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Comment by filoleg | Hacker News Reader

> Forcing them to make a larger, more modular device that a few loud people want and most regular users couldn't care less about.

Even worse than that, those few loud people who say they want it can easily turn out to be just that - loud, but not actually wanting it once their demands are satisfied.

Case in point - iPhone Mini. Some people were loudly demanding a smaller iPhone for years. Apple introduces iPhone 12 Mini in Q4 2020 with great specs in a small form-factor. Builds on top of it with iPhone 13 Mini a year later. Then in 2022, Apple announces discontinuing iPhone Mini line due to very weak sales.

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Why would your takeaway from that be that even the loud people didn't want it? It's perfectly plausible that all the loud people bought the Mini, but it still wasn't enough to make it a viable product.

Also, Apple gave it less then two years. I could easily imagine plenty of people wanting the Mini, but being unable to justify the purchase because their existing (larger) iPhone was only a few years old. Not everyone has the resources to buy a new iPhone every year or two.

New product is a major investment, nobody competent would just discontinue it because it doesn’t sales well early on. I suppose Apple has the number to show future sales of the Mini would be weak.

I think the mini failed because most of those customers bought the second-generation SE.

I don't know if that's actually the case, given that SE is noticeably larger than Mini.

The only people I know who pick SE are those who either still want the physical home button or just want the cheapest new iPhone. In all other metrics, including smaller physical size, Mini wins hands down.

So I find your claim about people who loudly demanded a smaller iPhone cannibalizing Mini sales by picking a larger SE instead a bit difficult to believe.

That would be true when purchasing a phone now, but not at the time the SE launched. At that time, the Mini had not launched, and it was not clear that any such device would launch. Since most of the people in the market for a small phone would have been using relatively old devices, most of them purchased the SE. Already having the SE would mean that few of them would want to upgrade to the Mini.

Also, it is worth noting the desire for small phones is mostly due to a desire for easier one-handed use, and the SE is as easy to use as the Mini in that regard, since the user does not need to reach the top of the device and the home button is centrally located, and thus easier to reach.

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