It drives me up the wall that I simply cannot find a reasonably competent phone (i.e. mid/upper range from the past 4 years) which is not absolutely fucking huge. It's insane that the "phablet" standard from ~5 years ago is now not even the new standard, but the only standard.
Utterly insane.
I replaced my SE with a Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact yesterday. It has a 5" screen and decent specs (2018 flagship). About as small as you can get a mobile nowadays, sadly.
And wow how I've missed Android, the UX is soooo much better in most aspects. I can't believe I was stuck with iOS (as an experiment) for almost 1.5 years. Reason being that I hadn't been able to find anything below 5" in the Android world.
It does seem weird that instead of continuing to serve this market, Apple assumes everyone wants their same large form factor and it's only a matter of price.
On the other hand, maybe we're just in a bubble. Trying to avoid consumer tech even though you could easily afford it is a rather niche, privileged view of a subset of people that work in tech. Maybe outside this bubble there's a much larger group of people who do want the big, more up to date designs and price is the only consideration.
I read and watch shows on my phone constantly, and screen size is a major factor for me. I specifically buy clothes with larger pockets to accommodate.
I agree that choice would be better - but I imagine that economies of scale sometimes means having only one size for everyone if you want to keep them cheaper than the competition.
Then I watched in disbelief as phones began getting more and more swollen every year and got too large to hold comfortably in one hand. (or fit in your top pocket)
Time and again the phone-shop salesmen would look sideways at me when I said I didn't want the latest and greatest offering, but one of the older and smaller phones. My current phone is an iPhone 5S that I have kept for several years.
That's the key thing about the SE and before it the 5S-- something that can be operated with one hand and that can fit in a pocket.
It's clear from the photo that it doesn't have a camera optic that's flush with the back, nor does it have that cool pseudo 1960's Philips-like metal case with flat beveled sides.
It also bugs me that no one is showing a comparison of the new SE to the old SE, so here is an old article I found, 2nd photo is the 7 (5.5 in), 6 (4.7 in == new SE), and old SE (4 in).
https://www.imore.com/iphone-6s-vs-iphone-se-whats-different...
So the new SE is bigger, but still acceptably small for most people. It seems like Apple couldn't bring themselves to make it any smaller. And at this price with these features, it will be my next upgrade (in 2-3 years), and I predict it will sell like hot-cakes.
This is not what tech is supposed to be about. There's supposed to be options, so all types of users can feel comfortable and at-home. Instead we force all users into a couple of comically-bad stereotypes based on market research pulled out of bullshit sales figures and a focus group's collective asses
This is not a new compact iPhone like the 4/4s/5/5S.
I haven't seen any new phone in that class since mid-2018.
Is it? The market shifts to where the money is.
There apparently isn't enough money to make it worth the OEMs' time. If there were, they'd capitalize on it.
While I abhor huge phones, I see more Plus model iPhones than I do the "smaller" models, in the wild.
Why does it mean that? They could have been building compact phones already and they weren't. Not sure why they're going to start now when Apple is clearly signalling to the industry that people don't want to buy small smartphones.
This.
There are plenty of compact and competent phones. A Samsung A40 for example is barely larger than this new iPhone SE, but has a 5.9 inch display. A friend wanted a smallish smartphone and she's quiet happy with the form factor.
The current entry level iPhone; iPhone SE 2020 with A13 is now faster in Single Threaded performance than ALL current shipping Android, including Flagship Android. And judging by the Qualcomm roadmap, this will likely remain the same in 2021 as well.
This is important if you are doing or using Web Apps like Discourse which requires JS processing. The Cost of javascript is still huge. [1] [2]. And While Mobile Apps are well optimised to take advantage of multiple cores, it will still be bounded by Amdahl's law[3].
And a point on devices size.
Japan, the nation which prefer single handed usage and small size Smartphone, and has a hand size smaller than average, median or general US / EU population, has overwhelmingly voted with their pocket on the 4.7" Devices, and not the previous 4" iPhone SE. Even During the iPhone 7, iPhone 8 era.
So I do suggest before people writing off 4.7" as being large, please try and give it a go first.
Another Point worth pointing out, once the tech for FaceID Shrinks to small enough or could be done under display, a 4.7" Edge to Edge Face ID Design would be exactly the same size as the previous iPhone SE. I believe this could be the long term goal for Apple.
[1] https://medium.com/@addyosmani/the-cost-of-javascript-in-201...
Regardless, the iPhone SE did not sell _as_ well in Japan due to a variety of factors, not the least of which being that the iPhone 7 introduced built-in Suica support.
Suica is a mobile cash card technology used at stations for transit, convenience stores and restaurants for purchasing, and vending machines -- among others. Given the lack of support by many credit cards for Apply Pay in Japan (for example, you cannot add a Visa card to your iPhone due to JP-specific Visa restrictions), it's no surprise that this was a major selling point of newer models.
