5 ms·

I honestly believe the market is still there, as is so often the case the lack of choice is nothing to do with market or sales. The SE was far from a failure.

I honestly believe the market is still there, as is so often the case the lack of choice is nothing to do with market or sales. The SE was far from a failure. So I can only conclude that the makers would prefer everyone on larger phones for some reason.

JansjoFromIkea 8y ago
I'd actually bet the SE is viewed as something of a failure within apple after the X was such a hit. With more people willing to pay multiples of the price of a SE for one, SE screen size support for iOS apps must be an absolutely huge restraint on some developers. I love my SE though. Battery is so much better than I've been used to.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  Perhaps, though it's hard to understand from the outside what could have had Apple view it as a success, enough to warrant an SE2. It appears to have got almost universally positive press, and surprisingly good sales if that press is to be believed. My own circle of friends and their families must be ridiculously unrepresentative because the SE seems to have an outsize presence, and there's remarkably few huge flagships of any make. There's a couple who still hope every year that Samsung see sense and bring out another S Mini.
  - Joeri 8y ago
    The SE dragged down apple’s average selling price, which is a key metric Tim Cook optimizes for. You can see how the SE brought down the ASP when it was launched Q2 2016: https://www.statista.com/chart/15379/iphone-asp/ https://www.statista.com/chart/15379/iphone-asp/ If they bring back an SE-sized device it will be a high end one, a X SE for example with the screen size of the iphone 8 in an SE-sized body. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them launch that within 6 months and as a current SE owner I would definitely buy it.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
      Okay, but if it lowered the price enough that more people will buy it, then they can still win on revenue.
camillomiller 8y ago
How do you honestly believe that? Market is not a feel. Companies with multi-billion dollar revenues invest gazillions into researching the market. They can't afford to come up with a product based on "honestly believing". Then they apply resources to tackle a potential need. As much as I would like that my feelings could overlap with the markets, I'm aware that I'm a niche, and I don't think that judging market choices through the lens of what I'd like can lead to anything but a skewed personal view of a market problem. The SE was far from a failure not because of the size, but because for the first time it let people into the iPhone realm at a much lower price (without being just an old phone with a lower price). It had the "new" tag on it, although it was basically a product that Apple could generate by mixing up a couple of production lines with much lower assembly costs. By any measurement, the iPhone SE is an old and technically lacking phone with a superior and hyper-sticky software ecosystem. It was also the workhorse of carriers who could sell expensive plans with a lower device subsidization fee. Apple's marketing is best in class when it comes to framing the complexity of market tactics and vendor-carrier relationships within a simple and clear narrative. The underlying mechanism are still as intricated as they can be.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  Yet companies do precisely that all the time, in many markets and niches. They lead rather than respond to the market. Such is the nature of companies that get large enough to be multinationals. Customers count for not that much, so take it or leave it. Almost no one wanted headphone sockets actually removed because anyone who actually wanted bluetooth already had the capability, and countless surveys reveal a wish to keep them. Most recently Oneplus finding 80%+ of their customers wanted to keep it, so their next phone removed it. Almost every company has now followed suit, so it's damn clear they are not researching the market, unless it's to ascertain the extent of what they can get away with. Same with Google+, almost no one wanted it, yet for several years there was insistence one would have it. So I maintain the presence or absence of a product or service is often little or nothing to do with market sales. Or one can believe in perfect markets and perfect filling of opportunities.
  - ghaff 8y ago
jamesrcole 8y ago
> I honestly believe the market is still there On the basis of what?
- naasking 8y ago
  Beliefs don't need a basis, that's what separates them from facts!
  - jamesrcole 8y ago
    If we believe something to be true, it's because we believe it reflects how things are. If I believe it is true that the world is flat then someone may reasonable ask what the basis is for that belief. Give me an example of a belief with no basis at all.
    - naasking 8y ago
      All spiritual or religious beliefs have no basis, that's literally what differentiates them from facts. They're all ultimately grounded in baseless assertions.
      - jamesrcole 8y ago
        > All spiritual or religious beliefs have no basis Spiritual and religious people give reasons and justifications for their beliefs all the time. Have you never heard an argument for why the universe couldn't exist without a god? Surely you're aware of all the arguments made in things like the philosophy of religion? Even if a belief feels to you to have no basis that doesn't mean there isn't one. People often claim that their intuition about something has no basis, but it's actually that they don't have a consciously-accessible basis -- there's all the actual things they subconsciously picked up about, say, the person who seemed shifty, and all the subconscious mental processing that leads to that feeling.
        naasking 8y ago
        > Have you never heard an argument for why the universe couldn't exist without a god? And they're ultimately all baseless.
noelsusman 8y ago
It wasn't a failure but it wasn't much of a success either. The larger phones blew it out of the water in sales.

