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I have an SE, and I like it. The size is nice, I like that it lays flat, I like that it has a headphone jack. Newer models don't have compelling features my SE

I have an SE, and I like it. The size is nice, I like that it lays flat, I like that it has a headphone jack. Newer models don't have compelling features my SE lacks, and take away things I like. I have no incentive to upgrade, and will likely explore other manufacturers when it eventually wears out. I have an 11" Macbook Air, and I love it. The size and weight is nice, the keyboard is great, the touchpad is precise, I love that it has MagSafe, and I consider the ability to plug in DisplayPort monitors and my USB-A devices a must-have. Newer laptop models don't have compelling features my Air lacks, and take away things I like. I have no incentive to upgrade, and will definitely explore other manufacturers when it eventually wears out. It's frustrating when a company makes products that suit your needs well, and then changes its mind. I just don't seem to be in Apple's target market anymore.

fredleblanc 8y ago
> I just don't seem to be in Apple's target market anymore. I say this more and more each day. I'm in the same boat with the SE, and it's also the same with the MacBook Pros for me. I bought a refurbished MacBook Pro last October, the one from 2015, the last one with a great keyboard. It seems that April 2016 was the peak of where Apple and I aligned.
happertiger 8y ago
I had a 13 inch MacBook Pro 2016. Sold it. Went back to using my 2013 MacBook Pro. I have an iPhone 7 and I miss my headphone jack every day. The best phone I ever owned was the se. Apple is happily going off in a nonsense direction where their products are less and less useful because they are less complete and therefore less “self reliant” as devices. See that’s what people don’t articulate. It’s not that the design changes are bad. Some are great. It’s that the balance of great design and great utility is what made apple impossible to beat as a phone and a laptop, and then there was the fact that they were seamlessly integrated (something apple has still failed to fully exploit — their stuff could be mind blowing). This is what made the brand great, and I feel like people miss that part of the argument. When you bought a 2013 MacBook Pro, you didn’t need to buy accessories because it had it all - hdmi, usb, etc. - and it was useful without any additional accessories and met or exceeded my needs in almost all circumstances. I didn’t need a dongle to present and I didn’t need a cable adapter to charge my phone. When I packed for a conference I would grab my laptop, a power supply (that I could trip over in hotel rooms while working with no worries and that neatly wrapped up), and an hdmi to dvi adapter in case the projector failed, but that was it. Now I feel like Apple has externalized all of that utility in an effort to boost margins or go thin, and it’s basically made the devices reliant on a host of adapters, both for phones and laptops (and actually the 2013 Mac pro was the same problem). Apple needs to understand what made them great was that they weren’t the ultimate steak knife, they were the ultimate survival knife, and get back to building the most useful, thought out and self-contained devices like they used to. They had a sweet spot, but we’re going back to the Apple cube across all product lines again, and nobody wants that. The pro computer failure and the move away from nerd needs to slab of glass has lost balance and is heading into design over substance. The pendulum needs some rebalancing.
- bennyp101 8y ago
  Agree - I'm still using my 13" Mid 2009 Macbook - it has everything on it that I need, I got offered a latest Macbook from work, had to turn it down. That weird bar at the top, a keyboard that just feels horrible to type on, and a shiny screen that is just not for me.
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    Assuming you were offered a MacBook (as in, non pro), you made a great choice. The dongle life is grim and even with the right ones (good luck there) you get stuck. Yuck.
    - varjag 8y ago
      The MB12 has no touchbar.
      - lostlogin 8y ago
        Was this reply for me?
        varjag 8y ago
        Yes it was meant to you. The post you replied to: > That weird bar at the top, a keyboard that just feels horrible to type on, and a shiny screen that is just not for me. There is no touchbar on MB, so they could not been offered that.
        lostlogin 8y ago
        Ahh, thanks. I thought you were correcting me, not offering an alternative.
  - nambit 8y ago
    Get a 2015 macbook pro. That's the highest spec macbook without the things that would annoy you.
21 8y ago
> I just don't seem to be in Apple's target market anymore. I'm not sure why it's so hard for people to understand that Apple's market is people who want to be cool. They don't sell hardware devices, they sell coolness. These people don't care at all about how the phone/laptop is. It doesn't matter that you only have USB-A adapters or mini-jack headphones, if Apple says that the new cool is USB-C and AirPods, you are going to buy that and then snicker at people using the "old stuff". It's like in the joke: the only thing worse than not having an iPhone is having last year's one.
- lostlogin 8y ago
  Not if it has Touch ID, is a bit smaller and has no face scanning. Arguably a bit older is the sweet spot as then you have a headphone jack too.
- roymurdock 8y ago
