9 ms·

My cynical take is that small phones don't exist because they are not the product. Similar to vape pens the product is the addictive substance the device loads.

• abujazar 1y ago
  Agreed. I'd prefer a modern iPhone the size of an iPhone 4, it was perfegt. I made the same "upgrade" from 12 mini to 16 Pro, and the 16 Pro is so large and heavy. Feels like we're moving backwards in time.
  • walterbell 1y ago
    2026 iPhone Fold is rumored iPhone Mini size unfolding to iPad Mini size. https://9to5mac.com/2025/04/28/iphone-18-fold-details-launch-soon/ https://9to5mac.com/2025/04/28/iphone-18-fold-details-launch...
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    • frosted-flakes 1y ago
      Folding phones don't solve the problem of oversized phones, which is that they are awkward and cumbersome to use.
      • walterbell 1y ago
        Some customers want a phone the size of iPhone Mini, rumored to be sold for $2K+ by Apple in 2026.
        • notpushkin 1y ago
          Hmmm, so there will be decent small screens produced in 2026, and it would be feasible to make small phones around them?
      • theshackleford 1y ago
        > they are awkward and cumbersome to use. For you. As someone with large hands, I appreciate that phones grew in size and I swapped to larger devices as soon as I could.
        • const_cast 1y ago
          For... well, most people. Half of people are women, so I don't know how they do it. I'm a man, with man hands, and modern phones are not one hand operable. You need two hands. Even if you can do a particular operation with one hand, the phone is unsteady and it's awkward. I think people with large hands are definitely the minority. So, we're not optimizing for hand size. We're optimizing for engagement, I think.
          • thaumasiotes 1y ago
            It was observed a long time ago on HN that women, with their tiny hands, loved huge phones - since they were using small phones two-handed anyway - and it was the men who complained that small, one-handed phones stopped being sold.
            • const_cast 1y ago
              Depends on how you define small. I we're talking back in the era of 3 inch screens, I doubt this.
          • 1y ago
    • dontlaugh 1y ago
      I hope they instead (or also) make a flip version opening up to at most the size of a regular iPhone.
    • layer8 1y ago
      It's not iPhone mini sized, the outer screen is wider than even a Pro Max, and it will likely be heavier than a Pro. See here for dimensions and mockups: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/rumoured-iphone-fold-size-concept-drawing-and-renders.2456447/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/rumoured-iphone-fold-si...
      • ksec 1y ago
        That is actually what I have in mind and a much better design. Current Foldable are too tall.
  • dontlaugh 1y ago
    .
• Liftyee 1y ago
  Out of curiosity, why's it your last Apple product? Watching lots of Louis Rossmann has put me almost ideologically against Apple (even though they design great hardware and smooth UX within their ecosystem), but I'm not good at forming coherent points to present to Apple loving friends. For me so far, I think it's about control over what I buy - but the rebuttal is always "you're buying a product from them, if you don't like it then tough".
  • pclowes 1y ago
    I just don't see the value add anymore and the company appears to have lost its product vision and the design sensibilities are slipping. Apple is controlled by a geriatric board and a logistics expert and it shows. I feel I am more frequently encountering software bugs, vaporware,(dESiGnEd fOr ApPle InTelLiGeNce), and ridiculous "innovation" (genmoji). I feel the hardware advances are not very relevant to me, I don't need VR or augmented reality. I want a computer to get out of my way and solve problems for me so I can spend time in plain old reality. The hardware upgrades I DO care about are ridiculously overpriced (Ram upgrades are abusively expensive). While I prefer my computer to be a tool to get a job done and don't want the computer itself to be a hobby. I also do not want to be forced to use AI. I also dislike the rent seeking and toolbooth behavior of iMessage and the App store. Now that linux has more paved paths, things increasingly "just work" and hardware has basically caught up I don't see a good reason to support Apple's non-vision with my money.
