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Apple’s lack of follow-up to the iPhone SE means the SE is still the best iPhone with a headphone jack. I honestly can’t believe Apple did an iPhone event with

Apple’s lack of follow-up to the iPhone SE means the SE is still the best iPhone with a headphone jack. I honestly can’t believe Apple did an iPhone event without introducing a new model in that size. I know at least a dozen people (especially women) who had been saying for at least a year that until the SE had a replacement, they’d be using one, or swapping to Android. With the weakest offerings for iPhones yet, in terms of reason to upgrade - and intense consumer demand for such a product, I’m just starting to get sick of Apple not listening to what it’s userbase is asking for. Shoving a limited number of options in our faces only works if the consumers actually want any of those options. For a time, the ‘MacBook’ was lighter than the ‘MacBook Air’. For years, Apple’s flagship iOS phones wouldn’t even connect to their flagship MacBooks and MacBook pros without an additional cable or adapter. They’ve killed the non Touch Bar MacBook Pro, while the industry laments the Touch Bar’s existence. It’s one thing not to listen to your customers. Apple has always been a certain level of compromise (price, features) as compared to other options. It’s another thing to completely ignore industry and user base response. Reasons to make that compromise have run out for me, and are running out for others. I have been an Apple-exclusive computer (especially laptop) user for 15 years. My next laptop will be a hackintoshed Lenovo.