  It wasn't always like this. I used Windows laptops from various OEMs up until I switched to a Macbook in 2011. The quality of the software (all the UX/UI beauty and reliability of Snow Leopard, iTunes used to be good) and hardware (touchpad was revolutionary, backlit keys, great keyboard layout for toggling sounds/brightness, built-in HD camera) was YEARS ahead of the competition, which is just now starting to catch up. If you look at the market now, all the laptops look like knock-offs of Macbook design, and the software is evolving to be that way as well. Apple was ahead of its time for usability and a frustration-free experience, but it's a stretch to say any of their new products are cool. Apple Watch/Airpods/iPhone 10X SE are not cool...they just signal that you have a lot of disposable income
  - abraham_lincoln 8y ago
    10.6.8 was the best.
    - roymurdock 8y ago
      pour one out for a dead homie then take a double shot if you're going to try to use the new versions of itunes
dijit 8y ago
This topic coming up feels like such incredible validation for me. I’ve held this opinion for a while. I went back to the 5s(e) after a jaunt with a 6s and it really is a superior phone for me. I would gladly pay £1000 for this phone to be a first class citizen again, it feels like apps aren’t optimised or suitably spaced for the small phone. But I _love_ the size, the design. The touchID- everything is where it feels like it should be. Ugh. FWIW. I even jumped to android to get my tiny-phone fix. But Samsung crapware pushes me back.
- Yetanfou 8y ago
  Just get any small Android device which is supported by AOSP and derived distributions, install one of those (Lineage comes to mind, AOSP Extended, MoKee, etc) and you're set - no 'crapware', no data harvesting if you don't feel like being harvested. No need to pay ₤1000 when you can get what you want for around ₤150 I'd say?
  - bryanbuckley 8y ago
    > get any small Android device Examples? I was shopping a while ago and the _only_ option I saw was Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact.
    - dade_ 8y ago
      I actually love mine, except they look old. Damned durable though. Slipped out of my hand in Home Depot and took the fall like a champ.
  - rsynnott 8y ago
    There aren’t many (any?) Android phones the size of the SE with remotely acceptable specs.
    - redisman 8y ago
      I'm hoping the trend will shift again soon. Stop buying giant phones people!
jayflux 8y ago
It’s not a change of target market, it’s profit margin. Now people will need to pay more if they want an iPhone, it’s as simple as that
- chooseaname 8y ago
  Yeah, I think they'll keep pushing until they reach max profit. If they go to high in price and profit falls, they have enough cash to ride a year, then they'll release a lower price version and spin it to be something about cost savings in production. Never, we got too expensive and had to back down.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  I would gladly pay markedly more for an updated SE with newer internals, perhaps an uprated camera etc in the same case (that can't be improved) and keep the headphone jack. Especially as small phone choices have dwindled to zero. Surely not having to redesign case, mechanical switches etc should give scope for more margin, not less?
- vbezhenar 8y ago
  I recently bought iPhone 8 256GB. I paid a lot for it. I would buy iPhone SE, but it's hardware is too old, its fingerprint reader is old and it lacks force-touch. If there was iPhone 8 mini or something with identical hardware, I would buy it for the same price.
  - jhayward 8y ago
    What circumstances do you find force touch to be helpful for? It seems to be the only thing really lacking on the newly announced XR phone.
    - vbezhenar 8y ago
      I never had first-hand experience with force-touch before, so I thought it would be an useful feature. I'm using it mostly for moving cursor and occasionally to preview web pages by force-touching the link. Also you can force-touch notification and e.g. type answer immediately, I don't actively chat, but I imagine that there are people who will find it useful. Anyway now I don't think that it's a very useful feature, but it's nice to have it.
jrockway 8y ago
I'm in exactly the same situation. The SE's killer feature for me is that I can easily operate it with one hand. I commute on the NYC subway, and that means I have to be able to hold a handrail with one hand while using my phone with the other. I "downgraded" from an iPhone 6... because apps put controls everywhere on the screen, and I just couldn't hold the phone and operate it with the same hand. (The thing was also very slippery; it never slipped out of my hands and got smashed, but I always felt it was inevitable.) I am also not planning on upgrading. The iPhone X family looks great. Amazing screen. I don't care about a home button or a headphone jack or whatever the improved battery life is. Until I can be guaranteed a seat on the subway, it's all a net negative because I can't actually interact with applications during my commute. (When I'm not commuting, I have a 32" monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse which is WAY BETTER than a 6" phone and my finger.) (More honestly, I don't see $1000 in value-add over my current phone. I don't need the latest gadget to be happy... but if it makes me $1000 happier over its lifetime, sign me up.) I feel like it's a cultural thing. "Designed by Apple in California" where you just drive to work so a bigger phone is only a benefit (larger battery, easier-to-read text when you're using the phone). But in NYC, small is a huge benefit, and it's a shame that the transit-deprived West Coast tech companies don't understand our use case here.
- achompas 8y ago