    • scarface_74 1y ago
      What Linux computer can you buy with the battery life, quietness, lack of heat and speed of a modern ARM based Mac? As far as phones - your alternative is to buy an Android phone with an operating system by an ad company that is also pushing AI just as hard. And you still end up getting most apps from the Google Play Store. By the way, iMessage supports SMS/MMS/RCS for interoperability. What else do you want?
      • pastage 1y ago
        I have stopped caring so I caved in to work policy and got an iPhone, and I really do not see the point. It is just a thing no better or worse than an Android...
• uniq7 1y ago
  How can KPIs from Google/Apple/Meta/X have any impact on the products third-party Android phone manufacturers decide to sell?
  • pclowes 1y ago
    I think most major players have the same incentives and minor players don't have the economies of scale to make it work economically. Also the longer I used my iphone mini and the rest of the world moved to comically large phones the more it became apparent that nobody is thinking about small screen form factors in design and when they do its only around ad placement.
    • bondarchuk 1y ago
      But, for example, what is the money flow from google/advertising in general to Motorola, that makes them not want to release a small screen model in their lineup of cheap phones?
      • TheDong 1y ago
        Instagram, Tiktok, and Google have gotten users addicted to consuming content, and larger screens help with that. We are helplessly addicted to digital cocaine, and so we demand large phones, and so motorola will not make money selling a small phone. It's like the parent said: our addiction is the product, and so just like a chain-smoker will say "I want to quit" as they buy 5 packs a day, a modern smartphone user will say "I want a smaller screen and to look at ads less" as they hopelessly buy a 10 inch phablet and can't go 5 minutes without pulling it from their pocket to check tiktok. It is not that the money from advertising flows, it is that the addicted users have already been ruined, and will not buy the devices they say they want.
        • bondarchuk 1y ago
          Sure, but that's something totally different. Basically just "customers don't want it and won't buy it". I understood the root comment to imply some kind of more direct incentive: "A smaller screen probably negatively impacts KPIs on many levels" - if advertising KPIs are supposed to be given precedence over demand from consumers there has to be at least some kind of mechanism for it. "No major player wants a smaller screen because it has downstream impacts on the pipeline of addictive material and ad pixels they can stuff into ocular nerves." -- what is the direct (or indirect) pressure that the major players can exert over some more or less independent hw manufacturer like Motorola? I'm not saying it's impossible, it reminds me of e.g. the situation where (pre iphone) carriers blocked phones from having wifi because they wanted them to be dependent on their network, but if something like this is happening it should be possible to roughly point out how.
• Teever 1y ago
  Funny you should mention this because disposable smartphone vapes are now being sold: https://www.vapezilla.com/collections/smart-vape-phone https://www.vapezilla.com/collections/smart-vape-phone
  • pclowes 1y ago
    Amazing. If someone had pitched this concept to the producers of "Idiocracy" they would have rejected it as too far fetched and ludicrous.
• khurs 1y ago
  >No major player wants a smaller screen because it has downstream impacts on the pipeline of addictive material and ad pixels they can stuff into ocular nerves. There are lots of phone manufacturers who have no ads business. They just make phones so why would they care? Size is dictated by trouser pocket size/handbag size and usage. Editing photos and movies to upload onto social media is probably better on a big screen. Also screen size is dictated by common panel sizes, as low volume will mean a higher price. Folding screens and iPad Mini's existence suggests people want larger screen real estate.
  • rtpg 1y ago
    I think photos are a big deal, but IMO it's more about the photo quality. And if you put a nice fancy camera on the phone, suddenly the device gets pretty expensive. And so while there are people who want "small screen + nice camera". There are people who want "small screen + small price". There are many people who _don't want the small screen_. So you have this phone that can cost a lot of money (in a pretty messy market where most phone models seem to not make money anyways), and you're going to cut off chunks of the market? So we end up with small screen + shitty camera and specs etc. And people here who want a small phone (but really want a small phone that isn't miserable to use) still are unsatisfied.
