i send them an iphone mini request every once in a while through the feedback form hoping it will make a little bit of difference: https://www.apple.com/feedback/
still holding on to iphone 13 mini hoping they bring back the perfect size.
People make fun of me but I'll never skip a chance to complain about how large these phones are. I hate it so much. I have a standard iPhone, not a max, and it causes real pain in my wrist if I use it too much. Was honestly thinking about downgrading to the last SE model even though it's several years out of date.
I have found the iPhone Air much easier to hold than the iPhone 13 Pro it replaced because of how light it is, even though the iPhone Air has a bigger screen.
The 17e weighs roughly the same at a smaller size, and the mini weighs significantly less. Not to mention the first SE, compared to which even the mini is heavy. Yes the Air is lightweight compared to the Pro, but that’s a low bar.
The other thing with the Air is that you can’t really use it one-handed, which is what most people who like small phones are after, besides pockability.
Funnily, the large display is the most important thing for me. I find my efficiency directly proportional to display size (which holds for laptops too).
If a 30 second task can be done in just 20 on a device with a larger display, that's absolutely worth it for me.
Also larger device tends to imply longer battery life too.
If the task can’t be done in a few taps I feel I’m better off opening a laptop anyways.
However the market agrees with you so I must be missing something. I used to think it was driven by media consumption on phones, and that I try to avoid, but this isn’t the first time I have heard people tout phone productivity gains from a slightly larger screen.
I switched from a pixel 3 to a pixel 9 pro over a year ago, and I still miss the smaller form factor. the pixel 3 really was the perfect size for me and I am sad I can no longer get a smallish phone with a high end processor.
I don’t think anyone should make fun of you for it but I’m in the opposite boat. I’m so glad that they make the pro max variants because most smartphones are so small that it hurts my fingers to bend them in the unnaturally inward way it requires to hold and interact with them.
I have large hands but the 13 Mini is roughly the maximum I can use one-handed without doing the weird finger balancing act to shift the phone around. I get why most people like large phones - media consumption - but not everyone is into that.
I don't even mind large phones if they're done right. My favorite phone of all time is the BB Passport which you have to use two-handed, but it was actually designed around that and amazing to use.
Yeah, I wish they would commit to doing a mini every x years. Last year I bought a 16 and this year I bought an Air. I returned both after just a few days. I can't reach across the phone with my thumb, meaning I can't use it one-handed.
The new phones have some neat tricks (satellite connectivity comes to mind), but the on-device AI seems pretty mediocre and I value pocketability and one-handed usability more than the new gizmos.
When I asked myself if I would rather keep the new Air or go back to my 13 mini with an extra thousand dollars in my pocket, it was no contest.
I showed my Costco membership QR code to the cashier the other day, and they suddenly exclaimed, “oh my! What a cute little phone!!”
It took me a second to even process why someone might say such a thing about my case-less generic 12 mini. Most of my close friends have 13 mini’s so I often feel my wife’s “regular” size iPhone is the odd one out.
I stuck with my 13 mini for a long time, and had recently put a new iFixit battery in it too. I did finally make the jump to a Pixel 10 but sign me up with everyone else who misses reasonably-sized phones.
I've a lot of unexpected behavior from the faceid thing. Lots of unexpected swipe-ups that drop me out of an app and put me on the home screen. Can't unlock in the dark, too close to your face, off to the side, in your pocket. Lots of "I saw your face an unlocked" that I didn't know had happened.
fingerprint sensor unlocked when you wanted it to, with haptics. switching apps was a button operation, not happening when you didn't expect it.
Plus, fingerprint scanners can be activated without breaking eye contact with the person you're talking to. It's very anti-social technology.
It makes one look completely like a tool to pull out their iPhone and stare at it for ten seconds while checking out with a cashier. Deeply embarrassing and very annoying.
I get that getting rid of touchid haptic eliminates dead space but still blows my mind they couldn't or refused to figure out screen-based touch id as an option at least. Samsung has it...
Under-screen fingerprint readers are definitely inferior - slower and less reliable. I (Android user) wish they'd revert to back-of-device readers, which were amazing.
(I also wish for smaller screens and no-adhesive battery swaps though, neither of which seems likely to happen.)
