[amilios]

Unfortunately both the 12 Mini and the 13 Mini did terrible numbers sales-wise. People say they want small phones but not enough of them actually buy them when they are available. :(

[Cyph0n]

“An iPhone mini would sell like hotcakes” is a HN meme at this point.

[notatoad]

do people seriously not remember that an iPhone mini used to exist, and definitely did not sell like hotcakes?

[mort96]

I genuinely don't think I've seen that sentiment? "I really want a smaller phones, these gigantic bricks are too big" is a common sentiment but I don't think anyone disputes the sales figures of the mini

[1270018080]

It sold like hotcakes for the people who wanted them at least

[okanat]

People don't buy phones every year. People don't want to pay 95% price for 80% of performance / features.

Smaller phones as an idea isn't the problem here. Companies just don't want to make equivalent smaller phones. Making a new phone every single year is a stupid trend that causes min-max effects. A good small phone will eat into profits that's harder to make up in a yearly cycle. People will not buy nerfed smaller phones which is a positive feedback cycle.

[rTX5CMRXIfFG]

> People don't want to pay 95% price for 80% of performance / features.

I want to believe this too but you have to look at iPhone sales numbers

[1oooqooq]

exactly. it's a fashion issue. as in literal fashion.

[nerdponx]

The problem is that the people who want small phones also don't like buying new phones.

Also last I checked the "mini" phones weren't particularly mini, phones just got bigger.

[wltr]

True, also mini phones are usually of an incredible value, you can buy them very cheap. Because, surprise, actually not everyone wants them. And they are seen as crippled gimp phones. E.g. a child had this phone, then pressed their parents to buy them a normal phone. That’s how I ended up having my mini, for basically bananas. Was upgrading from SE1, so it was still a bigger phone. Yet, I’m not willing to go back, modern iPhone is still better than an obsolete one. Almost. Some bugs aren’t there in the old one.

[boznz]

After my iPhone 6 stopped getting updates I got the SE3, criteria was smallest feature phone without tonnes of shovelware and spyware pre-installed. It is still top of the list in 2025 though I will probably get another 5 years from this one.

[veunes]

The problem is the lack of choice

[roughly]

“Terrible numbers sales-wise” is a bit of a distortion when talking about iPhones - the number that went around in 2022 was the 13 accounted for 3% of iPhone sales in 2021, which indeed sounds terrible - except Apple sold somewhere around a quarter billion iPhones that year, which means ~7.5 million iPhone 13 minis in 2021 alone. Those are numbers that anyone else would kill for. That’s just about the entire population of New York City buying an iPhone. There’s 35 states with fewer people than that. Ford sold fewer F-150s in the last decade than Apple sold iPhone 13 Minis in 2021 alone.

[yunwal]

3% of sales means a sub-par experience for those users. Every app developer will say “oh yeah let’s test on the pro and normal sizes. Mini might break but that’s ok.”

[ricardobeat]

Each of those models sold at least 6 million units, about the same as the Xbox One in its first year, which was a “huge success”…

[auggierose]

It's sad that if something sells "only" 6 million units, we cannot make it for those who want it.

[RistrettoMike]

... was the Xbox One a "huge success" ?

[amai]

The problem is simply that the small form factor doesn't allow a big battery. So the iPhone 12/13 mini simply have a bad battery life compared to the bigger iPhones.

The reason why we have such big smartphones is that the ratio of screensize (2d area) to battery size (3d volume) is better for bigger smart phones.

[smokel]

This does not make sense when we are discussing an iPhone Air, right?

[justin_justin62]

That's because everybody wants to show off.

And Instagram (or any other "fake universe" which pushes video-quality as a minimal requirement) algos, favor content made with a newer/better/bigger (thus more expensive) phone.

How come there's close-to-0 improvements about audio quality (both recording and listening) with respect to visual technologies?

Make the audio counterpart of Instagram/Tiktok and I'll chime in right away.

But pop-people (and markets) are mostly interested in visuals at the moment.

And for audio-sensitive people like me, it's almost a blessing.

[mort96]

I was extremely interested in a small phone back when the 12 Mini came out, but I didn't dare to buy it without seeing how it feels. This was during the height of the COVID lockdowns, so I couldn't go to a store and feel it in person. Ended up buying the regular iPhone 12, since that seemed like the safer choice to buy blind.

When it was time for another phone upgrade in the iPhone 15 era (because phones really don't change enough anymore to warrant more frequent upgrades than that), there was no mini option anymore. I wonder if others were like me. The Mini came out at a time where people were hesitant to try a new form factor because they couldn't try it in stores.

[dotdi]

I think what happened here is that the target audience are people that do not feel pressure to upgrade to the latest mini every year. They do not look to have the lastest-shiniest-ohlookAI-snapdraxxon22pro phone. Just a phone that is a bit cheaper but gets the job done.

Why would you go from 12 mini to 13 mini, or to the concurrently released SEs if your phone still works?

I am also still holding on to my 13 mini. I would not have upgraded to the 14, 15 or 16mini even if they existed. I will upgrade at some point, and that point is when it either dies, or important apps stop working on the last iOS version supported by the hardware.

[skort]

I do wonder if more people would buy a smaller phone if it had the same cameras and features as the pro? Time will tell if thinner sells better than shorter and less girthy.

I for one hate how even the 17 pro is creeping up in size compared to the 15 pro.

[rkomorn]

People want to buy small phones like they want to pay for Firefox.

A few people say it very loudly and nobody else does.

[givemeethekeys]

I was one of those people who bought an iphone 13 mini. When someone sees it, their first question is, "what phone is that?", unless they too own an iPhone 13 mini or owned a small iPhone before that.

People do think that being able to use the phone with just one hand is cool, but most people, even small-handed people, like to have a big screen to watch stuff on.

[Dylan16807]

I like your analogy because you can't give money specifically for Firefox.

[torstenvl]

This meme needs to die. Normal-sized iPhones account for tens of millions of sales per year.

The fact that Apple was absolutely schizophrenic about its non-phablet market, introducing the iPhone mini 13 and iPhone SE 2022 at the same time, is utterly irrelevant to that point.

[4k93n2]

we will never really know for sute because the minis were gimped compared to the max options that had an extra telephoto lens and better ram/storage options

[kalleboo]

That's the tradeoff with a smaller phone. You can't fit as many features. And despite cutting out so much, there still wasn't enough space for an acceptable amount of battery.