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0 pointsoreilles8mo ago0 comments

Even if was a small % of the Apple lineup, the iPhone mini was one the best selling smartphones all brands considered. I for one switched to iPhone in 2020 specifically because there wasn't a single current-gen small form-factor Android phone anymore. I have a few friend that also made the switch with the 12 / 13 Mini for that reason.

The real reason the iPhone mini failed is not related to screen size, it's because its segment was canibalized by the cheaper alternative, the SE. The 2020 and 2022 sold like hot breads, wherehas their screen was almost an inch smaller than the iPhone mini. This is the proof that there a significant market for people who don't care about size and would gladly take the smallest option at a $100 discount from the regular one.

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al_borland8mo ago

I think the "mini" name hurt it too. People thought it would be small, when the screen was in fact bigger than the screen on the 6/7/8 iPhones. It was a similar form factor without the forehead and chin.

The mini could have been simply, iPhone. The marketing would have been that they managed to add an extra .7" of screen, while reducing the overall size and weight. That's a great pitch. Who doesn't want a bigger screen in something that more easily fits in their pocket? Instead they called in a "mini", people thought it would be tiny and hard to use, so they didn't buy it.

The iPhone 12 mini screen was only .1" smaller than the screen on the iPhone 8 Plus... the giant option from just a few years earlier.

The mini was a marketing and brand strategy failure, plain and simple. It wasn't a small phone.

coldpie8mo ago

> Even if was a small % of the Apple lineup, the iPhone mini was one the best selling smartphones all brands considered

Correct. To back this up a little bit with numbers, the iPhone 13 Mini all by itself sold about the half of the rate of the entire Google Pixel lineup. I bet lots of phone manufacturers would love to have half the sales of Google's premier Android phone. I also switched from Android to iPhone solely because of the 13 Mini form factor (I prefer Android, but I prefer a human-hand-sized phone even more).

Source:

Google shipped about 10 million Pixel phones in a year https://9to5google.com/2024/02/22/pixel-2023/

iPhone Mini accounted for about 3% of iPhone sales https://9to5mac.com/2022/04/21/cirp-iphone-13-best-selling-l...

iPhones sell about 200 million units per year https://www.demandsage.com/iphone-user-statistics/

200 million * 0.03 = 6 million iPhone Minis per year

mock-possum8mo ago

This is the case for me precisely - I’ve been dismayed at the “phablet” sizing trend, and leapt at the opportunity to keep my iPhone reasonably-sized - I’m on my second SE now and I’m kind of dreading what will happen when I need to eventually replace it.

I just want something small that will fit comfortably in my pocket, and I can use with one hand.

kasey_junk8mo ago

I owned 2 minis and would just replace screens and batteries whenever one got bad. Keep one in a drawer, take the broken one to the shop, rinse repeat.

I did this for years because I liked the form factor so much.

My new buying criteria for my iPhone is simply “buy the smallest one offered”.

But I’m willing to accept I’m not a big enough market segment to move the market.

Ntrails8mo ago

The SE is a great phone, and a reasonable size. I will say ever more websites are starting to screwup their layouts on such "small" as indeed is iOS. Tiresome as hell

dontlaugh8mo ago

Exactly. I had already bought the SE by the time the mini came out. I still bought a Mini anyway, it's that good. But I imagine most people didn't.

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