1. Budget:
- Basic processor/camera/space with 6 inch screen
- Basic processor/camera/space with 4.5 inch screen
2. Flagship
- High-end processor/camera/space with 6 inch screen
- High-end processor/camera/space with 4.5 inch screen
It doesn’t sell.
Just look at Apple’s sales and their cancellation of the mini. I’d love it to be the opposite so I didn’t have to hold on to my iphone 12 mini, but it’s just how things are. Most people don’t like smaller phones and would be a waste of resources to make high end ones.
Mini sales were just not enough to justify having to order a miniature display by current standards.
I was an Android guy, but one of the top two reasons my newest phone is an iPhone is due to the small form factor (the other is longer support cycles). If Apple stops making small phones, my next one may well be an Android.
On consideration, capturing a niche market segment like this may be more valuable for Apple than it is for other manufacturers, as it increases the odds of getting them locked into your ecosystem.
It's also a bit challenging, since a powerful phone has higher battery/heat/etc needs and that is easier/cheaper to do in a larger device.
There’s perhaps a gap in the $150-$400 range, but used phones can definitely be found there, and I would bet that there are Android manufacturers that sell new phones there.
(All prices are USA and before tax, so other markets will be a bit more expensive.)
Below $150 you only have the cheapest models by brands like Xiaomi, and over $1000 you only have the flagships.
There are plenty of models in the middle, not only Pixels but also a plethora of offerings from Oppo, Samsung, Xiaomi, Vivo, Honor, Poco, etc. Name any [X,X+100] interval in that range and there are phones of that price. Last week I went with my mother to buy one for her, she settled for the Oppo Reno 8 (about $500) but there was the Lite version at about $100 less, the Pro version at about $100 more, and then other lineups from the same brand (Find X5 in Lite/normal/Pro versions, etc., and many, many others we didn't even look at); and that's within a single brand.
So your parent comment doesn't make much sense to me even if it's hyperbolic. Maybe the available offer is really different in the US, here there are definitely plenty of models of all prices. A different story is that all brands tend to make the same decisions and follow trends (e.g. ditch the headphone jack, make screens larger, etc.) so everything is sameish and even if there are hundreds of models to choose from, it's possible to not find a model that fits one's needs. I myself imported my phone (Pixel 6 Pro) from Australia because no brands other than Apple or Samsung seem to sell 512 GB storage models here...
But even if SMS costs money, why not just use free apps like Whatsapp or Signal?
And if SMS does cost money for the recipient, does that mean it doesn't get used for 2FA? I imagine some people would block it in order to prevent unexpected costs.
I had not expected either of those, but I'd imagine if iMessage costs money on Android, that would massively increase the popularity of either Whatsapp or Signal.
There is a very small minority of people who prefer smaller phones, but they make a lot of noise.
No one buys small phones - hence why iPhone mini was abandoned and most Android OEM's smallest models have at least 6.43'' screen
I would also argue that small screens are awful for consuming content nowadays. People with bad eyesight struggle with bigger fonts in a small screen, and publishers tend to try to fit more and more content in each screen. It's systemic.
I wouldn't. Most content is time wasting nonsense and ads.
> People with bad eyesight struggle with bigger fonts in a small screen,
My experience with Presbyopia is that a bigger screen is still impossible to read without glasses. Without glasses my only hope is to pinch zoom or browser zoom which works on both large and small screens.
Also, if you think that most content is not worth consuming, thus smaller screens are “good enough”, perhaps you are not part of the target market anyway. There are still feature phones out there for the minority who holds that sentiment.