In my opinion, manufacturers have not provided a high-end, small form factor device to sufficiently test the markets. Without doing so, it's too easy for people to make the claim that people have already voted with their wallets for larger phones. I sincerely hope the rumors of a 5.4" iPhone 12 are true (as it should be somewhere between iPhone 5 and 6 form factors, from what I gather).
I'm surprised about 1100+ comments, since this is, you know: just another phone
When you are weighing iPhone 7 against a first iteration iPhone SE, there's a lot of things to consider beyond form factor. I've been holding out waiting for the smaller phones to come back. I guess I'll just keep on waiting.
Do you have a source for that, or do you just expect them to want small phones because of small hands?
The rest of Asia are the front runners of large smart phones, so I don't see the small hands thing being relevant to phone sizes.
To my recollection, phones have always been pretty big in Japan. When I first visited in 2006 I asked my Japanese friends why all the phones where so big, and they just said "It's fashionable, nobody wants a small phone", but I've never noticed a trend towards small devices, just more features and bling.
Moreover, given that Japan sees relatively little usage of computers, but historically has been extremely cellphone oriented, it actually makes sense that you want a large screen as your primary screen.
Lastly, I've noticed that young people on variety shows, when doing a gesture for "typing", swipes the air with their index finger over the palm of the imposing hand, suggesting that the primary mode of text-input is on (1) your phone, and (2) this is done with 2 hands. I don't think Japan has a special affection for one handed usage, at least not since they moved to touch screens.
I'm not sure this is impacted by the CPU speed really for many reasons.
1. For a popular app, you can't target the latest / the best model. We already cycle through the phones less often than a few years ago. By the time this gets to become popular, other phones will have comparable speed.
2. Developers will work both ways: To speed up the current code, (positive impact) and to add more features (negative impact).
If JS is required, people will find solutions. If JS is not enough, we'll get native apps. Current speedups in raw CPU are meh.
It makes sense that size is the most talked point in the HN crowd. But I think the headlining feature for most people would be the price.
Really exciting times where an A9-based quality handset can be had for ~$60 on eBay. I expect prices will fall a bit further with this new SE model. And yes, the A9 is completely viable in 2020. Planning on holding onto it for as long as reasonably possible.
I was actually planning on grabbing a larger phone when iPhone SE inevitably lost software support, but then I got an old iPhone 6 to use casually and I just couldn’t use it at all with one hand without invoking Reachability all the time. Plus I can’t wrap my hand around it so it feels a bit less secure…I’m not sure I’d be happy to lose the form factor.
Citation please?
Even a tiny site like HN has problems on a phone when the comment count gets large
Google and Samsung might have something to say about this, with rumours of their own chip in the works:
https://www.axios.com/scoop-google-readies-its-own-chip-for-...
The article is almost is an year old. Nonetheless, a great read to understand the techniques of profiling. There have been 4 more releases of V8 in chromium based browsers which improved the speed and memory. Other browsers like Firefox also follow the suit.
I stopped to look at Single Thread performance long time ago when comparing phones. I now look for AI coprocessor performances, new sensor types and wireless charging performance
Adding insult to injury, music objectively sucks with bluetooth. A good DAC takes space and power. Multiple drivers take space and power. Bluetooth modems require space and power and generate interference simply because they are modems. When you try to shove all of that inside a tiny earphone, there are going to be massive tradeoffs.
Hopefully the Sony Xperia 5 II comes out soon - it should be smaller than this.
That's not to say you're wrong in your desires, it's just they might not be widely shared.
I also hope this does well. It's a nice looking unit.
Plus I used to go through at least one set a year because the mechanical stress on the cable would break them. In the long run AirPods are actually cheaper.
As an SE fan, I would happily, HAPPILY pay $1000 every two years to keep getting upgraded internals in the current form factor.
Yes Apple, I'm sure it's harder to fit those parts in a smaller case. That's why you should charge me more!
It's not a matter of Ludditry. That form factor is ergonomically ideal for a certain kind of phone use. That's precisely why it was so successful for so long.
I've had my iPhone 8 for almost 2 years and now I'm working from home I've taken it out of it's case to fully enjoy the design.
Honestly, probably easier to hold a live fish than this bloody phone.
If it’s any consolation, consistent rumors have been pointing to a new, smaller size added to the flagship lineup this fall. It will supposedly have a similar footprint to the 5 series, but with the bezel-less screen like the modern models.
Check out these stats from a year ago. On this app (which has a broad appeal), the 6/6S/7/8 had a 47% share. iPhone 5s/SE had 11%
The old SE form factor is great! And those who like it, like it a lot. But you're clearly wrong if you take that to mean that the new SE form factor is an unpopular one.
https://david-smith.org/blog/2019/06/24/the-popularity-of-th...