  > I feel like it's a cultural thing. I don't think culture has much to do with it. Apple's market cap is over $1 trillion. They sold over 40M iPhones last quarter. They have way more data than either of us do, and the market has spoken: there is not enough demand for small phones to justify a separate SKU. (Also, as a fellow strap-hanger for 6 years, I just shoved my phone in my pocket and listened to podcasts while riding. But I know everyone has a different use case!) EDIT: Folks complain on one end about Apple’s lack of product focus and on the other end about cutting out SKUs that do not make sense at their enormous scale. As much as you all love the SE, it went untouched for years at a time. I imagine there were no components that made sense for the smaller SKU as Apple transitioned to larger phones (and batteries, crucially). It is also a low-ASP phone to begin with, which makes less sense for a company who increasingly makes “luxury” tech products.
8ytecoder 8y ago
There's a lot of hate in this thread for some of Apple's design choices. I do understand it. I just want to share my counter-viewpoints - these are my personal preferences obviously. 1) I moved to all bluetooth back in 2012. Headphones and wires have always been a nuisance for me. I'm not sure why Apple removed the headphone jack - but I never felt the need for it. I don't even carry the dongle anymore. 2) I loved the HTC One's display. I don't like screens that are too big and hard to handle but the iPhones were always too small for me - too hard to read anything. I switched to iPhones only after the 6 - and yes, that's because finally it had a screen size that I liked. 3) I did love Magsafe - no doubt about it. But I'm ready to let it go as well. I can now go to pretty much any desk at my office and plugin a Dell usb-c dock - that's shared with PCs and start working. At my permanent desk, I have just one dongle/adapter to which everything is hooked into - it's actually simpler than my previous setup where I had a 4-port USB Dongle + Display port Cable + Power adapter to plugin/disconnect. Now it's just one cable to plugin to my computer. And yes I have tried some docks as well - it was still at least two.
- chapium 8y ago
  When i put on wired headphones they always work, no matter what. I dont have the responsibility to keep them charged, which is great.
  - mgkimsal 8y ago
    and you don't have to bother pairing them...
roymurdock 8y ago
Guaranteed someone/a few people at Apple are reading this thread and sending an email to their boss to do some more mkt research into demand for an SE refresh. As another poster downstream pointed out, they could be saving the release of the new SE for another announcement in 6 months to avoid cannibalizing their new flagship phones
- vbezhenar 8y ago
  Why discontinue old SE then?
  - dade_ 8y ago
    App developers already started abandoning the platform over a year ago. Sure the app would work, but usability keeps getting worse. 80% of people use their phone as their primary computing device. Within the 20% are niche markets and some are not price conscious at all. Eventually someone will figure that out.
  - zoom6628 8y ago
    As a low risk way to assess the real impact. It was low margin as others have pointed out. To remove it will have minor revenue impact, and by doing it at same time as launching new phones they are testing to see if this is the time that will force/cajole/motivate the 5/SE users to finally 'let go' (of the form factor or their money) and go up to the XR. The announcement is basically telling those users (and there are millions of them!) that it is time for a change. The decision is good business sense. And given they often announce products in Q2 as well they will have data of demand for new phones, and also how many have exited the Apple ecosystem due to price, and then in March they should be able to decide whether or not in best interests to release an SE2 or bring back the SE1. As to margin above it should also be pointed out that the components in the SE are now aged. To do the same again, and take latest components and stuff into a smaller form factor will take a major engineering effort as new components and usage is for a larger cavity inside. To take all those and stuff them into a smaller space is actually like inventing a whole new phone - one literally has to rethink the physics of everything. Big investment. Also if they continue to sell the SE it means they and suppliers must continue to produce the components and parts. And for much of this that means factories worldwide, including here in mainland China where i live, need to keep running nearly obsolete processes, equipment, and that wont be viewed well by their investors unless it is a cash-cow. This is done for business reasons. When a company gets bigger than most global trading blocs the decisions they make have enormous global trade implications from the mine to mainstreet.
felippee 8y ago
I feel _exactly_ the same. And I know many, many other people who feel the same thing too. Apple will eventually run into a wall, like it did before in the 90's. They don't have a clear vision or connection to the actual user. They just milk the cow that Steve Jobs left them.
sizzle 8y ago
My 13" i7 MacBook air is still my daily driver. I wish I could upgrade the RAM to 16gb, other than that it's plugged into an external monitor mostly and gets the job done, while adding very little weight to my backpack.
deleted 8y ago
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brandon272 8y ago
I have a 128gb SE that I love. I guess I will be keeping it for much longer than I anticipated, or until Apple again produces a smaller form factor phone. For me it’s not an issue of being able to use it with one hand. It’s an issue of having a phone that itself is just small. It fits easily in my pocket where I barely notice it. I don’t want a phone that feels like an iPad in my pocket. I don’t want something that feels way better than my wallet in the keys+phone+wallet combo that I always have with me when out in public. It is light to carry around and I can throw a case on it and it still a reasonable size. Absent the introduction of another smaller model, I guess I will be forced to upgrade to a larger phone in the future if I want to stay with iOS (which I do) but I will be doing so with no enthusiasm.
