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iPhone SE (2016) Will Apple ever make another small phone?
- Thread starter Crystal21
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I am exactly like you, have a Day 1 12 mini and very happy with it. I was going to get the 13 mini on its Day 1 release, but took a step back and decided that my 12 Mini is perfectly fine so just kept on using it. Battery is down to 93% but it still lasts 36 hours based on my usage.
Ill probably get the SE 2022 next month as I cannot resist the SE iphones, and alternate between my 12 mini and the SE.
Was your SE1 battery always crap? Mine lasted 3-4 days when I first got it.
I know its stupid and wouldn't work but I would love an iPhone 4s body with modern screen and internals. battery life would be terrible but it would be cool
Hehe, and I’m almost exactly like you. ? November 2020 12 mini at 93% battery health. 36 hours is insane for me, though, but I’m a heavy user. I (fast)charge it two times a day usually, but I don’t see myself upgrading for awhile. I love this phone. And, for me personally, I’ve never found the SE-series interesting. I’d rather pay more for a Mini Pro ?
Mine is a Nov 2020 Mini with 86% battery. I can’t charge my phone during the day though because of my job and I am a heavy user so I always come home with a depleted charge. Your battery health is so good because you aren’t a heavy user.
Maybe it's just me but I feel we have only recently got to a point where the battery life on the iPhone can genuinely be called 'all day'. It's always been a struggle and it was an even bigger struggle if not impossible with phones like the 4S.
You can't put a big battery in a small phone and even the SE2-and we have two of them-won't go a day if you use them a lot. The 13pro max will do it with ease.
There's another question mark over components and it is a question because I don't know the answer: 'Do they still make the small screens in large enough numbers to make it profitable'?
We've all seen with components they start expensive, get really cheap as the production ramps up then a year or so later when no one is making them any more, cost a small fortune.
so unless they are prepared to put a lot of faith in making small phones and start to produce small screens in very large numbers again, the small phones would be prohibitively expensive.
That is unless there are still a lot of small phones being made with great screens elsewhere and I don't think there are.
You can't put a big battery in a small phone and even the SE2-and we have two of them-won't go a day if you use them a lot. The 13pro max will do it with ease.
There's another question mark over components and it is a question because I don't know the answer: 'Do they still make the small screens in large enough numbers to make it profitable'?
We've all seen with components they start expensive, get really cheap as the production ramps up then a year or so later when no one is making them any more, cost a small fortune.
so unless they are prepared to put a lot of faith in making small phones and start to produce small screens in very large numbers again, the small phones would be prohibitively expensive.
That is unless there are still a lot of small phones being made with great screens elsewhere and I don't think there are.
Thanks @mikehalloran I asked a few months ago and the Genius Bar quoted around £100 to replace the battery. It'll be six years old next month as I was a very early buyer when it came out. The half a camera is because the back one works but the front one doesn't!
I’d like to see an SE3 in the shape of the 2016 version with a glass back and capacitive Touch ID. That, I reckon, would be the ultimate small phone. It would be fairly cheap to produce and would likely sell more units than the SE2. Such a phone would cater to the small phone causal market and could be priced at a competitive $399.
im not a heavy user in terms of screen on time, but I’ve always got my AW and AirPods Pro connected to my 12 mini, so getting average 36 hours is not bad at all. I also never use MagSafe charging, so this may have helped with battery degradation a bit.
@Barbareren i k ow you said your not interested in the current SE iphones, but if the rumoured SE3 next year is the IPhone X chassis but with slightly larger bezels as a 5.7” screen comes true, would this interest you?
These phones can last days when hooked up via Bluetooth. At the cost of 1% battery, I can get almost an hour of a podcast streamed onto the car stereo. It’s web browsing and video streaming that is the real battery killer.
I regularly use the MagSafe charging pad to charge my phone. It might be responsible for some of the degradation.