    • manwe150 1y ago
      I have an iPhone mini, and my understanding is that I lose quite a bit of battery life also by not having the full sized version. The market definitely prefers long runtimes, free from frequent charging, while I need to carry a charge pack sometimes, although just when I expect it to be needed.
  • makeitdouble 1y ago
    > There are lots of phone manufacturers who have no ads business. They just make phones so why would they care? There are still bound to the screen resolution dictated by the platforms/environment. A maker selling an android phone with a 480x640px screen would face a huge uphill battle to see any sales. Going for a smaller physical screen means higher DPI, so higher production costs and quality control issues. It can make more sense to buy cheaper, low DPI screen and make the whole device bigger to match the needed pixel count.
• _carbyau_ 1y ago
  The issue is "bigger numbers" marketing. The story for much of smartphone history was the flagship had a bigger screen. But then it hit the practicable limits of what people can pocket/hold-comfortably. If you make a phone with a smaller screen but want to call it "flagship" then you'd better have some good marketing to reverse the perception.
  • w-ll 1y ago
    I think the other thing is pretty much everyone has a smartphone android/ios, and so the rev model has changed for android its youtube/movies, and for ios its apple tv.
  • p0w3n3d 1y ago
    Please note that Samsung flagship S24 is smaller than non-flagship A55 (the same release year)
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
• javier2 1y ago
  > I only traded out my iphone 12 mini just recently for an iphone 16 pro (likely the last apple product I will ever buy but thats another story) and aside from the camera it is basically the same. Just heavier, awkward to hold and slightly worse designed. Just did the exact same thing 5 months ago.. I still miss my 12 mini. Would strongly consider buying a 13 mini instead of its even being sold anymore.
  • grapesodaaaaa 1y ago
    I wish they had made a pro mini. The only reason I got rid of mine was for the zoom of the pro.
    • javier2 1y ago
      The main reason I traded was that work pays for a new phone and the battery was so bad I had to charge my 4 year old 12 mini twice a day.
  • abruzzi 1y ago
    i have a 13 mini. Its beat up, battery life is getting worse (even though I rarely use it) and both cameras are smashed (in my pocket during a motorcycle accident), but I look at all the options now and figure I'll just keep using this one. I'd rather be using an iPhone 4, but I need some stuff that that one didn't have to work with a glucose monitor.
  • devjab 1y ago
    I ended up replacing my 12 mini with a 6z flip from samsung. The only real annoyance is that Apple hasn't enabled RCS for Danish telecom companies yet. Well that and sand... We'll see how long it lives though. The reason I originally went to apple was because my first smartphone (a galaxy 2) sort of did the planned obsolescence thing exactly the same way my two buddies galaxy 2's did at the time. If the flip lives for 5ish years then I'll likely never go back to apple. Unless they make a phone that will actually fit comfortable in my pockets again. The little half screen on the flip is useless though. Basically nothing works on it.
• scarface_74 1y ago
  That makes no sense. The only phone companies that make money from how often you use your phone and buy apps on it are Apple and Google. If there were a market for it other companies would make them. As far as the mini phones - because physics - the battery life is atrocious. That was one of the main drivers for me to get a larger phone. Well that and because I can pull down the Control Center and use the widget to make everything on my phone larger and still be able to use it without wearing my glasses. With my glasses, I keep everything the smallest size
  • sjw987 1y ago
    But Apple and Google (Pixel) are a huge portion of the market.. The other manufacturers are forced to go along with the market leaders, but sometimes also side-load apps for post-device-sale revenue.
    • scarface_74 1y ago
      The pixel is not a “huge portion of the market”. It’s 4% of the market in the US (https://www.counterpointresearch.com/insight/post-insight-us-smartphone-sellin-down-4-yoy-in-q3-as-demand-remains-muted/ https://www.counterpointresearch.com/insight/post-insight-us...) and a nothingburger outside of it. Globally, Apple has what 20% market share? And besides Qualcomm chips, Apple has a complete separate parts supply chain than Android. Besides, Samsung could definitely create its own small phone and would if there were a market.
