Apple killed the iPhone mini because it only had a 4-6% share of sales of all iPhone models. While some people may really want this, I can't imaging that it'll get more than 5% of iPhone sales (after maybe an initial higher novelty peak).
In a lot of ways the iphone has always been the Achilles Heel of the ultra wealthy, no matter how many billions you had, you could never do fancier than a 1500 buck iphone. Apple IMO is just trying to capitalize on this phenomenon and capture the pretentious luxury market. Anecdotally the galaxy fold did really well with the obnoxiously rich circles in my country, people who previously all had iphones. So they kinda have to do it as well now.
There's always high-end commercial modders like Caviar [0], who help customers flex both their wealth and their extremely bad taste...
Yes, that aligns with Apple offering their ridiculous golden watch faces and bands of $1000s for their Watch - it's all just about projecting wealth and 'success' (i.e. in these days of capitalism: mostly exploiting others and/or making them depended).
This statement isn't even factually correct. If you look at some place like Hong Kong and LA, you'll find a lot of similarities in demographics.
Asians might get the fame today with movies like "Crazy Rich Asians" but Americans have long been seen as the typical "flaunting wealth" conspicuous comsuptiom people by Europeans for example. In 2026 even the President has golden toilets and golden everything to flaunt his wealth.
Has HN really fallen this low?
>Has HN really fallen this low?
With the ad-hominem rude rhetorical remarks you mean?
Thanks, I'd rather pull my fingernails.
I want a screen that my thumb can reach from top to bottom without stretching or doing weird half-screen swipes to get at.
Also weird that they've gone back to touch ID instead of face ID to open/unlock.
But I'll definitely be looking at it.
For FaceID they would need to include that hardware twice, also under the display in the inner screen.
I took my passport in my hand yesterday to see how it feels. Yikes, it feels even harder to control the whole screen with your thumb.
I on the other hand hope they kill the slim iPhone and/or bring back the Plus cause the 16 Plus was a solid deal.
This is not like the iPhone mini, where they were competing with both lower end phone companies, and their own older refurb models. This one's all about ostentation.