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Apple listened. They made the 12 Mini and it sold poorly. But persevered and released the 13 Mini. Again, it sold poorly, so they gave up. Don’t blame Apple her

Apple listened. They made the 12 Mini and it sold poorly. But persevered and released the 13 Mini. Again, it sold poorly, so they gave up. Don’t blame Apple here, vast majority want gigantic phones.

joshstrange 2y ago
I hear you and I agree on the surface but I really wish Apple better understood 2 things: 1. Not every device can be your best seller 2. Some product categories are important to fill even if sales are low (even very low) Apple doesn’t release per-device breakdowns so it’s hard to have conversations on this topic but I’d bet money that the Mini (or another example: the Mac Pro) sold at levels that most companies would drool over.
- lesuorac 2y ago
  But is a sale of a mini at the cost of a non-mini? Like if 3/4 of the mini buyer would have just gotten the next smallest form factor then you might not want the large time responsibility of another product.
  - joshstrange 2y ago
    I understand that, and obviously the line has to be drawn somewhere. I just think a company of Apple’s size/means is perfectly capable of maintaining and producing a mini for the people that want it. Then again, that’s easy for me to say I don’t run Apple.
    - maximus-decimus 2y ago
      Of course they're capable of doing it. Scarlet Johanson is also capable of dating me. They just don't want to.
- ssl-3 2y ago
  They just didn't sell very well at all. I've seen estimates that the little phones represented just 5-6% of total iPhone sales while they were around. They're darling little devices, but they were simply not very popular. Now, sure: You or I would probably love to have a product that "failed" by selling only as much as 5% of iPhone sales. We'd either be rolling in dough, or working our nuts off trying to figure out how to keep up production and sustain this beast, or both. "Only" five million units sold (or whatever), at ~$700 each? Fuck yeah! But we're not Apple. Apple is already rolling in dough. They want product lines which work on a much bigger scale than that or it simply isn't worth their time -- those engineering and marketing expenses are more-profitably spent elsewhere, where they get 20x the return.
  - dwallin 2y ago
    5-6% of sales ABSOLUTELY matters. The biggest question is really will the majority of these purchasers substitute the absent "Mini" model with another iPhone model? If 90% of those users will just buy a different model then there is little advantage to offering the mini, given the additional design/engineering costs of the smaller size. Anecdotally, I'm a techie but a small phone die-hard. I help onto my original SE until they finally released a mini model and will likely do something similar with mini 13. They definitely lost some potential upgrade sales from me, but despite that Apple STILL has the best tiny phone offerings, they are still software and hardware supported by Apple, although you have to purchase refurbished. There just isn't a serious Android competitor, with any sort of long term commitment to small phones, that would justify the switching cost. My opinion is that Apple botched their positioning with the mini. "Mini" is a diminutive term, it implies less than. It was the lowest pricing outside of their SE model. They released the 12 mini shortly after an SE release, leading to cannibalized sales. And they released it at the beginning of a period (ongoing) where Apple leaned into the messaging of "Bigger is Premium". The only people left to buy the mini were people obsessed with small phones. I think a more successful product would have been to lean into their "Air" brand, leveraging Apple's known ability to engineer premium devices in the smallest, most-elegant packages; positioning it as a premium product orthogonal to their main iPhone line. And from the rumors, it sounds like this might be Apple's next move in a device market that is increasingly undifferentiated.
alpaca128 2y ago
The iPhone 13 Mini has a 50% larger screen than the 4S. I have quite large hands, and it's still difficult to use it with one hand and it also isn't as well-balanced when holding it. If Apple expected the Mini variants to be as successful as the others that's on them. It's clear that most people spend a lot of time on their phone consuming multimedia content and so for those a large screen makes sense. But there should be a choice and as an SE model it would still make sense imho. Of course in the future small phones might become obsolete due to foldables, but as long as those are based on flimsy creased plastic and cost twice as much I'm not convinced.
- keeganpoppen 2y ago
  uhhh… are you “holding it wrong”? how could the iphone 13 mini possibly be difficult to use with large hands? i have a 15 pro max, am not kareem abdul jabar, and have absolutely no problem with one-handed operation…
  - layer8 2y ago
    You can operate the 4S with one hand without shifting your grip. It still (barely) worked with the 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af0gtsjfy7E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af0gtsjfy7E (the diagonally opposite corner was already really stretching it) It isn’t workable with larger screens (even the mini): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K3lTwGxMTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K3lTwGxMTk
    - musicale 2y ago
      This is true. But the Switch has spoiled me on larger screens for handheld games, and telescoping game controllers turn the phone into a Switch-like handheld for my (non-f2p) mobile game collection.
gomox 2y ago
In the same way that Gap should stop making small and medium sized t-shirts because L sells better ... ?
layer8 2y ago
They released the 13 mini because their product lead time exceeds one year. They didn’t have a Plus model to replace it with in time. It still sold more units than many Android models. In addition, the mini is significantly larger than the 4S, so it doesn’t really address GP’s point.
xangel 2y ago
Exactly this. As much as I like the smaller factors, you can't go against the markets.
nyarlathotep_ 2y ago
My current is a 12 mini and I hoping to find a new old stock 13 mini for my replacement model. This is my favorite model I've had since the 5! Guess I'm in the minority
- tim333 2y ago
  I like the 13 mini. Shame they stopped it. Quite a lot of "opened but not used" ones on ebay.