JansjoFromIkea 8y ago

I'd actually bet the SE is viewed as something of a failure within apple after the X was such a hit. With more people willing to pay multiples of the price of a SE for one, SE screen size support for iOS apps must be an absolutely huge restraint on some developers. I love my SE though. Battery is so much better than I've been used to.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
Perhaps, though it's hard to understand from the outside what could have had Apple view it as a success, enough to warrant an SE2. It appears to have got almost universally positive press, and surprisingly good sales if that press is to be believed. My own circle of friends and their families must be ridiculously unrepresentative because the SE seems to have an outsize presence, and there's remarkably few huge flagships of any make. There's a couple who still hope every year that Samsung see sense and bring out another S Mini.
- Joeri 8y ago
  The SE dragged down apple’s average selling price, which is a key metric Tim Cook optimizes for. You can see how the SE brought down the ASP when it was launched Q2 2016: https://www.statista.com/chart/15379/iphone-asp/ https://www.statista.com/chart/15379/iphone-asp/ If they bring back an SE-sized device it will be a high end one, a X SE for example with the screen size of the iphone 8 in an SE-sized body. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them launch that within 6 months and as a current SE owner I would definitely buy it.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
    Okay, but if it lowered the price enough that more people will buy it, then they can still win on revenue.

camillomiller 8y ago

How do you honestly believe that? Market is not a feel. Companies with multi-billion dollar revenues invest gazillions into researching the market. They can't afford to come up with a product based on "honestly believing". Then they apply resources to tackle a potential need. As much as I would like that my feelings could overlap with the markets, I'm aware that I'm a niche, and I don't think that judging market choices through the lens of what I'd like can lead to anything but a skewed personal view of a market problem. The SE was far from a failure not because of the size, but because for the first time it let people into the iPhone realm at a much lower price (without being just an old phone with a lower price). It had the "new" tag on it, although it was basically a product that Apple could generate by mixing up a couple of production lines with much lower assembly costs. By any measurement, the iPhone SE is an old and technically lacking phone with a superior and hyper-sticky software ecosystem. It was also the workhorse of carriers who could sell expensive plans with a lower device subsidization fee. Apple's marketing is best in class when it comes to framing the complexity of market tactics and vendor-carrier relationships within a simple and clear narrative. The underlying mechanism are still as intricated as they can be.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
Yet companies do precisely that all the time, in many markets and niches. They lead rather than respond to the market. Such is the nature of companies that get large enough to be multinationals. Customers count for not that much, so take it or leave it. Almost no one wanted headphone sockets actually removed because anyone who actually wanted bluetooth already had the capability, and countless surveys reveal a wish to keep them. Most recently Oneplus finding 80%+ of their customers wanted to keep it, so their next phone removed it. Almost every company has now followed suit, so it's damn clear they are not researching the market, unless it's to ascertain the extent of what they can get away with. Same with Google+, almost no one wanted it, yet for several years there was insistence one would have it. So I maintain the presence or absence of a product or service is often little or nothing to do with market sales. Or one can believe in perfect markets and perfect filling of opportunities.
- ghaff 8y ago

jamesrcole 8y ago

> I honestly believe the market is still there On the basis of what?

naasking 8y ago
Beliefs don't need a basis, that's what separates them from facts!
- jamesrcole 8y ago
  If we believe something to be true, it's because we believe it reflects how things are. If I believe it is true that the world is flat then someone may reasonable ask what the basis is for that belief. Give me an example of a belief with no basis at all.
  - naasking 8y ago
    All spiritual or religious beliefs have no basis, that's literally what differentiates them from facts. They're all ultimately grounded in baseless assertions.
    - jamesrcole 8y ago
      > All spiritual or religious beliefs have no basis Spiritual and religious people give reasons and justifications for their beliefs all the time. Have you never heard an argument for why the universe couldn't exist without a god? Surely you're aware of all the arguments made in things like the philosophy of religion? Even if a belief feels to you to have no basis that doesn't mean there isn't one. People often claim that their intuition about something has no basis, but it's actually that they don't have a consciously-accessible basis -- there's all the actual things they subconsciously picked up about, say, the person who seemed shifty, and all the subconscious mental processing that leads to that feeling.
      - naasking 8y ago
        > Have you never heard an argument for why the universe couldn't exist without a god? And they're ultimately all baseless.

noelsusman 8y ago

It wasn't a failure but it wasn't much of a success either. The larger phones blew it out of the water in sales.