Apple Store leaks 4.7-inch ‘iPhone SE’ name
9to5mac.com
9to5mac.com
1) 4" phone users who have no viable option, even in Android-land.
2) Price sensitive users who want something to get them in to the eco-system.
Apples problem is conflating the latter with the former, they see iPhone SE sales booming and consider that it must be because they need a good entry level low cost phone, then the iPhone 8 and iPhone XR comes out to lackluster sales[0][1].
So they re-release the iPhone SE and sales boom again[2].
Apple, I don't care what it costs, I do not want a phone that is not operable with one hand. I'm a guy (with relatively petite hands) but I can't imagine how it is for girls. The idea that I have to stop what I'm doing to interact with my phone (putting coffee down or whatever) is stupid.
Technology is a tool it does not need to engulf my life, it should be able to be as discrete as needed.
[0]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bensin/2017/10/23/why-is-anyone...
[1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2019/01/09/apple-iph...
It wasn’t mace because of any particular belief about size. 5/5S was just the old phone. It was easy to continue that size for a while, but probably hard now without a market.
The new SE is the same story: old iphone 8 casing, iphone 11 components. Easy to make from supply chain detritus, so why not make it?
But, you might be interested in the rumours of a small iphone 12 this year. It sounds like Apple has been listening to small phone advocates, and appears to actually be making them.
But that will be a new phone. The SE style phone’s type is instead dictated by whatever was current 2-3 years ago.
I'm just indicating that some people are buying the SE not because it's cheap, but because it's the best (or only) option for a 4" high end phone, and while I can't quantify the proportions of price-sensitive vs. size-sensitive; my anecdotal evidence that it's more size-sensitive than price-sensitive. At least in the circles I travel in.
> But, you might be interested in the rumours of a small iphone 12 this year. It sounds like Apple has been listening to small phone advocates, and appears to actually be making them.
There's always something on the horizon which never seems to materialise, the iPhone 11 [Pro] was supposed to be small, then the SE2 rumours which are now bunked. At some point soon I'll just go all-in on an iPad Pro or some other tablet and interface with it very sparingly, via headphones and the watch.
The small iphone 12 rumours are from Ming-Chi Kuo, who basically has not been wrong about this sort of thing. I dom’t recall there ever being rumours of a small iphone 11, or that the SE 2 would be small. Certainly not from him. So, I’d rate it quite likely.
> 1) 4" phone users who have no viable option, even in Android-land.
Yessssss. I have a Pixel 3A, the smallest decent Android phone on the market, and it is waaaay too huge, so I'm really excited about this release. While I've been on Android for over a decade, I'm willing to switch if it means I can use my phone one-handed again. But more importantly, maybe this release will convince the Android copycats to make a human-hand-sized phone so I don't even have to switch. I figure I'll give it 6 months and, if no one has announced smaller Android phones, I'll just switch to iPhone. I'm done with phablets.
I'm an Android developer and generally prefer Android as an operating system, but I switched to a 128gb iPhone SE a year ago and still love the phone. I can still recommend that model if you find one second-hand.
I don't want to go into "who supports hardware longer" or "how long phones last" but I don't think this is a true successor.
Plus for someone considering an iPhone SE, the XZ2 doesn't have iOS.
One thing I'll note though: Surprisingly my XZ2 did get the full upgrade to Android 10 from Android 9. So that's pretty great considering it's 2 years old.
So a low entry priced phone pair up would make it more palatable to me if not others.
I guess that means I wont be continuing with the apple eco-system as the phones are simply too unpalatable at this point, as soon as the SE is out of support I'll have to find an alternative. That's distressing.
[0]: https://www.businessinsider.com/does-apple-watch-work-with-i...
Girls love their large phones, they are easy to type on, and visual content consumption is much more comfortable.
The truth is Apple may know better than most of us. Out of the small group of user who bought iPhone SE, most of them bought it for its price and not its size. If there was indeed a market for smaller smartphone, you could bet Android would have at least a few selection. But there are none. Zero. Even the king of SKUs Samsung doesn't ship a single small Android phone just proves the market is simply not there. Or at least for the Android targeted market.
Truth to be told, As much as I love to have an updated iPhone SE, if it was priced the same as the iPhone 4.7" where everything else being equal, I would likely have pick the the 4.7" just to be safe. Basically it comes down to market want cheap AND small, not cheap OR small.
Another point worth mentioning, Once Apple perfected the All Screen narrow bezel OLED manufacturing to the point it becomes a commodity, the 4.7" Screen Size ( With 19.5 : 9 Ratio ) will be exactly the same as the iPhone SE 4" Size.
I have an iPod Touch too, which is what I use around the house. It's the iPhone SE only half as thick and no cellular or Touch ID. Until I got the refurbished SE I was carrying the iPod Touch and a Verizon MiFi around – still more convenient than the 11 Pro!
I would have bought an updated SE if they had been available at the time, but I don't regret the XR purchase.
I looked at _all of the Android One_ devices, which have guaranteed EoL timelines, and the smallest device was still 5+". The smallest was Sharp S3 at 5", but only available in Japan (and released in 2018). The smallest 2019 Android One global release was the Nokia 2.2 at 5.71". There has only been one release in 2020 (Nokia 8.3 - 6.81").
Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_One#Products_by_year_o...
I've been wanting to get off "Google play services" and into a smaller, cheaper phone. I don't need the huge screen and tons of features like my Pixel 2 XL has, I just need a phone, messaging, maps, and sometimes the internet to pay bills and 400 bucks is a pretty good price for a few years of that vs. I think I paid 1200 for my Pixel 2 XL (and the same for my wife!). With this, I could get one for each of us and a spare for the same price as a single phone and lose the Google privacy-ending bullshit at the same time.
