7 ms·

I've been hearing this sentiment for 10+ years, but it's been tried and each time it's tried it doesn't sell well enough.

iscrewyou 2y ago
It’s a package of devices Apple is selling. They sell under powered smaller screen macs. They sell iMacs. They sell small iPads. They sell smaller watches. Some of these just don’t sell as well as their other offerings. They should sell small phones. Because the whole family will be in on the brand, features, and services. I’ve heard many family members and friends say that they won’t give up their older small phones because Apple no longer makes new ones. The idea that they don’t sell well is not a good enough reason when you are trying to capture the whole market for not just hardware but the lock in for services, apps, games, music, etc.
- yreg 2y ago
  How can you be confident in this when you don't even see their sales data? Still, I would like to see a smaller regularly updated phone. Bonus points if there is a high-end version, because small shouldn't mean budget (like with iPhone SE).
  - hedora 2y ago
    The last small flagship (iPhone 13 mini) sold poorly, but it was much more expensive than the SE2. This was at the tail end of covid, but before faceid worked with masks, so the SE's touch id was a huge selling point. Other than that and the camera, the only functional difference I can find are that the SE line is still missing the UWB antenna. I'd happily upgrade to a newer small iPhone if they made one. As it is, it looks like the only option is repeatedly repairing my 13 mini (and dealing with the hilariously bad 5G battery drain forever) or downgrading to a newer SE3. I know there are a lot of people in this boat. I predict they'll produce another small phone in a few years. It'll sell well due to pent up demand, and someone will be declared a genius for selling 100M's of extra phones that year.
    - vvladymyrov 2y ago
      > I predict they'll produce another small phone in a few years. It'll sell well due to pent up demand, and someone will be declared a genius for selling 100M's of extra phones that year. I’d wish this too. I’m afraid that Apple over the next few year would become more risk averse then ever before. Also old Execs are leaving and retiring - so less people with hands on experience how to start new products VS keeping lights on.
- rsynnott 2y ago
  They have repeatedly attempted to sell small phones. They don't sell in significant numbers, unfortunately.
ktosobcy 2y ago
Because the execution is usually borked... I was eyeig ZenFone 9 (or something around that) and what? It was reported that it had problem with overheating and build quality. What's more, I would love something akin to my current Galaxy a52s 5G with a display around 5.2-5.5" (I first had LG G2, then OnePlus3 which was already a bit bulky and now a52 as compromise; https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=5543&idPhone2=7995&idPhone3=11039 https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=5543&idPhone2...)... I do have iPhone SE (2022) and it's the size of LG G2 and I find quite handy. Something of that size but with slightly bigger screen (better screen-to-body ratio). Specs doesn't have super-hiper-premium… and the price should be sane (usually compact phones are like 20-40% higher, sic)
- williamdclt 2y ago
  iphone minis weren't particularly borked, and they didn't sell well enough, people apparently preferred the larger iphones (to my own dismay)
  - ktosobcy 2y ago
    Are you sure they bought different flavours because of the screen size or because of naming marketing "pro is better than regular" and "mini obviously has to be worse"?
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    I'm using an iPhone 12 mini, and it's bigger than I'd ideally like.
  - joshyeager 2y ago
    In my case, they took so long to announce the iPhone 12 Mini that I gave up waiting and bought an SE even though it was slower than I wanted and had a poor camera. Four months later they announced the Mini, but I wasn't willing to replace a four-month-old phone. Then they discontinued the Mini line after 13. When I was ready to buy a new phone, there were no iPhone Mini models for sale. It took more than a year, but I finally found an iPhone 13 Mini in stock on the Apple Refurbished store. Now I'm hoping to keep this phone alive until they finally release another small iPhone.
HumblyTossed 2y ago
> I've been hearing this sentiment for 10+ years, but it's been tried and each time it's tried it doesn't sell well enough. The iPhone mini was a billion dollar device. Anyone other than Apple would have called that a success.
- rqtwteye 2y ago
  That’s one of the big problems with these dominant trillion dollar corporations. For them it’s not worth to pursue something as small as a billion dollar market but they still have enough market power to suppress any competitor who wants to deliver such a product. That’s why we are seeing less and less innovation and diversity compared to the 1980s to around 2000
  - tharant 2y ago
    > That’s why we are seeing less and less innovation and diversity compared to the 1980s to around 2000 You think the pace of innovation has stalled and the tech industry is less diverse than it was 20-50 years ago? Really? Having cut my teeth on the tech of the late-seventies, that’s not a perspective I share. I have long been impressed with how fast new tech makes it into our grubby little hands. From my perspective, if we were stuck at the pace of innovation present during my early days, well, I think it’s not unlikely we’d still be using feature-phones and WAP gateways so we could tinker with that new mobile-internet stuff everyone’s raving about.
karaterobot 2y ago
"Well enough" is doing a lot of work here. It's not that they aren't successful, it's that they aren't immediate, runaway hits, so the manufacturers conclude: why bother trying to build this market, let's just go back to the playbook. That's how you get mediocre products, which is where we are now.
- dageshi 2y ago
  I'm sorry to say this, but again just face the reality of the fact that not enough people truly want this size of phone. There's a congregation of people on HN who do, I suspect they're also the type of people who'll run their phones for 5+ years where their bigger phone buying brethren are replacing every year or two at most. The market for the "small" smartphone just isn't profitable enough to bother with for most manufacturers.
gen220 2y ago
Speaking for myself, I 100% would have bought an iPhone Mini, but I purchase new phones on a 5-6 year cycle. My iPhones were the 4S and the XS. Now that I'm ready to buy a new iPhone, the Mini has been discontinued! I think the Mini would have been and in fact was successful, but it's not successful "enough" to justify a separate model – they must have observed that people "like me" would still buy a flagship iPhone, even though we aren't 100% satisfied with the form factor. Apple would rather have us buying a higher-margin flagship model and have an NPS of 65+ than a lower-margin mini model with an NPS of 80+. My friend with similar instincts as me recently got a refurbished 13 Mini instead of the latest flagship. I'll probably get the flagship, because I value the satcom a little bit more than the form factor.
wruza 2y ago
Don’t produce it in the same volumes then? Did you know that factories make less big-sized and small-sized shoes than average-sized ones? Because (surprise) buyers size distribution is not uniform. “We tried to make big shoes many times and it doesn’t sell well enough”. Oh, really. I guess I’ll just cut holes for my fingers then.
- galdosdi 2y ago
  Maybe the fixed costs of a shoe factory production line, in 2024, with centuries of production experience, are lower than those of a top of the line smartphone.
- nuancebydefault 2y ago
  > fingers Lol
  - ttonelli 2y ago
    Don't know the op's language, but in Portuguese there's a single word for toes and fingers. So I did not notice the issue until you pointed out!
  - wruza 2y ago
    Ah, cringe. In my defense, https://www.reddit.com/r/LinguisticMaps/comments/pyrli2/which_languages_have_different_words_for_finger/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LinguisticMaps/comments/pyrli2/whic...
- ethersteeds 2y ago
  Well, speaking as someone with US 14 men's feet, a fair number of manufacturers do just refuse. Many shoes top out at 13, and many socks at 12!
SirMaster 2y ago
Just because the sentiment is a minority doesn't mean it's not an honest sentiment. I also would love a smaller flagship spec'd phone. I know it wont be popular, but I still want it.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Its the worst of both worlds. Not popular and harder to engineer. So it makes it hard to pitch to business.
LtWorf 2y ago
By "it has been tried" you mean that they sold some crappy phone for almost the same price as a way better one?
- dageshi 2y ago
  Well that's also an issue, the audience that wants a smaller phone is also spread across all the price points that the regular audience is. So it's even less viable for manufacturers to make small phones.