- redisman 8y ago
  Phones are at the saturation point that laptops have been for a while. A 2015 phone and laptop work great for everything I do. Google Maps, Podcasts, email, texting and calling and web browsing are not gonna suddenly need a new generation CPU to work supremely smoothly. I honestly don't understand why people keep buying new phones every year unless they play a ton of high end games.
  - 29083011397778 8y ago
    Hell, I could (and have) gone back to 2013 and survived easily. Even a Nexus 5 is perfectly adequate for me, with a comfortable screen size to boot!
  - brandon272 8y ago
    From what I have seen, something about the phone necessitates a decision for replacement of one or more problematic parts (usually screen or battery) or upgrade to a next generation and most people I know seem to choose the latter.
  - kayamon 8y ago
    Hah, as if. I had to upgrade from an iPhone 3G to a 4S and now an SE, and it wasn't because the phone was damaged. The software gets slower every year. Things that used to work fine will one day get "updated" (which btw is irreversible) and overnight will become slower and jankier, forcing you to eventually give in and buy a new model just so you can get back the same performance you used to have before. Welcome to the future.
dynofuz 8y ago
I dont have an iphone, but it doesnt look like the size of the X is much bigger than the SE. https://www.cnet.com/news/iphone-x-iphone-8-size-comparison/ https://www.cnet.com/news/iphone-x-iphone-8-size-comparison/ https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ7lFHoig2VUpUo5uTDXA9l1i7ClRod86X-IVHrLUho6ydYgEIgZQ https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ7lFHo...
- bikezen 8y ago
  That's showing an 8, the entire SE is ~1/10" bigger than the 8 screen alone. That's a decent chunk smaller with then bezel, and considerably smaller than the X.
usaphp 8y ago
> Newer laptop models don't have compelling features my Air lacks Honestly, after you try a retina MacBook display - you can't possibly think that it's not a compelling feature worth upgrade. My old macbook air's screen looks like complete garbage now after I use new macbook pro's daily. > Newer models don't have compelling features my SE lacks While I do like SE design too - the camera on that thing is just horrible by today's standarts
- e1ven 8y ago
  I’ve had various retina MBP since they came out as work laptops, and still use various non retina screens on some personal laptops. In a vacuum, I guess the Retina display is nicer? It’s not something that I really find very noticeable, personally.
- squaredpants 8y ago
  You mean, the iPhone 6S camera is horrible as well? Because the SE and the 6S share the same sensor... Sure, it doesn't have the AI-powered features of newer camera software and it also isn't a dual camera system, but I reckon it's still good. I prefer the Pixel 2 for photos to any iPhone anyway (still waiting for the new iPhone Xr/Xs features, fake bokeh effect et all, it may lives up to the Pixel's standards).
brazzledazzle 8y ago
I miss MagSafe, particularly when I trip on the cable and my laptop jerks across the table perilously.
threatofrain 8y ago
I think the situation is that many consumers are willing to pay $800+ but would also be very happy with the $400 iPhone SE experience.
nojvek 8y ago
MagSafe is such an awesome feature. The newer MacBooks have usb-c but the cables don’t fit right. So you may think the laptop is charging, but it’s not. So annoying going to meetings and seeing the battery dead. New Apple very much seems to optimize for their profit margins and gimmicky features at cost of usability. I think Steve Jobs may forever be remembered as the CEO who legit gave a shit about usability.
SECProto 8y ago
> I consider the ability to plug in DisplayPort monitors [...] a must-have Out of curiousity, is there any advantage of DP compared to HDMI? I've never had anything that would use it, and HDMI makes more sense as a standard-to-upgrade-to, coming from DVI monitors. Quick googling suggests HDMI has twice the data bandwidth as well. (not that Macs offer much in the way of HDMI ports anyway...)
- moonbas3 8y ago
  Multi-display support is a big factor.
- abraham_lincoln 8y ago
  Older HDMI had limits on screen resolution and refresh rate.
georgespencer 8y ago
> I have an SE, and I like it. The size is nice, I like that it lays flat, I like that it has a headphone jack. Newer models don't have compelling features my SE lacks, and take away things I like. I have no incentive to upgrade, and will likely explore other manufacturers when it eventually wears out. This is what the author of the article should have written. Instead he's filled his piece with inane bollocks. "It honed that design to a cutting edge and then, when everyone expected the company to leap forward, it tiptoed instead, perhaps afraid to spook the golden goose." It's really difficult to look at the iPhone X and not see a company leaping forward. Look at the critical reception and customer satisfaction. This is a phone which was widely considered to be a huge leap, and which Apple explicitly acknowledged at the unveiling. > It was the best object Apple ever designed, filled with the best tech it had ever developed. It was the best phone it ever made. At the time, arguably. There's little disagreement that the processor, camera, screen, GPU, and security in iPhone X is better. > To me the SE was Apple allowing itself one last victory lap on the back of a design it would never surpass. Just such a painfully bad take. Staggering.