CDSlice 7y ago
Is Apple really not listening to it's customers, or just not listening to a small, vocal subset? I've really only heard complaints about the touchbar from software devs, which are not Apple's main customers. Apple's main customers are creatives and people that want to spend a lot of money for what amounts to a well made (MacBook pro keyboard issues notwithstanding), functional status symbols. Making a smaller, cheaper iPhone isn't really useful for the creatives and just devalues Apple as a status symbol for the people that buy it for that. > For years, Apple’s flagship iOS phones wouldn’t even connect to their flagship MacBooks and MacBook pros without an additional cable or adapter. > My next laptop will be a hackintoshed Lenovo. I really don't think you are Apple's target audience. Most iPhone users don't connect their phone to a computer anymore, especially the people that are buying flagship Macs and iPhones, and the few that do generally don't mind buying the extra cable. And most people with the skills and patience to tinker with their systems to make functional hackintoshes probably aren't big on buying services, which is what Apple is trying to transition into.
- lostgame 7y ago
  >> I really don't think you are Apple's target audience. I am a creative professional - which, historically, was a very important part of Apple’s user base; and the reason I still use their products. The ecosystem and workflow of using an iPhone or iPad to write a simple musical idea in GarageBand on the subway, and then finding it already on my iCloud on my MacBook Pro at home, so I can open it up in Logic and refine it, is unparalleled. Anecdotally, I’ve never had anyone whom I’ve met, dev, creative, or casual user, who enjoys or uses the Touch Bar. It’s not even just the touch bar. The keyboard, the soldered RAM and SSD which prevent upgrades, the lack of ports, when I spend more for a MacBook now, I’m getting far less than I did in my many years of purchasing them. Furthermore, I could pull up a heap of references for this, but it’s a much more serious case with the SE form factor than even Apple’s current garbage laptop offerings. There are practically a lot of people with smaller hands - they would be happy to give Apple their money but have nothing to give it for.
  - chrisan 7y ago
    Just for record, I don't know any non-creative/developer who own macs. Anyone else does not like the touchbar. The same subsets care about headphone jacks or not. I'm 6'1" and think I have decent sized hands, I'd still prefer the 4S size if I could get it All that said, historically sure, but creative and/or professionals are not the target of a mainstream phone meant to sell millions of phones. I've given up dreaming and just deal with it as I still prefer iOS to Android
    - stevewodil 7y ago
      Go to any college. Most people there buy Macs for simple note taking.
  - stevewodil 7y ago
    I'm a dev and like the touch bar. Ask me anything
    - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
tracker1 7y ago
I wouldn't even bother with Hackintosh (unless you are building iOS/MacOS apps). Been running Pop!_OS at home for a few weeks now, and although there have been a couple hiccups (alsamixer to fix one, kernel update and drivers for wifi the other), it's been the best desktop Linux experience I've had in years. Been mostly terminal/server/docker instances for about 5 years. And although there are some options for better Windows experiences (WSL, Docker etc), I'm using Linux at home... laptop is an ageing late-2014 rmbp (though nvidia, so updates are borked) and stuck with Windows at work.
- lostgame 7y ago
  >> (unless you are building iOS/MacOS apps) raises hand Yup. I’m also locked in to Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro, with some projects literally a decade old.
AmericanChopper 7y ago
> They’ve killed the non Touch Bar MacBook Pro, while the industry laments the Touch Bar’s existence. ‘The industry’ is not Apple’s customer. Apple knows who they want their customers to be, and it makes the products that it knows they want. I’m mostly expecting them to release a smaller iPhone. But for most of your complaints and the same old complaints that get posted in every Apple thread on HN, Apple doesn’t care about them, because HN commenters don’t represent what the market actually wants from Apple.
- linkregister 7y ago
  This comment is even less substantiated than its parent. Intuitively the nerds on HN don't represent the "real customers" of Apple, who as a big company, surely does market research. Yet Apple has gone on record several times claiming to bring products to market that customers don't know they need, eschewing market research. Without posting any reviews or customer data, you assume that there is a large customer demand for touch bar-equipped laptop computers. The plural of anecdotes isn't data, but the complete absence of adecdotes of people who love the touch bar says a lot.
  - lostgame 7y ago
    Eh, there are some who do - I’ve never met one in person, but I have seen many online.
  - AmericanChopper 7y ago
    My comment is substantiated by the millions of MBPs they sell every year. I’ve worked with thousands of people who use MBPs since the touchbar came out, and the only people I’ve ever heard complain about it are online “pundits”. Most people I hear mention it love it. The only alternative explanation is that Apples market research is wrong, and that all sales of MBP since the release of the touchbar have been anomalous. It’s completely obvious how out of touch most Apple commentary is with their market.
- lazyguy2 7y ago
  Apple isn't gods. A lot of time companies make shitty products and then refuse to back down on it. Apple has done it in the past and this is just another example of it.
Apocryphon 7y ago
The original SE was announced in a March event, so I assume its successor might appear six months from now.
- jdeibele 7y ago
  They might announce something after the Christmas season. Apple would want to sell as many 11s and 11 Pros as they can before competing with themselves. Not sure what effect the tariffs will have if they take effect in mid-December. Having a cheaper iPhone means less of a hit from tariffs. https://macdailynews.com/2019/08/29/apple-iphone-faces-15-u-s-tariff-starting-december-15th/ https://macdailynews.com/2019/08/29/apple-iphone-faces-15-u-...
Carpetsmoker 7y ago
The only reason I have an iPhone SE is because it's the only small-ish phone that's actually supported. I don't even like all this Apple iOS crap, but I just want a small phone for the 9 apps I use + phone and camera. I previously had a Sony XZ compact, but they stopped making those too :-/ (I got a the SE secondhand a few months ago). This article calls the SE "tiny, aging, probably almost obsolete throwback", but I don't see what so bad about it? It works very well, IMHO. I'd get a budget Android phone, but they're all freakin' huge.