That definitely doesn’t sound bad ? But personally I don’t like to compromise on specs - that’s why I’m one of those people who want a Mini Pro…
I am a small phone fanatic but looking at the folks I work with (majority are in their early 20s to mid 30s), I'm the exception. A lot of these people have 4-7 hours of daily screen time clocked on their phones (mostly from social media and YouTube), and bigger seems to be 'better' in their eyes. Sadly I think the (very brief) era of 'minis' is coming to an end.
My 4S lasted 3-4 days between charges. Easily. If I didn’t use it much it could last 5. It didn’t lose battery on standby either, like the more modern phones do.
That’s because phones back then were used as phones, not all-in-one computing devices like they are today.
I can go though my phone’s full battery capacity along with the MagSafe battery pack in a single day.
Data plans in 2011 were typically a few hundred MB or a few GB. It's easy to save battery if usage is limited.
You do realize the iPhone SE is larger than the 12 mini or 13 mini is ... right?
iPhone 13 Mini: 131.5 x 64.2 x 7.7 mm (5.18 x 2.53 x 0.30 in) 141 g (4.97 oz)
iPhone 12 Mini: 131.5 x 64.2 x 7.4 mm (5.18 x 2.53 x 0.29 in) 135 g (4.76 oz)
iPhone SE '20: 138.4 x 67.3 x 7.3 mm (5.45 x 2.65 x 0.29 in) 148 g (5.22 oz)
The screen may bug yeah, but it is THE smallest phone Apple has made in almost 10yrs.
IF it was a money maker and the 12 and 13 mini are -
they made more money per unit sold than the iPhone SE 2020, or the iPhone Xr did.
I cannot find the statistics and source but its in one of my older posts related to iPhone 12/13mini a few months back.
Money by itself is not definitive, volume is what Apple looks for along with profits per unit sold.
Outside of N.America I feel most within the EU and especially in Asian countries the bigger the screen the better and that's where they're putting their bets ($$) on.
I don’t see small phones returning to the mainstream market. There are a few people that really love them but that’s such a small percentage that it’s not worth creating a new device for it because it doesn’t pay for research and development. Apple found this out the hard way when they thought since there’s so much talk about small phones they thought the mini would sell but it flopped. It’s a small group of people making a whole lot of chatter so even though it seems like a popular idea it just doesn’t sell.
The biggest problem is the way people use phones now. When people used their phone for mostly phone calls and the occasional text small was ideal because you didn’t need a big screen to read a text message. Now people are watching videos and looking at pictures so a big screen is a significant advantage. Before someone says it, yes people were doing that back then but it wasn’t as popular and once most people got their hands on a larger phone they never went back.
Of course this isn’t ideal for someone with extremely small hands or perhaps someone that doesn’t use the phone for anything other than calls and texts. I think that’s why there’s still a market for “feature phones”.
The biggest problem is the way people use phones now. When people used their phone for mostly phone calls and the occasional text small was ideal because you didn’t need a big screen to read a text message. Now people are watching videos and looking at pictures so a big screen is a significant advantage. Before someone says it, yes people were doing that back then but it wasn’t as popular and once most people got their hands on a larger phone they never went back.
Of course this isn’t ideal for someone with extremely small hands or perhaps someone that doesn’t use the phone for anything other than calls and texts. I think that’s why there’s still a market for “feature phones”.
The 12 mini sold as well as the SE 2020. Except one product is 2 months old and the other 9 months old. Engineering costs probably differ by an order of magnitude. Basically, the 12 mini has no selling longevity.
Yes, the margins on the 12 mini will be higher. But it doesn't help if the units sold is so low.
Acttually they're probably making more off the SE2 because everything has been designed and built years ago. It's just putting together some old components. With the 12 Mini they had to make a whole new setup.The 12 mini sold as well as the SE 2020. Except one product is 2 months old and the other 9 months old. Engineering costs probably differ by an order of magnitude. Basically, the 12 mini has no selling longevity.
Yes, the margins on the 12 mini will be higher. But it doesn't help if the units sold is so low.
![iphone-12-mini-counterpoint-jan-sales.png]()
This is just for one month in 2021... I'm guessing USA sales?
