I'm hoping that Apple releases a new mini on a 3 year cadence. Maybe there wasn't enough demand to continue the line every year, but they'll bring it back occasionally?
I bought an iPhone 13 mini the day the iPhone 15 was released and the 13 mini was discounted, with plans to keep it until it was pried from my cold dead hands. Now, less than a year later, I’m not sure how that’s going to go. While I love the size, and have hated every other iPhone since the 5/5S/SE, the lack of RAM on this thing is a real problem. The browser can’t handle some pages, things constantly reload causing me to lose stuff. It’s not great. Some developers have also seemed to stop caring about making sure things work well on the smaller screen. I sent 1Password a bug report, they tested and confirmed it was an issue and said they do still support the Mini, yet the issue remains a year later, last I noticed.
I’ve also wanted the Pro camera setup for years, but it’s only on larger phones, so I didn’t get it. There is this misguided idea that people want small phones because they’re cheaper. I’d pay a premium for a small Pro phone. If they need to make it thicker to fit everything in and give it the same size battery, I’m good with that… it would eliminate the camera bump, which would be great.
I buy my phones through work, so my next upgrade opportunity isn’t for another 14 months. When the time comes, I’m not sure if I’ll be as excited to hold onto the mini. I want to make my point, but also want a usable phone. Not to mention probably wanting some of those Apple Intelligence features. I’m troubled by the whole situation.
When the 12 mini was released I bought it and Apple sent me a survey. It seemed like have the questions were asking if I bought the mini because it was cheaper. It seemed like that was the assumption they were going with. I answered over and over again that I didn’t care about price, and if there were comments I wrote that I was price insensitive and cared about the size, not the price.
I get steep discounts on phone hardware through work, but if they released an iPhone 16 mini Pro tomorrow, I’d pay full price out of pocket, no questions asked.