Alternatively you can debloat an android with a desktop thanks to adb, when you don't want to unlock and reset your phone for a new rom.
There are already enough open source alternatives to replace Google software from android phones. Even some who replace Google play services for the apps that need it, while only having minimal contact with Google servers.
Especially with your needs it is really easy to go Google free on the phone you already own. In any other place I would think you just don't know better, but here it just sounds like an excuse.
They’re more similar than they are different.
No, I can't ssh into my phone now, but whatever?
This being said I'm sure OP's statements are just gross exaggerations based on their personal (dis)preference. Even if continuously switching between apps was their day job the difference is so small it's irrelevant. And anyone who's able to operate one of the phones is perfectly able to operate the other.
Just what I wanted.
The problem isn't Apple, Apple is great when it comes to their stock apps. The problem is all the third party apps you end up installing. They just don't care about your privacy. Half of them will bundle "analytics" that you have no power to turn off and there isn't the same open-source community for iOS that there is for Android.
What I ended up with is an open-source ROM with MicroG (in my case a custom build of AOSP but LineageOS + NanoDroid, LineageOS for MicroG or Elementary OS all work) with open-source apps for most purposes.
This way the only proprietary code running as part of the OS is the device drivers. Everything else is open-source.
Practically, pretty much everything works except for in-app payments. Those will work if you install the modified Play Store that's distributed as part of NanoDroid but that means installing the Play Store as a privileged app, which brings you right back to the original problem.
As for apps, I mainly use Maps from F-Droid (open-source build of Maps.me), OsmAnd, FairEmail, Riot, Fennec, Slide for Reddit and Bitwarden. These are all open-source.
The main closed-source apps I have installed are the local public transportation app (I'm in a country with strong privacy protections, so I trust it), the government-provided weather app and the usual financial stuff.
At some point I'll install a firewall for those too.
I want to emphasise that I don't feel like I'm giving anything up with this setup. The only thing that doesn't really work is in-app payments. I'm using a Pixel phone so I can even sign the ROM with my own private key and lock the bootloader so that nothing else can be flashed.
MicroG does provide a SafetyNet implementation but YMMV.
FWIW, all of my financial apps are perfectly happy running on my phone, even though SafetyNet mostly fails. They don't like root though.
The premium on buying brand new phones is outrageous.
I just had to look this up - the only actual increment in version numbers was iPhone 8 following iPhone 7. And even that counts just barely considering that they released iPhone X a month after 8.
I agree with your feeling on the confusing product line though - it mostly comes from very similar models being released at the same time which wasn't the case in the past.
You have iPhone 3G > iPhone 3GS > iPhone 4 > iPhone 4S > iPhone 5 > iPhone 5S > iPhone 6 & Plus > iPhone 6S & 6S Plus > iPhone 7 & 7 Plus so the naming scheme was consistent for a very long time. The iPhone 8 & 8 Plus actually broke the $N > $NS cadence.
Keeping an eye out though!
I am planning now to get rid of the X and switch to the next small phone from Apple
That said, I wouldn't completely discount it as a possibility. If Apple removes 3D Touch that could give them some extra room, and Apple does still sell iPads and an iPod touch with a headphone jack, so it's conceivable they might decide to put one on the SE as well.
1. You can get 3rd party adaptors that also supply power.
2. Wireless charging pads! This is perfect for when your phone is plugged in next to speakers.
3. AirPods. I still use wired headphones when I'm doing audio stuff (b/c of latency and sound quality), but for every day listening they are great.
That excuse as been thoroughly debunked, since Apple no longer includes a headphone port on iPads either. It was purely a financial move to sell their own wireless headphones, after they bought the "Beats by Dre" brand name.
I like the size of the SE a lot, but it’s still an anomaly today - e.g. when I play my Switch, I go back to my phone and it feels weirdly small. I’ll get used to having a bigger phone. I won’t get used to buying a phone which is more expensive than my computer though, so whether I end up getting an SE 2 really just depends on if I can find a cheaper refurbished XR/XS.
Ive got a pretty hard price limit on devices which has been drilled into me. There’s no way I can see myself spending more than $1000 on a computer or $500 on a phone. This means I end up with a 2-3 year old refurbished model most of the time, but that’s been working out fine for me for years now, so I’ll keep at it until I’ve got a good reason to change my behaviour.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/2/21206497/iphone-se-9-name-...
Google maps is fairly unusable on the SE because they've covered the actual map with so much junk you can't see where you are or where you're going, but everything else works fine for me. And there are other maps. That's honestly the only app I can think of that is properly broken. I'm probably the phone equivalent of the recalcitrant IE user but I'm sticking with the small size phone for as long as pos!
Apple's website has a list of carriers that support eSIM: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209096
From what I'm seeing, it's mostly the primary carriers and "travel data" providers that are adding support for eSIM. If someone is on a MVNO for daily use (I am), they might be out of luck.
The snarky answer is "Americans and Japanese don't leave their country and Europeans have essentially free roaming in Europe."
But I can buy roaming packages for almost every country in the world from my provider. That's what I do now instead of getting a SIM from the country I travel to. I used to do that but it was too much of a hassle for the handful of weeks per year I might be abroad.
Another option is to use one of your old phones with a local SIM.
At least for me (european), roaming packages are much more expensive than local sims. Nowadays, I just get a $10 to $50 sim at the airport right after exiting the plane, and that covers all my need for a few weeks. A few years ago, I thought dual sim was a gadget, but I couldn't do without now .
You might be able to still find some and at this point they'll only cost you $50 or less.
Sounds like an April fool’s to me