- paulie_a 7y ago
  The pixel has a small profile and is pure Android and a flagship phone
  - Carpetsmoker 7y ago
    It's insanely expensive though: "from €899". Also quite a bit bigger than SE, although not as much as some I guess. I wasn't exaggerating when I said I have 9 apps installed: Couchsurfing, Fastmail, Telegram, Tinder, Revolut, Viewranger, WhatsApp, Google Maps, Firefox. That'll be €100/app!
    - tomComb 7y ago
      The pixel 3a is quite cheap (comparatively), fairly small, and got great reviews.
      - throwaway-9320 7y ago
        The Pixel 3a has a 5.6" screen while the iPhone SE has a 4.0" one, that's not even comparable.
cactus2093 7y ago
Are there any examples of flagship Android phones that are similar in size to the iPhone SE? I doubt Apple just forgot about the SE, and it also seems unlikely that someone high up just made a gut call that the SE size is over. It seems more likely that this userbase you're talking about just isn't as big as you think, and isn't big enough for the R&D of redesigning the SE to be worthwhile for Apple, at least not yet. Just to offer some counter-anecdotes, I've noticed a lot of women have the larger Max sized iPhone, since you get all the benefits of a big screen but it still fits fine in most purses. I carry my phone in my front pocket most of the time and the iPhone X/11 Pro size is perfect for that, I have no need to go down to the SE size. The only people I know using the SE are people who live in the Bay Area and work in tech who want to make a point of doing something contrarian and joining the tech backlash. And what better for this hipster crowd than discontinuing the phone altogether, so now you can only buy it used and having one becomes even more of a statement?
JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
I've been looking into Linux, but it's a nightmare to get running on a (2018) Macbook Pro. (Older years have better support through community effort). With the introduction of new chipsets, it's made it even more challenging for the OSS community to keep up. My next laptop will likely be not a MacBook, so long as I can get a high-res display.
- eyegor 7y ago
  The starting point for windows laptops with 15.6" 4k screens is ~$1200 nowadays (280 ppi). Current gen macbook pros are 227 ppi. They also cost more, but obv not relevant if you need mac os for some reason.
- lazyguy2 7y ago
  Get rid of the Macbook if you want to run Linux. Without OS X there isn't any real point to it. Dell and friends do much better job at reliability.
  - JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
    My only worry is finding a GUI I know I'll like. To my understanding, with Linux it's basically like legos. Beyond the kernel, you have a ton of choice in what you can use. I want the experience for a few weeks, before diving in fully. I also really like the gestures of Mac OS's trackpad and I don't want to give that up-- it enables a lot of productivity. I like being able to spawn a new desktop and three-finger swipe to the next in a linear fashion. I believe a lot of this has been recreated within the ecosystem, but I'm not certain.
    - vips7L 7y ago
      What youre looking for is libinput gestures [0]. Or just use keyboard shortcuts. [0] https://github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures https://github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures
- mjcohen 7y ago
  If you want to run particular apps, you can use Macports or homebrew.
discordance 7y ago
The SE is also durable. I don't use cases and have dropped it many many times over the last few years. Many scratches but no smashes. Maybe it's been luck, but every other iPhone I've had before this has needed at least one screen replacement.
toomanybeersies 7y ago
To be fair, lack of cable connectivity between Macbooks and iPhones isn't a particularly big issue, everything can be done wirelessly for most users, they never need to plug their phone into their laptop. I use Android phones, rather than iPhones, but regardless I can't remember the last time I actually plugged a phone into a computer. If I need to get files between my phone and my computer, I usually just put them on my Google Drive.
- lostgame 7y ago
  >> everything can be done wirelessly for most users, they never need to plug their phone into their laptop Um, no? An iPhone needs to be plugged into a computer initially to enable wireless connectivity with iTunes. Furthermore, I like to charge my phone with my laptop, quite a bit. Also, Google doesn’t sell laptops, (Chromebooks aside) it’s not really a comparable situation.
  - lostgame 7y ago
    Oh, additionally: I'm an iOS developer, and use my cable all the time.
znpy 7y ago
> while the industry laments Apple's target has shifted from pro users to the general public. People don't really appreciate the MacBook, they appreciate MacOs. If GNU/Linux had a comparable user experience, it'd win hands down. And on that matter, I recently installed Ubuntu 18.04 lts and I've been surprised at how well it's working (and how much hardware it detected automatically).
rarecoil 7y ago
I think we might simply be wrong as to what we got out of the iPhone SE and what Apple's intent with it was. The SE was a substantially cheaper iPhone. Perhaps at the time, Apple had a bunch of old 5/5S-style hardware that they needed to get rid of, and so to liquidate it all, they created the "iPhone SE" as a low-end phone to get rid of all of those extra components in that form factor. If so, the fact we all bought it because it was a small frame device is actually secondary to why it was created in the first place. If this motivation is true, it's also likely that if there is an SE2, it's going to be iPhone 7 or iPhone 8 in size and part selection with the better SoC, and you will be getting an A13-based, 4.7", Touch ID that looks indistinguishable from the iPhone 7 or iPhone 8 depending upon what bodies they have a lot of sitting around (or a lot of manufacturing capacity therein). I personally don't suspect a modernized 5/5S style phone from Apple the next time.
nkkollaw 7y ago
> They’ve killed the non Touch Bar MacBook Pro I would not buy a laptop with a Touch Bar if they paid me. I'm still using a 2015 MacBook Pro—since it's the last laptop that has all the correct ports and working keyboard, but I'm looking forward to their next event when they should release a new version. If there is no normal keyboard that doesn't break and it doesn't have a non-Touch Bar version, I'll start looking into hackintoshes.
shifto 7y ago
> intense consumer demand for such a product Besides on HN I never hear anyone wanting an SE.

