My issue is I want a mini with the pro features. I’d happily pay the same price as the pro. But I doubt I’m a common type of customer.
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.