iscrewyou 2y ago

It’s a package of devices Apple is selling. They sell under powered smaller screen macs. They sell iMacs. They sell small iPads. They sell smaller watches. Some of these just don’t sell as well as their other offerings. They should sell small phones. Because the whole family will be in on the brand, features, and services. I’ve heard many family members and friends say that they won’t give up their older small phones because Apple no longer makes new ones. The idea that they don’t sell well is not a good enough reason when you are trying to capture the whole market for not just hardware but the lock in for services, apps, games, music, etc.

yreg 2y ago
How can you be confident in this when you don't even see their sales data? Still, I would like to see a smaller regularly updated phone. Bonus points if there is a high-end version, because small shouldn't mean budget (like with iPhone SE).
- hedora 2y ago
  The last small flagship (iPhone 13 mini) sold poorly, but it was much more expensive than the SE2. This was at the tail end of covid, but before faceid worked with masks, so the SE's touch id was a huge selling point. Other than that and the camera, the only functional difference I can find are that the SE line is still missing the UWB antenna. I'd happily upgrade to a newer small iPhone if they made one. As it is, it looks like the only option is repeatedly repairing my 13 mini (and dealing with the hilariously bad 5G battery drain forever) or downgrading to a newer SE3. I know there are a lot of people in this boat. I predict they'll produce another small phone in a few years. It'll sell well due to pent up demand, and someone will be declared a genius for selling 100M's of extra phones that year.
  - vvladymyrov 2y ago
    > I predict they'll produce another small phone in a few years. It'll sell well due to pent up demand, and someone will be declared a genius for selling 100M's of extra phones that year. I’d wish this too. I’m afraid that Apple over the next few year would become more risk averse then ever before. Also old Execs are leaving and retiring - so less people with hands on experience how to start new products VS keeping lights on.
rsynnott 2y ago
They have repeatedly attempted to sell small phones. They don't sell in significant numbers, unfortunately.