CDSlice 7y ago

Is Apple really not listening to it's customers, or just not listening to a small, vocal subset? I've really only heard complaints about the touchbar from software devs, which are not Apple's main customers. Apple's main customers are creatives and people that want to spend a lot of money for what amounts to a well made (MacBook pro keyboard issues notwithstanding), functional status symbols. Making a smaller, cheaper iPhone isn't really useful for the creatives and just devalues Apple as a status symbol for the people that buy it for that. > For years, Apple’s flagship iOS phones wouldn’t even connect to their flagship MacBooks and MacBook pros without an additional cable or adapter. > My next laptop will be a hackintoshed Lenovo. I really don't think you are Apple's target audience. Most iPhone users don't connect their phone to a computer anymore, especially the people that are buying flagship Macs and iPhones, and the few that do generally don't mind buying the extra cable. And most people with the skills and patience to tinker with their systems to make functional hackintoshes probably aren't big on buying services, which is what Apple is trying to transition into.

lostgame 7y ago
>> I really don't think you are Apple's target audience. I am a creative professional - which, historically, was a very important part of Apple’s user base; and the reason I still use their products. The ecosystem and workflow of using an iPhone or iPad to write a simple musical idea in GarageBand on the subway, and then finding it already on my iCloud on my MacBook Pro at home, so I can open it up in Logic and refine it, is unparalleled. Anecdotally, I’ve never had anyone whom I’ve met, dev, creative, or casual user, who enjoys or uses the Touch Bar. It’s not even just the touch bar. The keyboard, the soldered RAM and SSD which prevent upgrades, the lack of ports, when I spend more for a MacBook now, I’m getting far less than I did in my many years of purchasing them. Furthermore, I could pull up a heap of references for this, but it’s a much more serious case with the SE form factor than even Apple’s current garbage laptop offerings. There are practically a lot of people with smaller hands - they would be happy to give Apple their money but have nothing to give it for.
- chrisan 7y ago
  Just for record, I don't know any non-creative/developer who own macs. Anyone else does not like the touchbar. The same subsets care about headphone jacks or not. I'm 6'1" and think I have decent sized hands, I'd still prefer the 4S size if I could get it All that said, historically sure, but creative and/or professionals are not the target of a mainstream phone meant to sell millions of phones. I've given up dreaming and just deal with it as I still prefer iOS to Android
  - stevewodil 7y ago
    Go to any college. Most people there buy Macs for simple note taking.
- stevewodil 7y ago
  I'm a dev and like the touch bar. Ask me anything
  - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago

tracker1 7y ago

I wouldn't even bother with Hackintosh (unless you are building iOS/MacOS apps). Been running Pop!_OS at home for a few weeks now, and although there have been a couple hiccups (alsamixer to fix one, kernel update and drivers for wifi the other), it's been the best desktop Linux experience I've had in years. Been mostly terminal/server/docker instances for about 5 years. And although there are some options for better Windows experiences (WSL, Docker etc), I'm using Linux at home... laptop is an ageing late-2014 rmbp (though nvidia, so updates are borked) and stuck with Windows at work.

lostgame 7y ago
>> (unless you are building iOS/MacOS apps) raises hand Yup. I’m also locked in to Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro, with some projects literally a decade old.