Maybe this group that you described is a small minority now?
Pros:
* Feature set in terms of processor, camera, etc., is exactly what I want
* Continued presence of Touch ID is a huge plus, I don't like Face ID
* Price point is, admittedly, fantastic
Cons:
* Lack of headphone jack is still unacceptable
* Form factor is, candidly, still too big for my tiny hands
* Color schemes aren't as nice as the SE's (can I contribute to COVID-19 research without getting a bright red phone?)
I will be considering this phone, but skeptically. Would be ideal for me to be able to physically hold one before buying, but not sure that'll be possible (maybe I can borrow somebody's iPhone 8).
I think I'm in the minority, but I haven't really missed the headphone jack in my iPhone 11. I have the Echo earbuds, and those have been good to great for my use cases.
This continues to feel a bit like the 3.5 floppy and CD-ROM removals from the Mac: a lot of people hated it, until it was a nonissue.
Yes. Write a check. Mail the check. Done.
Yes there are some occasions where it doesn't work well (when you're trying to unlock the phone without looking at it properly) but there are also many occasions where it works much better. Most of the time my phone now unlocks so smoothly that I don't even realise it was locked. So on balance I think FaceID would actually be a plus.
Yes, I'd be leaning towards trading my SE in for this except for the headphone jack which I use a lot. Now I'll have to wait and see if iOS 14 supports my phone.
Otherwise this looks like a solid improvement. $400 is the north end of what I'm willing to pay before I look at refurbs and last year's model.
I can live with all that cons... EXCEPT for size! It's too big...
My significant other got some bluetooth for xmas. (A nice bose since she is wildly anti apple, im not totally clear on why) She was into them for about a month.
With cabled audio it is sort of unavoidable to miss that never having to charge, pair, unpair, removing phone pairing history (example rental car retaining contact info), just plugging in is so clean, reliable. Honestly in the case of BT vs 3.5 jack i believe we invented in reverse order.
She has since stopped using the >$100 Bose and prefers a 20 sony earbud where one of the two ear buds is actually totally smashed (i drove over it, sadly. Shes a total catch.
So the missing audio jack is my only barrier to new iphone SE entry. I wonder whether anyone has considered some pcb+3d printing a slim fitting adapter which might extend the length of a phone but then provide the existing port and add a 3.5. In other words Is there any attempt at integrating the usb c Or lightning to 3.5 adapter into a clean little clip on / case thing.
Re rental car Bluetooth cleanup issues https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2016/08/what-your-phone-te...
And to be clear im not anti bluetooth at all. It just seems to be a not yet rightly set up system for security and convenience, naturally.
My SE broke recently and I had to switch to iPhone 8 (They stopped selling SE by then in India). I am able to manage but the form factor is no where as comfortable as the old SE.
>> Price point is, admittedly, fantastic
True for the developed nations but still on the higher side for India and South East Asia. If they could price it at 299 in India it will sell like hot cakes here but iPhone always misses the bus here in India.
As someone frequently getting pinky finger injuries from holding my phone, I feel you.
Popsockets are a solution, but an annoying one that changes the form factor my phone and doubles as a potent trigger for fidgeting.
I was thinking the same till I bought an iPhone 11. The tiny adapter for 10 bucks is not that much of a hassle. I have one in my backpack and one at my workplace. I also bought a wireless charger. All that is not expensive compared to the phone itself.
+1
This is critical for me.
However, that’s just an opinion. What’s indisputable is that FaceID enables removal of the Home button, which is also a massive positive in and of itself.
Every iPhone I’ve ever owned that had a Home button ultimately had the first thing to fail be the Home button. Not always a complete failure, but at least a partial failure that would make the phone highly annoying to operate.
Besides the Home button wearing out, it also limits the screen size. A full screen is better in every way. In particular by giving significantly more space for the keyboard to be shown without taking up most of the available vertical space.
And so having a biometric unlock which is (arguably) better is really just 1/3rd of the benefit of FaceID. You get a more durable phone, a phone easier to waterproof, and a more usable phone with a better aspect ratio.
That said, the lack of FaceID on the new SE is extremely disappointing to me. I gather they just couldn’t make the margins work at $399.
* If you use wired headphones on your phone, a dongle is just a few inches of cable
* Most who use wired headphones accept the quality and comfort of apple earpods that plug into the lightning port
* Most people in general who use their phones for audio use bluetooth.
Note: I am using the metric of average American consumer, not other countries.
Those are observations. My personal opinion is that you cannot get much smaller in display size than the 2020 SE without reducing UI functionality or having a pen. I am not sure 2020 apps would function well for any significant number of users with an iPhone SE 2016 form factor.