ktosobcy 2y ago

Because the execution is usually borked... I was eyeig ZenFone 9 (or something around that) and what? It was reported that it had problem with overheating and build quality. What's more, I would love something akin to my current Galaxy a52s 5G with a display around 5.2-5.5" (I first had LG G2, then OnePlus3 which was already a bit bulky and now a52 as compromise; https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=5543&idPhone2=7995&idPhone3=11039 https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=5543&idPhone2...)... I do have iPhone SE (2022) and it's the size of LG G2 and I find quite handy. Something of that size but with slightly bigger screen (better screen-to-body ratio). Specs doesn't have super-hiper-premium… and the price should be sane (usually compact phones are like 20-40% higher, sic)

williamdclt 2y ago
iphone minis weren't particularly borked, and they didn't sell well enough, people apparently preferred the larger iphones (to my own dismay)
- ktosobcy 2y ago
  Are you sure they bought different flavours because of the screen size or because of naming marketing "pro is better than regular" and "mini obviously has to be worse"?
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  I'm using an iPhone 12 mini, and it's bigger than I'd ideally like.
- joshyeager 2y ago
  In my case, they took so long to announce the iPhone 12 Mini that I gave up waiting and bought an SE even though it was slower than I wanted and had a poor camera. Four months later they announced the Mini, but I wasn't willing to replace a four-month-old phone. Then they discontinued the Mini line after 13. When I was ready to buy a new phone, there were no iPhone Mini models for sale. It took more than a year, but I finally found an iPhone 13 Mini in stock on the Apple Refurbished store. Now I'm hoping to keep this phone alive until they finally release another small iPhone.

HumblyTossed 2y ago

> I've been hearing this sentiment for 10+ years, but it's been tried and each time it's tried it doesn't sell well enough. The iPhone mini was a billion dollar device. Anyone other than Apple would have called that a success.

rqtwteye 2y ago
That’s one of the big problems with these dominant trillion dollar corporations. For them it’s not worth to pursue something as small as a billion dollar market but they still have enough market power to suppress any competitor who wants to deliver such a product. That’s why we are seeing less and less innovation and diversity compared to the 1980s to around 2000
- tharant 2y ago
  > That’s why we are seeing less and less innovation and diversity compared to the 1980s to around 2000 You think the pace of innovation has stalled and the tech industry is less diverse than it was 20-50 years ago? Really? Having cut my teeth on the tech of the late-seventies, that’s not a perspective I share. I have long been impressed with how fast new tech makes it into our grubby little hands. From my perspective, if we were stuck at the pace of innovation present during my early days, well, I think it’s not unlikely we’d still be using feature-phones and WAP gateways so we could tinker with that new mobile-internet stuff everyone’s raving about.

karaterobot 2y ago

"Well enough" is doing a lot of work here. It's not that they aren't successful, it's that they aren't immediate, runaway hits, so the manufacturers conclude: why bother trying to build this market, let's just go back to the playbook. That's how you get mediocre products, which is where we are now.

dageshi 2y ago
I'm sorry to say this, but again just face the reality of the fact that not enough people truly want this size of phone. There's a congregation of people on HN who do, I suspect they're also the type of people who'll run their phones for 5+ years where their bigger phone buying brethren are replacing every year or two at most. The market for the "small" smartphone just isn't profitable enough to bother with for most manufacturers.

gen220 2y ago

Speaking for myself, I 100% would have bought an iPhone Mini, but I purchase new phones on a 5-6 year cycle. My iPhones were the 4S and the XS. Now that I'm ready to buy a new iPhone, the Mini has been discontinued! I think the Mini would have been and in fact was successful, but it's not successful "enough" to justify a separate model – they must have observed that people "like me" would still buy a flagship iPhone, even though we aren't 100% satisfied with the form factor. Apple would rather have us buying a higher-margin flagship model and have an NPS of 65+ than a lower-margin mini model with an NPS of 80+. My friend with similar instincts as me recently got a refurbished 13 Mini instead of the latest flagship. I'll probably get the flagship, because I value the satcom a little bit more than the form factor.

wruza 2y ago

Don’t produce it in the same volumes then? Did you know that factories make less big-sized and small-sized shoes than average-sized ones? Because (surprise) buyers size distribution is not uniform. “We tried to make big shoes many times and it doesn’t sell well enough”. Oh, really. I guess I’ll just cut holes for my fingers then.

galdosdi 2y ago
Maybe the fixed costs of a shoe factory production line, in 2024, with centuries of production experience, are lower than those of a top of the line smartphone.
nuancebydefault 2y ago
> fingers Lol
- ttonelli 2y ago
  Don't know the op's language, but in Portuguese there's a single word for toes and fingers. So I did not notice the issue until you pointed out!
- wruza 2y ago
  Ah, cringe. In my defense, https://www.reddit.com/r/LinguisticMaps/comments/pyrli2/which_languages_have_different_words_for_finger/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LinguisticMaps/comments/pyrli2/whic...
ethersteeds 2y ago
Well, speaking as someone with US 14 men's feet, a fair number of manufacturers do just refuse. Many shoes top out at 13, and many socks at 12!

SirMaster 2y ago

Just because the sentiment is a minority doesn't mean it's not an honest sentiment. I also would love a smaller flagship spec'd phone. I know it wont be popular, but I still want it.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
Its the worst of both worlds. Not popular and harder to engineer. So it makes it hard to pitch to business.

LtWorf 2y ago

By "it has been tried" you mean that they sold some crappy phone for almost the same price as a way better one?

dageshi 2y ago
Well that's also an issue, the audience that wants a smaller phone is also spread across all the price points that the regular audience is. So it's even less viable for manufacturers to make small phones.