AmericanChopper 7y ago

> They’ve killed the non Touch Bar MacBook Pro, while the industry laments the Touch Bar’s existence. ‘The industry’ is not Apple’s customer. Apple knows who they want their customers to be, and it makes the products that it knows they want. I’m mostly expecting them to release a smaller iPhone. But for most of your complaints and the same old complaints that get posted in every Apple thread on HN, Apple doesn’t care about them, because HN commenters don’t represent what the market actually wants from Apple.

linkregister 7y ago
This comment is even less substantiated than its parent. Intuitively the nerds on HN don't represent the "real customers" of Apple, who as a big company, surely does market research. Yet Apple has gone on record several times claiming to bring products to market that customers don't know they need, eschewing market research. Without posting any reviews or customer data, you assume that there is a large customer demand for touch bar-equipped laptop computers. The plural of anecdotes isn't data, but the complete absence of adecdotes of people who love the touch bar says a lot.
- lostgame 7y ago
  Eh, there are some who do - I’ve never met one in person, but I have seen many online.
- AmericanChopper 7y ago
  My comment is substantiated by the millions of MBPs they sell every year. I’ve worked with thousands of people who use MBPs since the touchbar came out, and the only people I’ve ever heard complain about it are online “pundits”. Most people I hear mention it love it. The only alternative explanation is that Apples market research is wrong, and that all sales of MBP since the release of the touchbar have been anomalous. It’s completely obvious how out of touch most Apple commentary is with their market.
lazyguy2 7y ago
Apple isn't gods. A lot of time companies make shitty products and then refuse to back down on it. Apple has done it in the past and this is just another example of it.

Apocryphon 7y ago

The original SE was announced in a March event, so I assume its successor might appear six months from now.

jdeibele 7y ago
They might announce something after the Christmas season. Apple would want to sell as many 11s and 11 Pros as they can before competing with themselves. Not sure what effect the tariffs will have if they take effect in mid-December. Having a cheaper iPhone means less of a hit from tariffs. https://macdailynews.com/2019/08/29/apple-iphone-faces-15-u-s-tariff-starting-december-15th/ https://macdailynews.com/2019/08/29/apple-iphone-faces-15-u-...

Carpetsmoker 7y ago

The only reason I have an iPhone SE is because it's the only small-ish phone that's actually supported. I don't even like all this Apple iOS crap, but I just want a small phone for the 9 apps I use + phone and camera. I previously had a Sony XZ compact, but they stopped making those too :-/ (I got a the SE secondhand a few months ago). This article calls the SE "tiny, aging, probably almost obsolete throwback", but I don't see what so bad about it? It works very well, IMHO. I'd get a budget Android phone, but they're all freakin' huge.

paulie_a 7y ago
The pixel has a small profile and is pure Android and a flagship phone
- Carpetsmoker 7y ago
  It's insanely expensive though: "from €899". Also quite a bit bigger than SE, although not as much as some I guess. I wasn't exaggerating when I said I have 9 apps installed: Couchsurfing, Fastmail, Telegram, Tinder, Revolut, Viewranger, WhatsApp, Google Maps, Firefox. That'll be €100/app!
  - tomComb 7y ago
    The pixel 3a is quite cheap (comparatively), fairly small, and got great reviews.
    - throwaway-9320 7y ago
      The Pixel 3a has a 5.6" screen while the iPhone SE has a 4.0" one, that's not even comparable.

cactus2093 7y ago

Are there any examples of flagship Android phones that are similar in size to the iPhone SE? I doubt Apple just forgot about the SE, and it also seems unlikely that someone high up just made a gut call that the SE size is over. It seems more likely that this userbase you're talking about just isn't as big as you think, and isn't big enough for the R&D of redesigning the SE to be worthwhile for Apple, at least not yet. Just to offer some counter-anecdotes, I've noticed a lot of women have the larger Max sized iPhone, since you get all the benefits of a big screen but it still fits fine in most purses. I carry my phone in my front pocket most of the time and the iPhone X/11 Pro size is perfect for that, I have no need to go down to the SE size. The only people I know using the SE are people who live in the Bay Area and work in tech who want to make a point of doing something contrarian and joining the tech backlash. And what better for this hipster crowd than discontinuing the phone altogether, so now you can only buy it used and having one becomes even more of a statement?