Also remember, this may be a good market for them to get into, but Apple is doing this so they can use existing parts and processes. This is not a top down design of a compact phone.
---
PS: My personal "Why did you do that" is removing fingerprint. They should have moved it to the back, if they cared about borderless display. Face recognition depends on lighting, and me looking at my phone.
Thats the biggest thing for me.
I got my first iphone when they were around this price. Nowadays I have a hard time spending ~1k on a new phone, so I end up shopping used.
Granted it’s my personal preference to buy the handset outright, I’m happy to see a hardware refresh on a more budget friendly option for a new iphone.
I do, however, agree whole-heartedly about the form factor. The iPhone 5 was the perfect form-factor to me and I miss it terribly.
I hated not having the headphone jack for a long time. But AirPods (which I do love) have taken care of that problem.
The one thing about small phones is that you can operate the phone one handed. The iPhone 6-8 and the SE's design is pretty much at the limit that you could operate the phone one handed.
Not going to lose sleep over the color schemes because I will be buying a case for it anyway. That's how my current SE has lasted so long!
Don't forget you can still use the lighting to 3.5mm adapter. It's no longer included free but at least it's available. Cost around $9.
Sorry, friend, but this ship has sailed. No point calling unacceptable what is now unavoidable.
Surprised there are people out there feeling this way. Join us here in the year 2020.
While you think it's unacceptable the rest of the world has moved on a long time ago.
This whining over the headphone jack is getting old. Inconvenient? For some. Unacceptable? Only to a tiny fringe faction. Get over yourself.
The removal of the headphone jack was something seen as treasonous for Apple to do at first, but then they will then tell you to purchase wireless earphones instead. Making it impossible to listen to music without being discovered via bluetooth trackers / scanners.
If those aren't problems for you, then it seems to be a reasonable buy for other customers who bought older phones. But if it were me, I would buy one in a year and a half when the price eventually drops further.
But you're a current user... so clearly you accepted it. And as long as you do (accept it, keep buying phones without headphone jacks) why would anyone change? The message you are sending (in the only way they care about $$$) is that you do in fact accept phones without headphone jacks.
Just reading what you're writing...
Sorry, you can't have IP67 water resistance with that 3.5mm headphone jack.
Edit: a lot of folks proved me wrong. I feel that I need to clarify: Apple's design goal is to make it thiner, more integrated, less components more battery space and unified input/output interface, all that combined with water resistance, is not practical. All the 3.5mm examples I am seeing doesn't attempt to make it thin and light albeit water resistant.
I am very frustrated as the SE is really getting to end of life. I have bought 3 of them in the past month from various eBay sellers with good feedback. One fake, one had a badly degraded battery, and the other went into a reset loop after a couple weeks. There's not much out there. Apple's privacy is second to none, usability is very good (though if they introduce one more type of swiping I'm going to go mad. What's next, Force Swiping?), but the hardware is getting extremely inconvenient. Even my buddy who has large hands complains that the phone is too big and heavy.
I can afford the newer ones, but I don't see the value relative to the four-figure cost.
I'd love the fancy camera, but the cost of the flagship seems to be way out of line with the value. I'd rather have a phone + macbook. (I keep computers for 4-5 years and phones for 2-2.5 depending on the battery), so the annualized cost of a fancy iphone is basically the same as a $500 phone + macbook.
I just continually finance the latest phone at 0% interest for ~$40/mo. Trade in every year.
I get the feeling that I'm part of a large niche with whom the old iPhoneSE saw success by accident.
Sadly, it doesn't seem to be uncommon for a company (even Apple) to hit a home run and not understand why it was so successful. And then they're unable to follow up on it.
HyperCard still appears in top-10 lists of "greatest software ever" -- and it's usually the only one which is no longer maintained and doesn't have a modern equivalent.
If anyone knows of a case for the soap-phones that restores more of a hard edge so I can grip it with more confidence....
If we assume that the iPhone 12 would have the same aspect ratio as the iPhone 11, and that the "margins" between the edge of the device and the edge of the screen will be the same as well, we get:
iPhone 12 (5.4") is 2.69x5.30"
Body size is 26.67% larger than the iPhone SE
Screen size is 62.27% larger than the iPhone SE
Shown to scale: https://imgur.com/OKZiWrN
I'm a bit disappointed but not surprised they took neither of those options for the new SE.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2019/06/27/apple-ne...
Customers loved how it was both small and powerful, so we've improved it by making it much larger...[1]
OK, I realise they mean "small compared to the ridiculous size of other phones" here, but I still feel like they've missed the point. They could have had the only truly small and powerful phone on the market in 2020, on any OS! No competitors. They could have even kept the exact same old SE size and had an even bigger screen (5") if they went edge-to-edge.
[1] https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/?device1=iphoneSE&devic...
