I wish that this was seen as a good thing, not a bad thing. Everyone who wants an iPhone already has one, Apple makes good products that last, and new phones these days are incremental updates rather than revolutionary new products, so there’s not a large incentive to upgrade.
The iPhone, and really, most phones today, are pretty amazing pieces of technology in a glass slab. Expecting phenomenal changes between versions at this point might be asking for too much. Apple stuck itself in a corner with "stock" driven development.
Mostly to keep up with website/app bloat, and better cameras if you like taking photos or videos. Other improvements like better screens or battery life are nice too, but only really noticeable if you're jumping a few phone generations at a time.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I get that some people spend their lives on their phones, but myself, with desktop, laptop and big hands, I don't want to carry half a tablet in my pocket to text people and play music. I adore my 12 Mini. I just wish it felt as thin as the 8
It's the other way around: websites have problems with small browser windows.
And not just on phones, just yesterday an online shop's product images were invisible and glitchy unless the browser took up at least 2/3 of my 28" screen.
How was the form factor of 4S different than 4? I think the ridges on the sides were placed differently but that can’t honestly be something you care about?
I think that we have now crossed some kind of threshold where processors and hardware in general are getting better at a rate faster than we can make our software more advanced (or bloated, whatever) to counter it.
Thus, hardware upgrades are now driven by software availability and not hardware going out of date quickly.
Yeah, why would you? There have been how many Septembers since you got your current phone? Each one has had a new iPhone released. Next September there will be a new iPhone, and the September after that...
Get a new phone when you want a new phone. You don't need a new one just because there is a new one.
Why Pro etc for a Mini? I thought the point of Mini was not only to be a sanely sized phone but also a phone that is just a useful phone and not a phone with spec list that were more than overkill.
The fact that a Pro costs the same as previous generations Pro Max, and Pro Max is 25% over that, might also have something to do with it.
My wife still has iPhone X and as much as she's loving it, she wants some of the AI features for her hobbies and work. When we saw the price here in Eastern Europe we almost had a jaw drop moment. We're still buying it but... frak.
Apple is very openly abusing its monopoly at this point and no, don't tell me there are good competitors. Even the Galaxy S24 Ultra doesn't have as good a software.
Speaking of which, anybody can recommend a good gallery app that has Apple Photos' features?
Opinions vary obviously in this neverending "debate", but iOS is far from being good software unless you're neck deep in the ecosystem and don't know any better. Just because the UI is child-friendly doesn't make it useful. AOSP/LineageOS/GrapheneOS, especially with root, are excellent.
We are "neck deep in the ecosystem" by the mere virtue of actually using the said features. If that means "we don't know any better" then we're not going to find a productive common ground for discussion. We took what was offered. Again, do let me know if you believe there are actual alternatives. One example: Apple Photos' OCR worked better than many paid softwares I used 5-10 years ago.
And yeah I heard about Immich, thank you for the reminder. Guess I'll go scout what's out there and likely post a blog article here on HN at one point.
My plan is to only upgrade when a 13 mini alternative comes out - and only after it’s been out for 2 years so that I can buy it used for an acceptable price.
I understand there’s not as much demand for smaller smartphones, but then again, I would go on a limb and say there’s more demand than the demand Apple get’s to upgrade a device every year.
If they went on a 3 years alternating basis mini>standard>pro that would probably appeal to a very big lot of people.
This article is bunk and misinformation . Employees almost always get a single personal discount on launch day. I’ve managed to score many a launch day product from friends there.
What they don’t get on launch day is their lower tier discount for friends which (unless my friends are uncharacteristically holding out) they don’t have yet either.
Interestingly Reddit saw through the click bait, but HN didn't.
1. The analysts quote is false: EPP purchases have been available for launch day for several years. (And he should know that, but analysts are part of the principal/agent problem.)
2. Analyst's sales figures are based on hot air. Apple don't publish them and, while this same claim is falsely made every year, the main data gathering metric for tracking sales in the past (the nebulous "emails receipts") has been knocked out.