fredleblanc 8y ago

> I just don't seem to be in Apple's target market anymore. I say this more and more each day. I'm in the same boat with the SE, and it's also the same with the MacBook Pros for me. I bought a refurbished MacBook Pro last October, the one from 2015, the last one with a great keyboard. It seems that April 2016 was the peak of where Apple and I aligned.

happertiger 8y ago

I had a 13 inch MacBook Pro 2016. Sold it. Went back to using my 2013 MacBook Pro. I have an iPhone 7 and I miss my headphone jack every day. The best phone I ever owned was the se. Apple is happily going off in a nonsense direction where their products are less and less useful because they are less complete and therefore less “self reliant” as devices. See that’s what people don’t articulate. It’s not that the design changes are bad. Some are great. It’s that the balance of great design and great utility is what made apple impossible to beat as a phone and a laptop, and then there was the fact that they were seamlessly integrated (something apple has still failed to fully exploit — their stuff could be mind blowing). This is what made the brand great, and I feel like people miss that part of the argument. When you bought a 2013 MacBook Pro, you didn’t need to buy accessories because it had it all - hdmi, usb, etc. - and it was useful without any additional accessories and met or exceeded my needs in almost all circumstances. I didn’t need a dongle to present and I didn’t need a cable adapter to charge my phone. When I packed for a conference I would grab my laptop, a power supply (that I could trip over in hotel rooms while working with no worries and that neatly wrapped up), and an hdmi to dvi adapter in case the projector failed, but that was it. Now I feel like Apple has externalized all of that utility in an effort to boost margins or go thin, and it’s basically made the devices reliant on a host of adapters, both for phones and laptops (and actually the 2013 Mac pro was the same problem). Apple needs to understand what made them great was that they weren’t the ultimate steak knife, they were the ultimate survival knife, and get back to building the most useful, thought out and self-contained devices like they used to. They had a sweet spot, but we’re going back to the Apple cube across all product lines again, and nobody wants that. The pro computer failure and the move away from nerd needs to slab of glass has lost balance and is heading into design over substance. The pendulum needs some rebalancing.

bennyp101 8y ago
Agree - I'm still using my 13" Mid 2009 Macbook - it has everything on it that I need, I got offered a latest Macbook from work, had to turn it down. That weird bar at the top, a keyboard that just feels horrible to type on, and a shiny screen that is just not for me.
- lostlogin 8y ago
  Assuming you were offered a MacBook (as in, non pro), you made a great choice. The dongle life is grim and even with the right ones (good luck there) you get stuck. Yuck.
  - varjag 8y ago
    The MB12 has no touchbar.
    - lostlogin 8y ago
      Was this reply for me?
      - varjag 8y ago
        Yes it was meant to you. The post you replied to: > That weird bar at the top, a keyboard that just feels horrible to type on, and a shiny screen that is just not for me. There is no touchbar on MB, so they could not been offered that.
        lostlogin 8y ago
        Ahh, thanks. I thought you were correcting me, not offering an alternative.
- nambit 8y ago
  Get a 2015 macbook pro. That's the highest spec macbook without the things that would annoy you.

21 8y ago

> I just don't seem to be in Apple's target market anymore. I'm not sure why it's so hard for people to understand that Apple's market is people who want to be cool. They don't sell hardware devices, they sell coolness. These people don't care at all about how the phone/laptop is. It doesn't matter that you only have USB-A adapters or mini-jack headphones, if Apple says that the new cool is USB-C and AirPods, you are going to buy that and then snicker at people using the "old stuff". It's like in the joke: the only thing worse than not having an iPhone is having last year's one.

lostlogin 8y ago
Not if it has Touch ID, is a bit smaller and has no face scanning. Arguably a bit older is the sweet spot as then you have a headphone jack too.
roymurdock 8y ago
It wasn't always like this. I used Windows laptops from various OEMs up until I switched to a Macbook in 2011. The quality of the software (all the UX/UI beauty and reliability of Snow Leopard, iTunes used to be good) and hardware (touchpad was revolutionary, backlit keys, great keyboard layout for toggling sounds/brightness, built-in HD camera) was YEARS ahead of the competition, which is just now starting to catch up. If you look at the market now, all the laptops look like knock-offs of Macbook design, and the software is evolving to be that way as well. Apple was ahead of its time for usability and a frustration-free experience, but it's a stretch to say any of their new products are cool. Apple Watch/Airpods/iPhone 10X SE are not cool...they just signal that you have a lot of disposable income
- abraham_lincoln 8y ago
  10.6.8 was the best.
  - roymurdock 8y ago
    pour one out for a dead homie then take a double shot if you're going to try to use the new versions of itunes