      • sjw987 1y ago
        Sorry, in my national market. Apple has 51%, Samsung has around 28% and Google 5%. These 3 hold almost 85% of the UK market. Samsung, from what I remember used to side-load tons of apps (some alongside identical stock Android apps), so it's in their best interest to maximise screen time through media apps, which generally work best on a bigger screen. It's against all of these companies interests to sell you a phone which you quickly use and put away. They all have every incentive to keep you staring, because they're all getting extra money from every ad you see in a game, TV show, movie, web browsing, or wherever else they can slot it.
• strken 1y ago
  I used to buy ZenFones, but they're huge now. It feels like there's some combination of poor sales and parts commonality that causes the problem, not a shadowy conspiracy, since I don't think ASUS and other manufacturers have a significant way to benefit from phone addiction.
  • Marazan 1y ago
    I have the last non-huge ZenFone. The new ZenFones are just rebadged ROGs which explains the massive size jump. I'm not looking forward to replacing this phone when it ages out.
• 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
  I don't think that's cynical- it's obvious that larger screens allow more phone usage and more ads on the larger screen.
  • NoPicklez 1y ago
    It's still a cynical point of view nonetheless
• nine_k 1y ago
  I see it differently. Modern web → the browser → powerful CPU/GPU → big battery → big device → why not cover it with a big screen.
  • roxolotl 1y ago
    Couldn’t we make it thicker though? The rumored iPhone air is the exact opposite of what I want. Give me a thicker phone with a smaller screen and I’d pay Pro prices for it.
    • walterbell 1y ago
      Air is intermediate to Fold (2X Air thickness) with 5.5" screen and $2K+ price, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44587911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44587911
      • roxolotl 1y ago
        Yea I might have to get a fold. I really don’t want a damn crease in my screen though. I’d almost prefer a Nintendo DS style.
        • arresin 1y ago
          Think of the nds emulation though!
    • XorNot 1y ago
      Thicker things don't fit in pockets as well, they're unwieldy. I've gotten my EDC down to 1 leather ID sleeve with my credit card and drivers license in it, and my phone. This is probably still thicker then it should be, but it's soft so I don't feel the bulk or edges.
  • brightbeige 1y ago
    That’s how I see it. Screen size is area (x^2) and battery size is volume (x^3). As battery life is a critical feature, a bigger screen fits better battery life.
• paulcole 1y ago
  > However, it does seem like there is a profitable business for someone there given how beloved it was/is. Normal people didn’t love small phones. They loved their small iPhones. When it comes down to it they will not love the Pine Phone Mini. For the vast majority of people, the key feature is that it’s an iPhone not that it’s small.
• 2muchcoffeeman 1y ago
  You’re way too cynical and have let your cynicism cloud history. The first phablets were probably the Galaxy Note line starting in 2011 which was met with some skepticism due to the size of them. These were well before the edge to edge screen days. So you had 5.7 inch screens with a bezel. They were huge but I would routinely see small women pull these things out of their hand bags and press a device that obscured almost their whole face and start chatting. Things steadily got bigger from there. The general population WANTED this.
  • makeitdouble 1y ago
    Parent's take is not whether bigger phones shouldn't exist, it's why smaller phones stopped being produced, which is a fairly different angle. > women To note, the initial smartphones were already too big for he taste of many: a clamshell feature phone was almost a third of the size of the original iPhone. From that POV, going to a phone that is twice as big is less of a barrier, as they had to keep it in a bag/purse in the first place. The return of foldables is also pretty well received in that regard.
    • ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
      Just tonight, I saw a friend of mine, pull a new foldable Razr from her purse. They are cool phones, but I do iOS. I still use a 13 Mini, and will continue to do so, for quite some time. As to the point of this article, I seem to recall a couple of very small Android phones, some years ago (about credit-card sized). I guess they didn’t sell well.