3. The comments about China are not just false, but long out of date. iPhone demand in China has already rebounded from an industry-wide 2 month slump in February and March.
4. Finally: a cursory review of shipping times across a range of Apple's own websites shows the same level of demand as usual: as the largest iPhone markets the USA and China continue to have the lion's share of stock, while most others have already slipped into 2-3 week delivery windows for October: UK, DE, FR, AE, AU, NZ sampled.
Anecdata: I’m upgrading to a 16 this year and was ready for preorder at 1pm on the 13th, but due to a transient banking issue my credit card was repeatedly declined for about 20 mins. When I finally got an order in, the shipping date was a few weeks later. You can’t take any exact measurements from this but I’d say they’re selling plenty of them still.
1. HN on average loves Apple doom and gloom stories. So I’m not surprised nobody questions the premise of the article.
2. Kuo (the analyst in question here) has had a very poor track record in the last couple years. His strength has always been supply chain and manufacturing numbers but I think he’s been struggling as Apple has diversified outside of China. Beyond that, his conjecture has always been full of head scratchers because he’s never been good at putting a story to the numbers.
Readit News
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.
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.
In addition, the mini is significantly larger than the 4S, so it doesn’t really address GP’s point.
This is my favorite model I've had since the 5! Guess I'm in the minority
Apparently 95% of users want big phones.
Deleted Comment
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/iphone/iphone-faq/differe...
Thus, hardware upgrades are now driven by software availability and not hardware going out of date quickly.
Yeah, why would you? There have been how many Septembers since you got your current phone? Each one has had a new iPhone released. Next September there will be a new iPhone, and the September after that...
Get a new phone when you want a new phone. You don't need a new one just because there is a new one.
Deleted Comment
Dead Comment
Why Pro etc for a Mini? I thought the point of Mini was not only to be a sanely sized phone but also a phone that is just a useful phone and not a phone with spec list that were more than overkill.
My wife still has iPhone X and as much as she's loving it, she wants some of the AI features for her hobbies and work. When we saw the price here in Eastern Europe we almost had a jaw drop moment. We're still buying it but... frak.
Apple is very openly abusing its monopoly at this point and no, don't tell me there are good competitors. Even the Galaxy S24 Ultra doesn't have as good a software.
Speaking of which, anybody can recommend a good gallery app that has Apple Photos' features?
Also Immich is a great gallery app.
And yeah I heard about Immich, thank you for the reminder. Guess I'll go scout what's out there and likely post a blog article here on HN at one point.
I understand there’s not as much demand for smaller smartphones, but then again, I would go on a limb and say there’s more demand than the demand Apple get’s to upgrade a device every year.
If they went on a 3 years alternating basis mini>standard>pro that would probably appeal to a very big lot of people.
What they don’t get on launch day is their lower tier discount for friends which (unless my friends are uncharacteristically holding out) they don’t have yet either.
1. The analysts quote is false: EPP purchases have been available for launch day for several years. (And he should know that, but analysts are part of the principal/agent problem.)
2. Analyst's sales figures are based on hot air. Apple don't publish them and, while this same claim is falsely made every year, the main data gathering metric for tracking sales in the past (the nebulous "emails receipts") has been knocked out.
3. The comments about China are not just false, but long out of date. iPhone demand in China has already rebounded from an industry-wide 2 month slump in February and March.
4. Finally: a cursory review of shipping times across a range of Apple's own websites shows the same level of demand as usual: as the largest iPhone markets the USA and China continue to have the lion's share of stock, while most others have already slipped into 2-3 week delivery windows for October: UK, DE, FR, AE, AU, NZ sampled.
1. HN on average loves Apple doom and gloom stories. So I’m not surprised nobody questions the premise of the article.
2. Kuo (the analyst in question here) has had a very poor track record in the last couple years. His strength has always been supply chain and manufacturing numbers but I think he’s been struggling as Apple has diversified outside of China. Beyond that, his conjecture has always been full of head scratchers because he’s never been good at putting a story to the numbers.