I'm only halfway joking since looking at their newest handset is still fairly reminiscent with the flat edges: https://www.sony.com/electronics/smartphones/xperia-1m2?cpin...
Cons:
* At night it doesn't work, because I am laying on the bed and half my face is covered.
* It doesn't work when I am not wearing my glasses. Annoying when I have just woken up or going to bed and want to check a quick notification.
* Sometimes it unlocks by itself even if I don't want it to.
For the headphone jack, I got a cheap USB-C ones and couldn't be happier. Bluetooth just doesn't work all the time. It sometimes refuses to pair for random reasons, specially if you paired it with something else, you can never be sure its charged enough, easy to forget it turned on and have the batteries depleted etc etc.
FaceID works with and without my glasses. I can't remember if it learned this automatically, or if I added it as an "alternative appearance." Does the Pixel 4 have any options like that?
Never had an issue with glasses though.
Are you holding the phone too close to your face?
I was getting frustrated that FaceID wouldn't work for me in bed when I wasn't wearing glasses, but I discovered it was because it was holding it so close to my face to read the screen (I'm very short sighted) and the camera couldn't focus (yes my eyesight is that bad haha).
Every ~4 years Apple comes out with reasonably priced products for budget customers to be able to buy/upgrade.
The rest of the time they keep prices high so they can make their profit.
Budget customers are willing to wait, people who want the flashy new things aren't.
It's the same thing with premium clothing brands that hold only 2-4 sales a year.
Sales were down and the butterfly keyboard caused so much complaining it was impossible for Apple to not eventually take note.
If people are complaining and sales are down, the reasonable solution is to listen to your customer. They've done it for every product as of late, like the new Macbook Pro, the new Mac Pro, and while the Apple SE is more a budget project so it may have been inevitable for it to turn out this way, the iPhone 12 is supposed to be smaller, much closer to the iPhone SE.
Not sure what could have caused that, though.
That said, this looks like a fantastic bargain. One of the best cameras and fastest chips on the market on a $400 phone with years and years of OS support.
And in my own opinion, a 4" screen is obsolete these days because app and mobile web design has moved on to larger devices. 5" is even starting to feel cramped on some apps like Google Maps.
SE: 5.45" x 2.65" Pixel: 5.79" x 2.71"
In terms of (1), the SE is in line with the Nexus 5 (and actually less wide), whilst the Pixel 4 is slightly bigger in all dimensions:
N5: 137.9 x 69.2 x 8.6 mm (5.43 x 2.72 x 0.34 in)
SE: 138.4 x 67.3 x 7.3 mm (5.45 x 2.65 x 0.29 in)
Specs source:
[N5] https://www.gsmarena.com/lg_nexus_5-5705.php
[SE] https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_se_(2020)-10170.php
1. it was small-ish 2. it had a headphone jack
Without those I don't see this as a viable followup product.
As it stands, not sure what I'll do as an updated SE was my last hope that Apple would continue making a phone with a headphone jack, but that was probably a pipe dream to begin with.
And please don't try to sell me on Bluetooth. It works OK 60-70% of the time in my experience, but it's super frustrating when it fails (esp. when trying to help older less tech-savvy relatives) and I often find myself just wanting to be able to plug in a darn cord. Ahh the good 'ol days...
123.8 mm (4.87 in) H
58.6 mm (2.31 in) W
7.6 mm (0.30 in) D
Mass 113 g (4.0 oz)
New iPhone SE:
Height: 5.45 inches (138.4 mm)
Width: 2.65 inches (67.3 mm)
Depth: 0.29 inch (7.3 mm)
Weight: 5.22 ounces (148 grams)
(Copy-pasted from various places on iPad, sorry about inconsistencies)
|------------------------------------------------------|
| Dimension | Old | New |
|------------------------------------------------------|
| Height | 4.87 in (123.8 mm) | 5.45 in (138.4 mm) |
| Width | 2.31 in ( 58.6 mm) | 2.65 in ( 67.3 mm) |
| Thickness | 0.30 in ( 7.6 mm) | 0.29 in ( 7.3 mm) |
| Weight | 4.00 oz (113.0 g) | 5.22 oz (148.0 g) |
|------------------------------------------------------|Percent — Height +11.8%, Width +14.9%, Depth -4.0%, Mass +31.0%
Metric — Height +14.6mm, Width +8.7mm, Depth -0.3mm, Mass +35g
Imperial — Height +0.58in, Width +0.34in, Depth -0.01in, Mass +1.22oz
eyes her 6s and the very nice earbuds that can still plug into it
ponders other things she could do with $400
I miss the Actually Small form factor but I've gotten used to the slightly larger 6s and I sure don't miss it four hundred bucks plus the cost of some bluetooth earbuds and having to hassle with keeping the bluetooth Square reader powered up the next time I sell stuff at a comics con.
