13 Mini's sales data as evidence, because it is the one and only small phone made in the past decade or so.
Maybe I'm just incredibly naive but I have this small hope that we'll see a return to smaller phones that are trifolds for when you need the real estate.