      • makeitdouble 1y ago
        > very small Android phones IMHO this is just not viable in the current world. I agree with line the article sets (5"4 for 1080p, almost the size of the Pixel 4a), as mainstream apps will properly work at that size. I still have a working 4a, and some banking apps are getting pretty cramped for instance. And many websites already need furious panning and zooming. A credit card size phone would only work for people who basically hate their phones I think.
• protocolture 1y ago
  Phones had smaller screens when you needed the keypad to interact with the largest number of features. Phone screen sizes grew as the applications that could use screen space grew in demand. People are watching 1080p films on the train now. The people who want smaller screens are usually willing to deal with a larger one. People who want larger screens usually cant operate their use cases on a smaller screen. Larger screens also tend to mask larger case meaning less miniaturisation required for the components.
  • thaumasiotes 1y ago
    None of this explains why it's just impossible to get small phones. You have people who want them unusably large and people who want them to fit in your hand. The solution in every other market is that products are manufactured to fit both sets of needs. You don't see pants coming in one size with the advice "wear a belt". What's going on?
    • dalmo3 1y ago
      I agree with the sentiment, but pants is a very funny example. Every manufacturer seems to think people are either tall and fat or short and slim. I'm tall and my only alternative is literally to wear a belt.
    • protocolture 1y ago
      >You don't see pants coming in one size with the advice "wear a belt". Great example. Because people who are shorter than average tend to have to get pants taken up, and people who are vastly taller than average tend to go to specialty stores. The average height of pants is largely dictated by what the market will permit, requiring people to make adjustments or leave the market. Having a 2d matrix of height and width defined pant sizes is too complex for the market to bother with. Technology is worse, anything that requires tooling is done the least number of times possible. While small phone enjoyers are disadvantaged, they arent disadvantaged enough to force them out of the market. Larger tooling is easier to make and caters to all other preferences.
      • 1y ago
• conradev 1y ago
  The margins are also worse, which is way, way closer to a manufacturer’s bottom line than the software ecosystem. There is demand for larger phones, yes, but manufacturers also charge more for bigger devices and most of that is margin. Following their own logic, they also charge less for smaller phones. If your customers are sticky, then many of the people who buy the smaller phone would have otherwise bought a bigger phone for more money. Introducing a smaller phone brings down profits.
  • ginko 1y ago
    >manufacturers also charge more for bigger devices and most of that is margin. Why do they do that though? Usually more compact, high end devices would be more expensive than bulkier one. When has this trend reversed?
    • nicholassmith 1y ago
      Bigger equals better consumer perception, I imagine driven in part by the top-tier phones being larger to fit additional battery capacity in for the higher performance processors making all larger devices carry some premium cachet.
• dangus 1y ago
  I thought that was the case but I tried going small. I owned an iPhone 13 mini. Basically the perfect small phone if there ever was one. The downsides are extensive and the upsides are few. - Battery life sucked. Since a phone is a 3D object making it bigger substantially increases battery capacity. It also makes packaging difficult especially if the goal is a flagship-quality phone. Good luck fitting in good hardware with a lot of features. - Eyestrain. It’s small. - Typing. It sucks. The phone is small. And it turns out the upside of one-handed operation is limited. A simple PopSocket or OhSnap! will make large phones easy to use in one hand. Plus, if pocketability is your issue, you can buy a folding phone like a Motorola Razr and still get a nice big screen when you pull it out.
  • phyrex 1y ago
    I disagree. I'm reading and typing this from an iPhone 13 mini. I use a big one for work so it's not like I don't know what I'm missing. I very strongly prefer the small form factor
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• chupchap 1y ago
  No, the bigger devices just sold more. Larger screen size is a major factor in deciding which phone to buy globally.