I think this is a fine day to buy a new case to replace the one that I got along with the phone. It's been slowly falling apart and I'm worried it might not save the phone the next time I drop it. Twenty bucks for a black Speck and ten bucks for a gold accent Popsocket. Sounds good.
It may feel like we’ve reached the point where mobile CPU performance shouldn’t matter, but I notice quite a bit less time spent waiting with the newer phones, which helps in not spending as much time on them.
This looks like basically the same phone as the 8 & the 6s. I own a 6s, I'm wondering what the advantage is to buying this phone rather than replacing the battery on my current phone.
Hilariously, some of the changes between models seem to be mostly renaming features.
6s: HDR for photos
8: Auto HDR for photos
SE: Next-generation Smart HDR for photos
Also funny is battery life:
SE: Lasts about the same as iPhone 8
8: Lasts about the same as iPhone 7
7: Lasts up to 2 hours longer than iPhone 6s
6s: —
And Apple usually goes for a target battery life that stays fairly consistent across generations. It creeps up slowly over time, but very slowly.
Your phone model has already gotten OS updates for about five years since launch. It’s possible that iOS 14 may not support iPhone 6S. If that happens to be the case, then getting a new phone makes sense just to have software support for the next five (or more) years.
Though, it has been hell now with using face masks for the past few weeks, where I have to spend 5 seconds on every auth-screen, where it tries faceID twice and then gives the option of PIN authentication.
The current gen weights almost as much as my Galaxy S8, which is objectively a rather heavy object to be held for extended periods of time.
All in all I was meaning to get her one once it's released, but given the weight of the device that won't happen.
They're bigger than the old SE, but effectively a fair bit smaller than the X/XS/11 Pro format, which has a much larger screen to manage.
So, this phone gives those of us who liked the 8 body size an upgrade path.
David Smith compiled iPhone usage stats for his app. The iPhone 6/6S/7/8 had 47% share. The iPhone 5s/old SE had 11% share. The X/XS/11 Pro size had 12% share. So, this new SE is an extremely common and and popular design.
https://david-smith.org/blog/2019/06/24/the-popularity-of-th...
As a developer, I'm ecstatic that I'll never have to think about supporting a tiny 4" screen again.
This is a huge disappointment for me. The big reason to have white screen borders is to reduce contrast to light screen backgrounds, which is so much easier on the eyes when reading. And also, white front side is a design classic. Its removal is even a reason for me not to buy the new SE2.
Camera is sticking out.
Edges are over-bevelled.
But at least they kept Touch ID.
I'm disappointed by the lack of a headphone jack and the size, while better than the phablet nonsense, is still bigger than I would like.
I'm actually not sure what I will do after these phones go kaput, I only use my phone for calls, music, Whatsapp, and maybe maps (though with travel completely halted for the medium term, I don't even need that). If there was a feature phone version of Whatsapp, I'd probably go back to one of those.
FaceID is incredibly unreliable in my opinion, and it almost always takes more time that touchID did. Furthermore, "Reachability" (the feature where you slide the UI down for easy access with one hand) is much more difficult to access and dismiss with no home button. It's rare I don't accidentally invoke some UI action when trying to dismiss reachability mode (mistakes include: dialing additional numbers, super-linking on tinder, clicking on links in websites, etc.)
Apple seems to know this, the store workers I spoke with when I was purchasing the phone admitted it was difficult to use.
Is it rose colored glasses, or would old Apple never release products that the Apple Store workers have to tell you are "difficult to use"?
Apple still doesn't understand why users like me still stick with iphone SE - the size.
As a person who does actually prefer smaller phones and cars, it's a disappointing trend. "Buy used" or "deal with it", I suppose.
I also understand that last year’s X-cessively large phones have conditioned users to be resigned towards huge pricy devices, thus making this new SE more dramatic-seeming.
I've had one of these for about 6 months and I absolutely love it.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KP8J8YN
Disclaimer: I have NO affiliation with this company at all. I'm just a happy user.
Pros:
- built-in rugged case. I've thrown it around the office with no issues
- incredibly small. It fits in the watch pocket (fifth pocket) of your jeans comfortably
- waterproof. Because it fits in my jeans pockets so well, I accidentally washed it with my jeans after a spill. The only piece of clothing in that wash cycle was my jeans, and the phone fell out at some point. It must have banged around in there for 15 minutes; but after the wash was done, I grabbed the phone and unlocked it with my fingerprint. No worries.
- some of the best BT and GPS I've experienced in an Android phone. (And I've owned Nokia, Motorola, and Sony Xperia phones).
- reasonable battery life for a phone of this size
- everyone tells me speakerphone sounds great
Cons:
- the camera is literally a potato. Don't buy this to take photos with.
