3 ms·

All I want is a replacement for my mini. Was waiting for a new SE figuring that’d be a reasonable substitute. Instead they roll out a phablet. Sigh.

by jghn 2y ago

hedora 2y ago
The SE3 is surprisingly capable, though it doesn’t have the ultra wide band radio, which means it can’t be used as a car key for one of our cars. (The 13 mini has that radio, but the car key feature is too unreliable to be useful.)
grandpoobah 2y ago
You'd think they'd chuck us a mini every few generations to keep us locked in. If my 13 mini dies I'll definitely be considering my non-Apple options.
- BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
  > If my 13 mini dies I'll definitely be considering my non-Apple options. I just can't imagine ever going back to Android though after switching to iOS a few years ago. If my 13 mini dies I think I'm going to cross my fingers and hope that another used one is still viable. Or maybe start carrying my phone on a shoulder strap instead of in my pocket. I don't know. The situation is unpleasant to contemplate.
  - wruza 2y ago
    As someone who tried, this “I’ll just go android” is just a dream. I almost threw it into the wall a few times while using it for around eight months. Returning to iphone felt like working with kittens after a year of insurance company clerk burnout. No one itt goes android.
crossroadsguy 2y ago
I have made peace with it. It's not coming. When I look around me - the number of people who want a small sized phone is exactly zero. The ship has sailed. I will still buy an SE if it's much cheaper than the base iPhone model and just one version old (on most hardware and doesn't have to be as powerful as the base iPhone) when my iPhone 14 dies. But seeing they are releasing it in 3 years now (or 4?) I am not sure that SE will be the one-gen-old when I might change my 14. It's been close to 2 years and I still struggle with the size of my iPhone 14 - and to think that this fucking phablet is the smallest iPhone. At this point I am just waiting for a much more affordable simple Android phone (with the OS being OEM-deGoogled and supported for at least 3 years with timely updates). I mean I will buy it even if it's slightly bigger than base iPhone because size was the reason I had bought my first iPhone which was the first SE :)
- pomian 2y ago
  If need to, keep your eyes open for phones that you can use Graphene on - it is the easiest, possibly safest, de-googled operating system. And very easy to install.
  - crossroadsguy 2y ago
    I don’t think any OEMs are going to support that. The ones that might or sell those niche de-googled phones are not selling in my country and seeing the world tier country is in those small firms are not selling/servicing here (and maybe rightly so). Also, I have tried flashing on my own. It’s not for me. I will however still have faint hopes for an OEM supported de-googled OS other than iOS.
    - hedora 2y ago
      I went down this path. The OEM support isn’t going to be your main problem. Google has pulled more and more of android out of the open source project (AOSP) over the years and replaced it with Google Play stuff that has hard dependencies on letting them surveil your phone. In practice, this means that stuff like GPS lock “needs” the cloud and won’t work reliably for most apps (it works fine for ones in fdroid, and in third party map apps, but not in Lyft, Uber, EV charging apps, or other commercial stuff that wants location). On top of that, many apps will silently crash at startup. Sometimes, giving them google play services fixes them, sometimes not. When I installed graphene, my phone battery got 2x the manufacturer estimate. When I added sandboxed google play services, it went down to the advertised battery life, so the phone spends about half its power budget spying on you. On top of that, if the iPhone not pro / max were an android, it’d be one of the smallest on the market. Good luck. I’d love to be proven wrong on either point.
- red369 2y ago
  I've also just made peace with Apple not releasing another small phone - I bought a used (unfortunately not Apple-refurbished) iPhone 13 Mini a few days ago. I'm holding out hope for: https://smallandroidphone.com/ https://smallandroidphone.com/
fire_lake 2y ago
Apple must know how many people jumped from mini to pro (smallest to smallest) and I bet it’s tiny.
- hedora 2y ago
  I think SE? <-> mini is more common. If my phone is lost, I’ll look for a refurbished version of one of a <= SE3 or a 13 mini. If it’s run over by a truck, i’ll put the pieces in a bag and ask apple to repair it. My budget for new phones is $1300 every three years, but no one makes a reasonable phone, so the budget is left unspent.