joshstrange 2y ago

I hear you and I agree on the surface but I really wish Apple better understood 2 things: 1. Not every device can be your best seller 2. Some product categories are important to fill even if sales are low (even very low) Apple doesn’t release per-device breakdowns so it’s hard to have conversations on this topic but I’d bet money that the Mini (or another example: the Mac Pro) sold at levels that most companies would drool over.

lesuorac 2y ago
But is a sale of a mini at the cost of a non-mini? Like if 3/4 of the mini buyer would have just gotten the next smallest form factor then you might not want the large time responsibility of another product.
- joshstrange 2y ago
  I understand that, and obviously the line has to be drawn somewhere. I just think a company of Apple’s size/means is perfectly capable of maintaining and producing a mini for the people that want it. Then again, that’s easy for me to say I don’t run Apple.
  - maximus-decimus 2y ago
    Of course they're capable of doing it. Scarlet Johanson is also capable of dating me. They just don't want to.
ssl-3 2y ago
They just didn't sell very well at all. I've seen estimates that the little phones represented just 5-6% of total iPhone sales while they were around. They're darling little devices, but they were simply not very popular. Now, sure: You or I would probably love to have a product that "failed" by selling only as much as 5% of iPhone sales. We'd either be rolling in dough, or working our nuts off trying to figure out how to keep up production and sustain this beast, or both. "Only" five million units sold (or whatever), at ~$700 each? Fuck yeah! But we're not Apple. Apple is already rolling in dough. They want product lines which work on a much bigger scale than that or it simply isn't worth their time -- those engineering and marketing expenses are more-profitably spent elsewhere, where they get 20x the return.
- dwallin 2y ago
  5-6% of sales ABSOLUTELY matters. The biggest question is really will the majority of these purchasers substitute the absent "Mini" model with another iPhone model? If 90% of those users will just buy a different model then there is little advantage to offering the mini, given the additional design/engineering costs of the smaller size. Anecdotally, I'm a techie but a small phone die-hard. I help onto my original SE until they finally released a mini model and will likely do something similar with mini 13. They definitely lost some potential upgrade sales from me, but despite that Apple STILL has the best tiny phone offerings, they are still software and hardware supported by Apple, although you have to purchase refurbished. There just isn't a serious Android competitor, with any sort of long term commitment to small phones, that would justify the switching cost. My opinion is that Apple botched their positioning with the mini. "Mini" is a diminutive term, it implies less than. It was the lowest pricing outside of their SE model. They released the 12 mini shortly after an SE release, leading to cannibalized sales. And they released it at the beginning of a period (ongoing) where Apple leaned into the messaging of "Bigger is Premium". The only people left to buy the mini were people obsessed with small phones. I think a more successful product would have been to lean into their "Air" brand, leveraging Apple's known ability to engineer premium devices in the smallest, most-elegant packages; positioning it as a premium product orthogonal to their main iPhone line. And from the rumors, it sounds like this might be Apple's next move in a device market that is increasingly undifferentiated.

alpaca128 2y ago

The iPhone 13 Mini has a 50% larger screen than the 4S. I have quite large hands, and it's still difficult to use it with one hand and it also isn't as well-balanced when holding it. If Apple expected the Mini variants to be as successful as the others that's on them. It's clear that most people spend a lot of time on their phone consuming multimedia content and so for those a large screen makes sense. But there should be a choice and as an SE model it would still make sense imho. Of course in the future small phones might become obsolete due to foldables, but as long as those are based on flimsy creased plastic and cost twice as much I'm not convinced.

keeganpoppen 2y ago
uhhh… are you “holding it wrong”? how could the iphone 13 mini possibly be difficult to use with large hands? i have a 15 pro max, am not kareem abdul jabar, and have absolutely no problem with one-handed operation…
- layer8 2y ago
  You can operate the 4S with one hand without shifting your grip. It still (barely) worked with the 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af0gtsjfy7E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af0gtsjfy7E (the diagonally opposite corner was already really stretching it) It isn’t workable with larger screens (even the mini): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K3lTwGxMTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K3lTwGxMTk
  - musicale 2y ago
    This is true. But the Switch has spoiled me on larger screens for handheld games, and telescoping game controllers turn the phone into a Switch-like handheld for my (non-f2p) mobile game collection.

gomox 2y ago

In the same way that Gap should stop making small and medium sized t-shirts because L sells better ... ?

layer8 2y ago

They released the 13 mini because their product lead time exceeds one year. They didn’t have a Plus model to replace it with in time. It still sold more units than many Android models. In addition, the mini is significantly larger than the 4S, so it doesn’t really address GP’s point.

xangel 2y ago

Exactly this. As much as I like the smaller factors, you can't go against the markets.

nyarlathotep_ 2y ago

My current is a 12 mini and I hoping to find a new old stock 13 mini for my replacement model. This is my favorite model I've had since the 5! Guess I'm in the minority

tim333 2y ago
I like the 13 mini. Shame they stopped it. Quite a lot of "opened but not used" ones on ebay.