- good luck typing on this incredibly tiny screen. But instead I use Android's voice-to-text which works great.
I took a chance and it is an absolute marvel.
I am really tempted to get this. I love the small form factor of my SE but I have large hands and the bigger screen might be a bit nice, and I really wish the camera was bit nicer on my current SE
I basically had to upgrade from iPhone7 to iPhone11 to get a good camera in an iPhone. The 11 is a phone that is both much larger and much more expensive than I would like. So if the camera on this is as good as the main iPhone 11 camera, I would definnitely have gone for this one instead, had it been available 6 months ago.
This is apple cannibalizing their own iPhone11 sales, a lot I think
This has nothing on the original SE.
But I can't really justify myself buying it at the hefty price tag of $555 in India. (The extra $155 being added due to the high custom duties on imports in India.)
Salaries (at least for software developers) here being 1/4th of that of US developer salaries or lesser makes even the $400 price in US not quite easy to digest.
It seems I will be stuck with buying an Android One phone instead.
https://apple.com/privacy this isn't the Privacy Policy, just a very high level overview of investments/innovations (ETA 20-60 seconds)
https://apple.com/privacy/features deeper dive, no cute graphics, links to papers (3+ minutes)
They really, really messed up by not being upfront with Siri's contractors, and they are not taking a hard stance on E2E iCloud Photos/Backups.
You can back up yourself using the native encrypted backup format using the CLI on Linux/Windows/macOS using https://libimobiledevive.org idevicebackup2
Using ifuse from them too you can read the SQLite database the Photos app uses, see things like the on-device processed metadata (including recognized faces, tho obviously not the face data from FaceID).
Using this I made a script to only transfer only favourited photos for my girlfriend; https://gist.github.com/aurorabbit/592bbc76df317f86c1a6ef64c... (will work on linux too, surely Windows but idk powershell)
/info dump
I'm still holding on to my 4-year old Galaxy S7 because it's 5-inch, 16:9 display is just the right size. I have a newer 19:9 phone and even with fairly large man-hands, I struggle to reach the corners of the screen with my thumb, which is where most menu items are located.
I am sure the new iPhone SE has more advanced everything but if you're just using it for text messages, occasional photo and Whatsapp you'll hardly notice any difference.
For my part (SE user of 2 years, and before that a 5s user), this fits my needs pretty well, and it’s got the latest hardware. The lack of a headphone jack was always going to happen, that’s just the way of the world and nothing will change it - and realistically, carrying around a dongle really isn’t a big deal if you’re going to be carrying around your phone and earphones anyway, it’s just another small piece to keep attached to your earphones on a semi-permanent basis. The 5s form factor would have been cool too, but that was also never going to happen, because the SE is released in no small part because there is a surplus of X device (previously 5s, now 8) and they need to move old stock.
I’ll hang onto my SE until iOS 14 comes out, then I’ll get a refurbished SE 2. I might be able to get away with getting an almost-new iPhone released this year for around AU$600, that would be cool.
I'm still on the 5S, my next one will be a SE 1 when my 5S blows up..
https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/?device1=iphone8&device...
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/15/21222104/iphone-se-2-came...
I'm fortunate enough that my work phone is (now) an iPhone 11 Pro. I routinely go to Australia for extended periods and need a phone there. For years (>5) I used the last personal phone I bought myself, the iPhone 6S, which was still doing quite well since ~2 years ago it had a free battery replacement.
But I finally decided to upgrade this. I like the 11 Pro (particularly the cameras) but I find the narrower screen a little annoying (compared to the previous work phone, the iPhone 7 Plus).
But damn phones are expensive now. I couldn't justify the almost $2000 for an iPhone 11 Pro Max and decided to spend "only" half that on an iPhone 11 instead. It lacks one of the cameras but it has a bigger screen than the 11. I really see no reason to spend the huge extra on the 11 Pro or Pro Max.
But by God do I hate Face ID (even more so on my iPad). It's horrible. Apple says the false positive rate on Touch ID was too high. I say the false negative rate on Face ID is too high and this is incredibly frustrating. Worse, Apple tries to make it more secure by forcing policies on you like 5 failed attempts means it asks for a passcode. Failed attempts include passive fails where you just haven't positioned the phone right.
I think Apple just got rid of Touch ID to have more screen area, honestly. That's not such a bad thing but what I'd give for an iPhone that had a fingerprint sensor on the back (like the Samsung Galaxy S9 did, which I also briefly used).
So the presence of Touch ID makes me almost want to buy one of these but I can't go back screen size wise. As an aside, I am tempted to get rid of my iPad Pro and replace it with the newer (non-Pro) iPad because those still do have Touch ID.
This really is an updated iPhone 8 with a modern CPU. It seems like a pretty good deal to me.
But please, Apple, give me a Touch ID option.