• nunez 1y ago
  I thought the theory behind the 12 and 13 minis was that Apple had a huge surplus of parts that they needed to offload, and making the minis was a profitable way of doing that.
  • saagarjha 1y ago
    But they launched alongside the flagship devices?
  • dontlaugh 1y ago
    I think that’s the SEs.
• al_borland 1y ago
  This is the part that frustrates me. Apple keeps introducing software “solutions” for hardware problems. Reachability, Screen Time, Focus Modes, etc. A smaller phone naturally solves most of these problems. Small phones act as more of a utility device for when you’re away from a proper computer. This is all I want my phone to be. I really think they got it right the first time in 2007. I ended up switching from a 13 mini (I had the 12 mini as well) to a 16 Pro. I was having a lot of battery life issues, and kept running into apps that clearly didn’t fully test with the smaller screen. I also really missed having a telephoto lens. My phone usage went up; my laptop/desktop usage went down. I don’t like that. Compared to a normal computer, a phone is still worse in almost every way, other than mobility. It’s just now tolerable enough to put up with more of the time. I’m writing this on the phone, it would have been easier on a keyboard and mouse.
  • oc1 1y ago
    The 13 mini didn't solve any of these issues for me plus the worse battery life. I upgraded to 16 pro max. My laptop usage also went down from there. Total screen time probably stayed, but now i carry most of the time just a phone instead of phone and laptop. If you want something less addictive there is probably the apple watch but you still need the phone to configure and now you're strapped to a device 24/7 just for the sake to be used less.
  • gargan 1y ago
    You could take the 13 mini to Apple and swap out the battery for a new one? That might solve some of the battery issues
    • al_borland 1y ago
      This was the internal debate I was having with myself. I bought the 13 mini the day the 14 was released and saw they were killing the mini line. The goal was to keep it until it was literally dead, replacing the battery as needed. The battery of the 13 mini was supposed to be better than the 12 mini, but that was not my experience. The battery also wasn’t the main issue, just a contributing factor. I was ok using the battery as a signal for when I was using the phone too much and taking it as a signal to reevaluate my usage. Seeing software bugs related to the screen size, as figuring that would only get worse now that new phones didn’t come in the smaller size… that’s what made me think I might as well get the transition over with. I’ve had battery issues with the 16 Pro, but those are software bugs. Some days my phone will give me a low battery warning by noon. I end up killing all the apps, charging it up again, and then it’s fine. It’s happened about 4 or 5 times, but I haven’t been able to tell what’s doing it.
• GarnetFloride 1y ago
  What was so odd was how Apple fumbled the iPhone mini launch by launching the iPhone SE first. At that point there hadn't been a small phone for a few years, There was pent up demand. The SE came out and it was a big success, lots of people wanted ti because it was a small phone. Then few months later they launched the mini expecting it to sell even more or something. Somehow they missed that everyone that wanted a small phone had just bought the SE, and it just wasn't long enough for them to be worth upgrading to the much better mini. Had they waited for a year to pass the mini might have done much better because those who wanted a more powerful phone could find an excuse for an upgrade after a year, less then 6 months, not so much.
  • vidyesh 1y ago
    Your theory makes sense until it falls apart if you consider SE and Mini as the same category of small iPhones. If the only reason why Mini failed was bad launch time, then why haven't Apple launched anything small (SE or Mini) after 2022? Isn't 2024 or even 2025 the perfect time to launch an upgrade for SE or Mini? They now have enough data since the last launch of a small phone. iPhone SE 1st gen 2016 (Discontinued 2018) iPhone 12 Mini 2020 (Discontinued 2022) iPhone SE 2nd gen 2020 (Discontinued 2022) iPhone 13 Mini 2021 (Discontinued 2023) iPhone SE 3rd gen 2022 (Discontinued 2025)
    • tinytoon 1y ago
      I can confirm, that Apple my misunderstood the market: I was eager to buy a new iPhone because I just finished my masters degree and started a new job, had a bit of money and than the SE2 launched. My 5s or SE1 started to age and as an beginner app developer a current phone was important. I was so happy because I could not see my self using one of those bigger phones even though the SE2 was still bigger than my 5s/SE1. A few months later the mini was released and my initial reaction was "OMG this is THE perfect phone, but I just got a new one... i can not afford to buy another one".