dijit 8y ago

This topic coming up feels like such incredible validation for me. I’ve held this opinion for a while. I went back to the 5s(e) after a jaunt with a 6s and it really is a superior phone for me. I would gladly pay £1000 for this phone to be a first class citizen again, it feels like apps aren’t optimised or suitably spaced for the small phone. But I _love_ the size, the design. The touchID- everything is where it feels like it should be. Ugh. FWIW. I even jumped to android to get my tiny-phone fix. But Samsung crapware pushes me back.

Yetanfou 8y ago
Just get any small Android device which is supported by AOSP and derived distributions, install one of those (Lineage comes to mind, AOSP Extended, MoKee, etc) and you're set - no 'crapware', no data harvesting if you don't feel like being harvested. No need to pay ₤1000 when you can get what you want for around ₤150 I'd say?
- bryanbuckley 8y ago
  > get any small Android device Examples? I was shopping a while ago and the _only_ option I saw was Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact.
  - dade_ 8y ago
    I actually love mine, except they look old. Damned durable though. Slipped out of my hand in Home Depot and took the fall like a champ.
- rsynnott 8y ago
  There aren’t many (any?) Android phones the size of the SE with remotely acceptable specs.
  - redisman 8y ago
    I'm hoping the trend will shift again soon. Stop buying giant phones people!

jayflux 8y ago

It’s not a change of target market, it’s profit margin. Now people will need to pay more if they want an iPhone, it’s as simple as that

chooseaname 8y ago
Yeah, I think they'll keep pushing until they reach max profit. If they go to high in price and profit falls, they have enough cash to ride a year, then they'll release a lower price version and spin it to be something about cost savings in production. Never, we got too expensive and had to back down.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
I would gladly pay markedly more for an updated SE with newer internals, perhaps an uprated camera etc in the same case (that can't be improved) and keep the headphone jack. Especially as small phone choices have dwindled to zero. Surely not having to redesign case, mechanical switches etc should give scope for more margin, not less?
vbezhenar 8y ago
I recently bought iPhone 8 256GB. I paid a lot for it. I would buy iPhone SE, but it's hardware is too old, its fingerprint reader is old and it lacks force-touch. If there was iPhone 8 mini or something with identical hardware, I would buy it for the same price.
- jhayward 8y ago
  What circumstances do you find force touch to be helpful for? It seems to be the only thing really lacking on the newly announced XR phone.
  - vbezhenar 8y ago
    I never had first-hand experience with force-touch before, so I thought it would be an useful feature. I'm using it mostly for moving cursor and occasionally to preview web pages by force-touching the link. Also you can force-touch notification and e.g. type answer immediately, I don't actively chat, but I imagine that there are people who will find it useful. Anyway now I don't think that it's a very useful feature, but it's nice to have it.

jrockway 8y ago

I'm in exactly the same situation. The SE's killer feature for me is that I can easily operate it with one hand. I commute on the NYC subway, and that means I have to be able to hold a handrail with one hand while using my phone with the other. I "downgraded" from an iPhone 6... because apps put controls everywhere on the screen, and I just couldn't hold the phone and operate it with the same hand. (The thing was also very slippery; it never slipped out of my hands and got smashed, but I always felt it was inevitable.) I am also not planning on upgrading. The iPhone X family looks great. Amazing screen. I don't care about a home button or a headphone jack or whatever the improved battery life is. Until I can be guaranteed a seat on the subway, it's all a net negative because I can't actually interact with applications during my commute. (When I'm not commuting, I have a 32" monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse which is WAY BETTER than a 6" phone and my finger.) (More honestly, I don't see $1000 in value-add over my current phone. I don't need the latest gadget to be happy... but if it makes me $1000 happier over its lifetime, sign me up.) I feel like it's a cultural thing. "Designed by Apple in California" where you just drive to work so a bigger phone is only a benefit (larger battery, easier-to-read text when you're using the phone). But in NYC, small is a huge benefit, and it's a shame that the transit-deprived West Coast tech companies don't understand our use case here.

achompas 8y ago
> I feel like it's a cultural thing. I don't think culture has much to do with it. Apple's market cap is over $1 trillion. They sold over 40M iPhones last quarter. They have way more data than either of us do, and the market has spoken: there is not enough demand for small phones to justify a separate SKU. (Also, as a fellow strap-hanger for 6 years, I just shoved my phone in my pocket and listened to podcasts while riding. But I know everyone has a different use case!) EDIT: Folks complain on one end about Apple’s lack of product focus and on the other end about cutting out SKUs that do not make sense at their enormous scale. As much as you all love the SE, it went untouched for years at a time. I imagine there were no components that made sense for the smaller SKU as Apple transitioned to larger phones (and batteries, crucially). It is also a low-ASP phone to begin with, which makes less sense for a company who increasingly makes “luxury” tech products.