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago

I've been looking into Linux, but it's a nightmare to get running on a (2018) Macbook Pro. (Older years have better support through community effort). With the introduction of new chipsets, it's made it even more challenging for the OSS community to keep up. My next laptop will likely be not a MacBook, so long as I can get a high-res display.

eyegor 7y ago
The starting point for windows laptops with 15.6" 4k screens is ~$1200 nowadays (280 ppi). Current gen macbook pros are 227 ppi. They also cost more, but obv not relevant if you need mac os for some reason.
lazyguy2 7y ago
Get rid of the Macbook if you want to run Linux. Without OS X there isn't any real point to it. Dell and friends do much better job at reliability.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  My only worry is finding a GUI I know I'll like. To my understanding, with Linux it's basically like legos. Beyond the kernel, you have a ton of choice in what you can use. I want the experience for a few weeks, before diving in fully. I also really like the gestures of Mac OS's trackpad and I don't want to give that up-- it enables a lot of productivity. I like being able to spawn a new desktop and three-finger swipe to the next in a linear fashion. I believe a lot of this has been recreated within the ecosystem, but I'm not certain.
  - vips7L 7y ago
    What youre looking for is libinput gestures [0]. Or just use keyboard shortcuts. [0] https://github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures https://github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures
mjcohen 7y ago
If you want to run particular apps, you can use Macports or homebrew.

discordance 7y ago

The SE is also durable. I don't use cases and have dropped it many many times over the last few years. Many scratches but no smashes. Maybe it's been luck, but every other iPhone I've had before this has needed at least one screen replacement.

toomanybeersies 7y ago

To be fair, lack of cable connectivity between Macbooks and iPhones isn't a particularly big issue, everything can be done wirelessly for most users, they never need to plug their phone into their laptop. I use Android phones, rather than iPhones, but regardless I can't remember the last time I actually plugged a phone into a computer. If I need to get files between my phone and my computer, I usually just put them on my Google Drive.

lostgame 7y ago
>> everything can be done wirelessly for most users, they never need to plug their phone into their laptop Um, no? An iPhone needs to be plugged into a computer initially to enable wireless connectivity with iTunes. Furthermore, I like to charge my phone with my laptop, quite a bit. Also, Google doesn’t sell laptops, (Chromebooks aside) it’s not really a comparable situation.
- lostgame 7y ago
  Oh, additionally: I'm an iOS developer, and use my cable all the time.

znpy 7y ago

> while the industry laments Apple's target has shifted from pro users to the general public. People don't really appreciate the MacBook, they appreciate MacOs. If GNU/Linux had a comparable user experience, it'd win hands down. And on that matter, I recently installed Ubuntu 18.04 lts and I've been surprised at how well it's working (and how much hardware it detected automatically).

rarecoil 7y ago

I think we might simply be wrong as to what we got out of the iPhone SE and what Apple's intent with it was. The SE was a substantially cheaper iPhone. Perhaps at the time, Apple had a bunch of old 5/5S-style hardware that they needed to get rid of, and so to liquidate it all, they created the "iPhone SE" as a low-end phone to get rid of all of those extra components in that form factor. If so, the fact we all bought it because it was a small frame device is actually secondary to why it was created in the first place. If this motivation is true, it's also likely that if there is an SE2, it's going to be iPhone 7 or iPhone 8 in size and part selection with the better SoC, and you will be getting an A13-based, 4.7", Touch ID that looks indistinguishable from the iPhone 7 or iPhone 8 depending upon what bodies they have a lot of sitting around (or a lot of manufacturing capacity therein). I personally don't suspect a modernized 5/5S style phone from Apple the next time.

nkkollaw 7y ago

> They’ve killed the non Touch Bar MacBook Pro I would not buy a laptop with a Touch Bar if they paid me. I'm still using a 2015 MacBook Pro—since it's the last laptop that has all the correct ports and working keyboard, but I'm looking forward to their next event when they should release a new version. If there is no normal keyboard that doesn't break and it doesn't have a non-Touch Bar version, I'll start looking into hackintoshes.

shifto 7y ago

> intense consumer demand for such a product Besides on HN I never hear anyone wanting an SE.