    • jorvi 1y ago
      The problem is that people who want a small phone prioritize the size. Most of them don't care about the premium features of larger phones. So the Mini was a weird niche within a niche. Small phone with premium price and features. The Mini and SE2 were virtually identical in physical size. For the 16e they should have used the iPhone 12/13 Mini body and the 13 Mini screen. Use the 15 Pro SoC with 8GB memory, and the 15 camera. Sell it for an SE price. Now you have fused the small phone and budget iPhone markets.
• jayd16 1y ago
  What an angry way to say "they're bigger because people use the screen for apps and media."
• aucisson_masque 1y ago
  It’s an interesting take but I believe most people just prefer bigger phone. I know it’s weird to those of us who like the opposite and funnily enough it’s often women who have gigantic phone, which they can’t put in their tiny jean pocket. I don’t explain it and every time I get explained they like it better because it’s got bigger battery and bigger screen, I just don’t understand how you could live your life with a brick constantly on you but it’s what people want. The market just adapted to the demand and it’s not a 40k « petition » that will change much.
  • LtWorf 1y ago
    Do you have any fact at all to back your opinion?
  • FinnKuhn 1y ago
    > I know it’s weird to those of us who like the opposite and funnily enough it’s often women who have gigantic phone, which they can’t put in their tiny jean pocket. Most women carry their phone in a hand bag anyway as the pockets on most pants for women are way to small either way [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/06/style/pockets-womens-clothing.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/06/style/pockets-womens-clot...
    • prmoustache 1y ago
      Most women pants have no or fake pockets anyway, So the smartphone to pants pocket size relationship is usually only a parameter for men.
      • bigstrat2003 1y ago
        The pants thing is another baffling mystery. I know exactly zero women who want their pants to not have pockets. Yet manufacturers absolutely refuse to add pockets. It seems like a complete market failure.
  • BrtByte 1y ago
    But it's also true that manufacturers don't always serve niches well
• dheera 1y ago
  Curious, what happened to the Palm phone (https://palm.com/ https://palm.com/)?
• zerr 1y ago
  I'd say the same goes for the removal of FM Radios from mainstream phones.
  • keyringlight 1y ago
    FM radio uses the headphone cable as an antenna, so with the move to bluetooth I assume it got squashed for similar reasons. The other aspect is it assumes if you want live radio that you're happy needing an active data connection and allowance, any any local stations have a stream available. One of the things I love about streaming (via RadioDroid, etc) is that you can get a station from anywhere on the planet but sometimes you want something a bit more basic.
    • fsflover 1y ago
      https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-hidden-costs-of-streaming-music https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-hidde...
    • tomwheeler 1y ago
      > FM radio uses the headphone cable as an antenna, so with the move to bluetooth I assume it got squashed for similar reasons. Some may prefer Bluetooth headphones, and there are countless apologists who now retroactively parrot the manufacturers' excuses for why headphone jacks were eliminated, but it wasn't something the _users_ asked for or wanted. "Oh, but phones are waterproof now," they claim! Well, so was the Samsung Galaxy S5 I bought in 2014. And by the way, it also had a user-removable battery, removable storage, an FM radio, and an IR blaster. All these years later, you can't find a new phone with all of those features and it's very difficult to find a flagship phone with even _one_ of them.
• dakiol 1y ago
  I don’t know.If I have a “big” phone (anything bigger than the iphone mini, at least for me), I’ll leave it at home most of the time. But if it’s small, I’ll take it with me everywhere. So I can be bombarded with crap more time if I use a small phone.