IMHO it’s a poor design.
The socket on this iPhone 6S+ is wearing out because the springs are in the device and not the cable. It’s hit and miss if the phone charges now.
(I keep it still because I want an iPhone with a 3.5mm headphone socket).
It's good to see more downward pressure coming from flagship phones lately, imo. It's a great analog to the Pixel "a" models and an overall smartphone trend that I'm very positive about!
-- edit Otherwise I love iPhone SE. It's almost perfect.
(I was hoping against hope they'd use the old SE form factor, but I can understand why they don't.)
I wonder how much the new SE will cannibalize sales of the 11's, for customers who aren't price-sensitive but are size-sensitive?
That said, Apple is really taking the piss with these displays. Just like the iPhone 11, not only is the resolution laughable (Apple used to be a leader here, what happened?) but it's also IPS LCD, which uses more power and has worse viewing angles and colors.
OLEDs are excellent and competitors at this price point have them, so why not Apple?
I think we'll look at these comically large phones in the future like we look Gordon Gekko's phone today.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22878765
occupies the entire first page of these comments, with 367 replies. Is this optimal?
Edit: looks like this has fixed/modified, some of the replies have been broken out into top-level threads. Might be time for auto-collapsing of replies like Reddit.
At the very least they could of done touch ID on the back and make it a hole punch display with a smaller form factor, but that would probably have battery issues from the smaller footprint.
Maybe it wasn't possible with the space constraints, or maybe it would have been too expensive - but a premium small phone like that would have been really cool.
The iPhone 8 is probably my least favorite of all iPhone designs except for the 3G.
0. https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/iphone/iph61f49e4bb/io...
I don't understand why other ARM CPU makers don't come up with comparable CPUs.
Paying 1000 euros on a phone and having a twice as weak CPU as an similar priced iPhone is not a nice sentiment for an Android user.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/iphone/standar...
While multiple years of OS support would be nice in this form factor, not being able to use 5G data would be a big negative in terms of this being "futureproofed".
Honestly I should have gotten one of these instead of my 11 pro. My 11 pro is just too much phone.
I imagine they could not produce that phone at this price point .. which is quite good for what you are getting.
I was hoping they were going to keep the same screen size but think I'll upgrade anyways. Figure I will need to eventually and this has a solid tech bump-up.
Is there another iPhone with a single-camera system? Otherwise it just sounds like they had 0 other good things to say about it.
Soon we're down to "the newest iPhone ever released so far".
I have an old iPhone SE. It is small enough that I don't even notice it in my pocket. It does everything I want it to do very well and is actually very responsive.
Also it is about $60 bucks on ebay. I have no compelling reason to switch.
Is there an adaptor / dongle that can enable charging while using a headset?
I’ve seen the lighting to audio dongles. Is there a lightning to lighting+audio?
1. being small 2. powerful as the iPhone 6s.
I'm quite disappointed with this. I wish they could have kept the same size and increases the dpi with a big larger screen.
The big phone/small phone argument will be silly in a couple of years when we all have folding phones.
Jokes about editing goofs aside, this will probably replace my iPhone 6S Plus in a couple of years once it's even cheaper.
it's nice someone produce 4.7" phone, but it could be either smaller with such outdated low res display or display could be bigger in same body
this just seem like they have big stock of old displays and phone bodies they still need to dump
(a) space required by newer components (b) leftover (i.e. unsold) iPhone 8 materials
iPhone SE 2 is the form factor of iPhone 8, the last phone in the previous generation before iPhone X/11/etc.
iPhone SE2 is only a tiny bit smaller than the iPhone X or iPhone 11 Pro. Less than a half a centimeter in height and width.
None of you bought s10e which is a brilliant phone yet you whine that no small phones are available - maybe you should vote with your wallet or just admit that you're in it for the nostalgia and drop the facade.
The SE was small and premium. This is big and low-end (well, Apple low-end).
This non-uniform nomenclature is hurting my programmer brain.
Yes, I held out THIS long for a small form factor.
Apple is making more and more money from the app store and is trying to get into the streaming content game.
Streaming tv shows and movies on a tiny screen is not as enjoyable,therefore the old SE screen size is simply never going to happen.
I still bought a iPod lately for the size and 2nd phone SE for the size (and the weight).
I have a 6S. I want an SE.
Well, found my new iOS test phone.
i mean this phone is soo slippery
without case it's unusable
No one ever asked for this.
Also this phone isn't even compact, whether they slap the SE label on it.
What about ";blue?
Also the guidelines state : 'If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. '
https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-se/4.7-inch-...
It's not like an essential that we can't live without. OnePlus just did a few days back. Do these companies expect people to buy new phones when they're are being laid off or is it just an annual ritual or a desparate move to be the first to capture the market when things become normal?
Any insights please!