All I want is a replacement for my mini. Was waiting for a new SE figuring that’d be a reasonable substitute. Instead they roll out a phablet. Sigh.

by jghn 2y ago

All I want is a replacement for my mini. Was waiting for a new SE figuring that’d be a reasonable substitute. Instead they roll out a phablet. Sigh.

hedora 2y ago

The SE3 is surprisingly capable, though it doesn’t have the ultra wide band radio, which means it can’t be used as a car key for one of our cars. (The 13 mini has that radio, but the car key feature is too unreliable to be useful.)

grandpoobah 2y ago

You'd think they'd chuck us a mini every few generations to keep us locked in. If my 13 mini dies I'll definitely be considering my non-Apple options.

BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
> If my 13 mini dies I'll definitely be considering my non-Apple options. I just can't imagine ever going back to Android though after switching to iOS a few years ago. If my 13 mini dies I think I'm going to cross my fingers and hope that another used one is still viable. Or maybe start carrying my phone on a shoulder strap instead of in my pocket. I don't know. The situation is unpleasant to contemplate.
- wruza 2y ago
  As someone who tried, this “I’ll just go android” is just a dream. I almost threw it into the wall a few times while using it for around eight months. Returning to iphone felt like working with kittens after a year of insurance company clerk burnout. No one itt goes android.

crossroadsguy 2y ago

I have made peace with it. It's not coming. When I look around me - the number of people who want a small sized phone is exactly zero. The ship has sailed. I will still buy an SE if it's much cheaper than the base iPhone model and just one version old (on most hardware and doesn't have to be as powerful as the base iPhone) when my iPhone 14 dies. But seeing they are releasing it in 3 years now (or 4?) I am not sure that SE will be the one-gen-old when I might change my 14. It's been close to 2 years and I still struggle with the size of my iPhone 14 - and to think that this fucking phablet is the smallest iPhone. At this point I am just waiting for a much more affordable simple Android phone (with the OS being OEM-deGoogled and supported for at least 3 years with timely updates). I mean I will buy it even if it's slightly bigger than base iPhone because size was the reason I had bought my first iPhone which was the first SE :)

pomian 2y ago
If need to, keep your eyes open for phones that you can use Graphene on - it is the easiest, possibly safest, de-googled operating system. And very easy to install.
- crossroadsguy 2y ago
  I don’t think any OEMs are going to support that. The ones that might or sell those niche de-googled phones are not selling in my country and seeing the world tier country is in those small firms are not selling/servicing here (and maybe rightly so). Also, I have tried flashing on my own. It’s not for me. I will however still have faint hopes for an OEM supported de-googled OS other than iOS.
  - hedora 2y ago
    I went down this path. The OEM support isn’t going to be your main problem. Google has pulled more and more of android out of the open source project (AOSP) over the years and replaced it with Google Play stuff that has hard dependencies on letting them surveil your phone. In practice, this means that stuff like GPS lock “needs” the cloud and won’t work reliably for most apps (it works fine for ones in fdroid, and in third party map apps, but not in Lyft, Uber, EV charging apps, or other commercial stuff that wants location). On top of that, many apps will silently crash at startup. Sometimes, giving them google play services fixes them, sometimes not. When I installed graphene, my phone battery got 2x the manufacturer estimate. When I added sandboxed google play services, it went down to the advertised battery life, so the phone spends about half its power budget spying on you. On top of that, if the iPhone not pro / max were an android, it’d be one of the smallest on the market. Good luck. I’d love to be proven wrong on either point.
red369 2y ago
I've also just made peace with Apple not releasing another small phone - I bought a used (unfortunately not Apple-refurbished) iPhone 13 Mini a few days ago. I'm holding out hope for: https://smallandroidphone.com/ https://smallandroidphone.com/

fire_lake 2y ago

Apple must know how many people jumped from mini to pro (smallest to smallest) and I bet it’s tiny.

hedora 2y ago
I think SE? <-> mini is more common. If my phone is lost, I’ll look for a refurbished version of one of a <= SE3 or a 13 mini. If it’s run over by a truck, i’ll put the pieces in a bag and ask apple to repair it. My budget for new phones is $1300 every three years, but no one makes a reasonable phone, so the budget is left unspent.