  • pyman 1y ago
    Phones are big now because people want better cameras and longer battery life. Also, people are spending 4-5 hours more per day on screens than they did 15 years ago, so they want bigger screen for reading, playing games and watching videos.
    • volemo 1y ago
      I know I can’t claim to be “the norm”, but all I want is a smaller phone with 1–2 day battery life. I don’t need a better screen, a better camera, or ever more compute. (It’s a freaking smartphone, not a game console!) All I need my phone to do is run a web browser, messaging apps, maps, my banking app, and random little apps some organisations force you to use – like my university’s app, my city’s public transport app, or half the restaurants here. Things that could easily be done with 10–15 year old hardware. Sadly, the industry chose to keep the power consumption constant increasing while computational power, instead of focusing on smaller devices and longer battery life with the same power. Again, I’m not angry that current phones exist; I’m just sad there aren’t (good) alternatives – at least that I know of.
      • prmoustache 1y ago
        Did I read it right, are you installing "resstaurants apps"?
        • volemo 1y ago
          Yep, in my area a couple of dining places only list their menu in an app [1], a bunch of places have some kind of membership program accessible through the app, and one standup club requires (!) an app to order drinks and food. [1]: There’s a paper one in the restaurant, of course, but I like to choose beforehand.
• bapak 1y ago
  Pointless rant. Apple does not earn more or less depending on how many ads it can show. The market has spoken, it's not worthwhile for Apple to produce small phones. There are a million companies that are not Google that could also produce mini phones and don't for the same exact reason: most people want large screens to enjoy videos and photos. Nobody cares about small screens and pockets, everyone holds their phones in their hands or purses at all times.
• raynr 1y ago
  I think that's the cart before the horse. People buy the big phones and so businesses cater for that.
• crossroadsguy 1y ago
  Just like 16e, Mini and SE were meant to push up the sales of their "other" phones. Otherwise they would not have had both Mini and SE. I mean it was a joke. But Hanlon's razor and the way Apple has been on a screwing up spree of late I doubt it was anything intentional. They f'ed up knowing not what to do at all. They don't anymore.
  • atemerev 1y ago
    Sometimes assuming just a tiny bit of malice can explain what otherwise had to be explained by a lot of stupidity. Occam's razor beats Hanlon's razor.
• TulliusCicero 1y ago
  Conspiracy minded bullshit. Like it or not, Apple keeps cancelling smaller phone lines because they don't sell well. That's it. If they sold really well then they'd keep selling them, but they don't. I would also love more capable small phones personally, but I can't deny that people overall don't seem to want them.
• sjw987 1y ago
  I posted a bit too late and didn't see your post first, which more or less is exactly along my thinking. Modern phones are sold (even at profit) with the intent that there is more payments/ad revenue coming down the line, for movies, TV, games and web browsing/social media. A big screen makes that experience better for people and advertisers. It's a cynical take, but the entire business model is based on building and promoting addiction. They have no interest in selling phones for utility purposes only, even though that's largely how they advertise the phones, because advertising a 5 hour plus daily screen time isn't sexy at all.
• amelius 1y ago
  Yes, the iPhone is basically a vending machine in your pocket. Owned and run by Apple. But you paid for it. Quite smart, actually.
• vbezhenar 1y ago
  I feel that the problem with small phones roots in software. Obviously you would need to run smaller resolution. My sweet spot was iPhone 4S. It has 3.5" display with 640x960 resolution. If you would try to run modern Android with this resolution, you would hit multiple obstacles, from popular apps to popular websites scaling badly.
• raxxorraxor 1y ago
  Many people in Asia seem to prefer gigantic screens and since it is the largest market, most phones get produced that way.
• mpascale00 1y ago
  I mean, are the phones themselves really making money off ads or are those totally separate companies? I don't disagree that this brings in business, but I don't agree that this is a significant motivator in terms of phone sizes
• BrtByte 1y ago
  Bigger screens mean more time spent, more ad real estate, more "content," more dopamine loops