8ytecoder 8y ago

There's a lot of hate in this thread for some of Apple's design choices. I do understand it. I just want to share my counter-viewpoints - these are my personal preferences obviously. 1) I moved to all bluetooth back in 2012. Headphones and wires have always been a nuisance for me. I'm not sure why Apple removed the headphone jack - but I never felt the need for it. I don't even carry the dongle anymore. 2) I loved the HTC One's display. I don't like screens that are too big and hard to handle but the iPhones were always too small for me - too hard to read anything. I switched to iPhones only after the 6 - and yes, that's because finally it had a screen size that I liked. 3) I did love Magsafe - no doubt about it. But I'm ready to let it go as well. I can now go to pretty much any desk at my office and plugin a Dell usb-c dock - that's shared with PCs and start working. At my permanent desk, I have just one dongle/adapter to which everything is hooked into - it's actually simpler than my previous setup where I had a 4-port USB Dongle + Display port Cable + Power adapter to plugin/disconnect. Now it's just one cable to plugin to my computer. And yes I have tried some docks as well - it was still at least two.

chapium 8y ago
When i put on wired headphones they always work, no matter what. I dont have the responsibility to keep them charged, which is great.
- mgkimsal 8y ago
  and you don't have to bother pairing them...

roymurdock 8y ago

Guaranteed someone/a few people at Apple are reading this thread and sending an email to their boss to do some more mkt research into demand for an SE refresh. As another poster downstream pointed out, they could be saving the release of the new SE for another announcement in 6 months to avoid cannibalizing their new flagship phones

vbezhenar 8y ago
Why discontinue old SE then?
- dade_ 8y ago
  App developers already started abandoning the platform over a year ago. Sure the app would work, but usability keeps getting worse. 80% of people use their phone as their primary computing device. Within the 20% are niche markets and some are not price conscious at all. Eventually someone will figure that out.
- zoom6628 8y ago
  As a low risk way to assess the real impact. It was low margin as others have pointed out. To remove it will have minor revenue impact, and by doing it at same time as launching new phones they are testing to see if this is the time that will force/cajole/motivate the 5/SE users to finally 'let go' (of the form factor or their money) and go up to the XR. The announcement is basically telling those users (and there are millions of them!) that it is time for a change. The decision is good business sense. And given they often announce products in Q2 as well they will have data of demand for new phones, and also how many have exited the Apple ecosystem due to price, and then in March they should be able to decide whether or not in best interests to release an SE2 or bring back the SE1. As to margin above it should also be pointed out that the components in the SE are now aged. To do the same again, and take latest components and stuff into a smaller form factor will take a major engineering effort as new components and usage is for a larger cavity inside. To take all those and stuff them into a smaller space is actually like inventing a whole new phone - one literally has to rethink the physics of everything. Big investment. Also if they continue to sell the SE it means they and suppliers must continue to produce the components and parts. And for much of this that means factories worldwide, including here in mainland China where i live, need to keep running nearly obsolete processes, equipment, and that wont be viewed well by their investors unless it is a cash-cow. This is done for business reasons. When a company gets bigger than most global trading blocs the decisions they make have enormous global trade implications from the mine to mainstreet.

felippee 8y ago

I feel _exactly_ the same. And I know many, many other people who feel the same thing too. Apple will eventually run into a wall, like it did before in the 90's. They don't have a clear vision or connection to the actual user. They just milk the cow that Steve Jobs left them.

sizzle 8y ago

My 13" i7 MacBook air is still my daily driver. I wish I could upgrade the RAM to 16gb, other than that it's plugged into an external monitor mostly and gets the job done, while adding very little weight to my backpack.

deleted 8y ago

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brandon272 8y ago

I have a 128gb SE that I love. I guess I will be keeping it for much longer than I anticipated, or until Apple again produces a smaller form factor phone. For me it’s not an issue of being able to use it with one hand. It’s an issue of having a phone that itself is just small. It fits easily in my pocket where I barely notice it. I don’t want a phone that feels like an iPad in my pocket. I don’t want something that feels way better than my wallet in the keys+phone+wallet combo that I always have with me when out in public. It is light to carry around and I can throw a case on it and it still a reasonable size. Absent the introduction of another smaller model, I guess I will be forced to upgrade to a larger phone in the future if I want to stay with iOS (which I do) but I will be doing so with no enthusiasm.

redisman 8y ago
Phones are at the saturation point that laptops have been for a while. A 2015 phone and laptop work great for everything I do. Google Maps, Podcasts, email, texting and calling and web browsing are not gonna suddenly need a new generation CPU to work supremely smoothly. I honestly don't understand why people keep buying new phones every year unless they play a ton of high end games.
- 29083011397778 8y ago
  Hell, I could (and have) gone back to 2013 and survived easily. Even a Nexus 5 is perfectly adequate for me, with a comfortable screen size to boot!
- brandon272 8y ago
  From what I have seen, something about the phone necessitates a decision for replacement of one or more problematic parts (usually screen or battery) or upgrade to a next generation and most people I know seem to choose the latter.
- kayamon 8y ago
  Hah, as if. I had to upgrade from an iPhone 3G to a 4S and now an SE, and it wasn't because the phone was damaged. The software gets slower every year. Things that used to work fine will one day get "updated" (which btw is irreversible) and overnight will become slower and jankier, forcing you to eventually give in and buy a new model just so you can get back the same performance you used to have before. Welcome to the future.

dynofuz 8y ago

I dont have an iphone, but it doesnt look like the size of the X is much bigger than the SE. https://www.cnet.com/news/iphone-x-iphone-8-size-comparison/ https://www.cnet.com/news/iphone-x-iphone-8-size-comparison/ https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ7lFHoig2VUpUo5uTDXA9l1i7ClRod86X-IVHrLUho6ydYgEIgZQ https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ7lFHo...

bikezen 8y ago
That's showing an 8, the entire SE is ~1/10" bigger than the 8 screen alone. That's a decent chunk smaller with then bezel, and considerably smaller than the X.

usaphp 8y ago

> Newer laptop models don't have compelling features my Air lacks Honestly, after you try a retina MacBook display - you can't possibly think that it's not a compelling feature worth upgrade. My old macbook air's screen looks like complete garbage now after I use new macbook pro's daily. > Newer models don't have compelling features my SE lacks While I do like SE design too - the camera on that thing is just horrible by today's standarts

e1ven 8y ago
I’ve had various retina MBP since they came out as work laptops, and still use various non retina screens on some personal laptops. In a vacuum, I guess the Retina display is nicer? It’s not something that I really find very noticeable, personally.
squaredpants 8y ago
You mean, the iPhone 6S camera is horrible as well? Because the SE and the 6S share the same sensor... Sure, it doesn't have the AI-powered features of newer camera software and it also isn't a dual camera system, but I reckon it's still good. I prefer the Pixel 2 for photos to any iPhone anyway (still waiting for the new iPhone Xr/Xs features, fake bokeh effect et all, it may lives up to the Pixel's standards).

brazzledazzle 8y ago

I miss MagSafe, particularly when I trip on the cable and my laptop jerks across the table perilously.

threatofrain 8y ago

I think the situation is that many consumers are willing to pay $800+ but would also be very happy with the $400 iPhone SE experience.

nojvek 8y ago

MagSafe is such an awesome feature. The newer MacBooks have usb-c but the cables don’t fit right. So you may think the laptop is charging, but it’s not. So annoying going to meetings and seeing the battery dead. New Apple very much seems to optimize for their profit margins and gimmicky features at cost of usability. I think Steve Jobs may forever be remembered as the CEO who legit gave a shit about usability.

SECProto 8y ago

> I consider the ability to plug in DisplayPort monitors [...] a must-have Out of curiousity, is there any advantage of DP compared to HDMI? I've never had anything that would use it, and HDMI makes more sense as a standard-to-upgrade-to, coming from DVI monitors. Quick googling suggests HDMI has twice the data bandwidth as well. (not that Macs offer much in the way of HDMI ports anyway...)

moonbas3 8y ago
Multi-display support is a big factor.
abraham_lincoln 8y ago
Older HDMI had limits on screen resolution and refresh rate.

georgespencer 8y ago

> I have an SE, and I like it. The size is nice, I like that it lays flat, I like that it has a headphone jack. Newer models don't have compelling features my SE lacks, and take away things I like. I have no incentive to upgrade, and will likely explore other manufacturers when it eventually wears out. This is what the author of the article should have written. Instead he's filled his piece with inane bollocks. "It honed that design to a cutting edge and then, when everyone expected the company to leap forward, it tiptoed instead, perhaps afraid to spook the golden goose." It's really difficult to look at the iPhone X and not see a company leaping forward. Look at the critical reception and customer satisfaction. This is a phone which was widely considered to be a huge leap, and which Apple explicitly acknowledged at the unveiling. > It was the best object Apple ever designed, filled with the best tech it had ever developed. It was the best phone it ever made. At the time, arguably. There's little disagreement that the processor, camera, screen, GPU, and security in iPhone X is better. > To me the SE was Apple allowing itself one last victory lap on the back of a design it would never surpass. Just such a painfully bad take. Staggering.