The thing I've come to like about FaceID on my 13 mini is that I can require it for certain apps to open that don't require it - e.g. messaging as opposed to banking which generally require some kind of auth by default - which is much better security in case someone snatches it out of my hand while it's unlocked. It's pretty seamless because I'm generally looking at the device anyway, and it's much less faff than it would be with TouchID.
I think the way the Pixel does it is strictly better across the board. The fingerprint sensor doesn't sacrifice screen space, and the platform offers face unlock as well.
The physical home button is, no bullshit, one of the greatest pieces of UI ever. No, I am not kidding, I really think that. It’s crazy to me that they abandoned it, the gestures that replace its functionality are overall-worse and cluttering the gesture system with even more of them is bad for the overall UX.
I'm also a touchID / iphone 8 size fan, but the nice cameras/zoom in flagship models are hard to give up. At least Face ID has improved significantly from the early days of iphone 10 -- it's faster and more reliable than it was on the older models if you tried it back then.
Finally moved on from my 12 mini, but I still have it sitting in my office and when I pick it up I think "wow this feels like a phone from the future."
Wish they made a new mini instead of the Air. A friend bought one of those, and frankly I just don't get it.
The screen is too big to use it one-handed, and thickness is really the only one of the three dimension of the phone that I don't care about how small it is (within reason). They probably spent billions of dollars shaving off half a millimeter and what do we get with that technology? Phone that's too big.
If this keeps up in another 5 years I'll be looking at flip phones and a separate camera.
I moved off the mini to get satelite messaging which I use while hiking. But now that T-Mobile/starlink support satelite on the 13 mini, maybe I’ll go back.
Still loving mine as well. I held out with the 2016 SE for 8 years. Sadly it's looking like I might have to do that again with the 13 mini! It boggles my mind that Apple thinks it's worthwhile to sell the 16, 17, 17 Pro, and 17e all in basically the exact same form factor. And then the Air and Max in very similar form factors. Vary it up! I don't need a new mini every year, but something in the 5.4" form factor every 3-4 years would obviously have an audience. I don't care if it's a Pro or an SE/e model, I just need something that'll keep me on the latest iOS for security updates.
Sigh. Maybe the Clicks Communicator (at 13cm tall) will get my money.
The SE3 is only half a year younger than the 13 mini the parent comment mentioned (and it’s larger and heavier than the mini), so I don’t really see the benefit there.
Same. This would be an obvious upgrade for me, if the overall size was anywhere close to the Mini. Oddly enough, the announcement doesn't even list the screen size, but I'm sure it's 6" +
The release schedule was crap, as well as the 12 mini being an objectively bad phone.
Spring 2020, they released the iPhone SE 2020, 4 years after the previous iPhone SE. This satiated a lot of the demand for people holding out for a smaller phone. Then came the surprise with 12 mini in September of 2020, except the battery life and performance sucked, garnering bad reviews.
Then, finally in September 2021, they released the 13 mini, an objectively good, smaller phone. But over the previous 18 months, a lot of the buyers for the 13 mini had already bought the 2020 SE or were burned by the 12 mini.
Have you replaced the battery? My 13 mini shows 90% battery health but I can’t use it for the full day (and I don’t game or anything, just light use). I wonder if the battery is really ok and it’s the software that is to blame.
I did! I ended up buying a kit off ifixit IIRC. It was super cheap and works great! If I did it again, I would splurge for the Apple verified battery as a third party one doesn't work with the new Battery app features.
My 13 mini on iOS 26 shows 83% maximum capacity but makes it through the day with light-ish use (Spotify (although generally offline playlists because of lossless audio) NYT games, email, messaging, browsing, Instapaper). I do have lots of accessibility settings enabled to stop things like transparency and animations though. See my comment here for more details: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45544554
I still have my 12 Mini, changed the battery in a Apple store a year ago (and they broke the screen in the process so got a new screen too) for I think 99 EUR, now the battery still last ~2 days, easily worth it. Maximum capacity says "87%" right now although I don't know what exactly that's based on.
I'm keeping this phone until either Apple releses a new mini or until Motorola released a GrapheneOS phone, whichever comes first.
> changed the battery in a Apple store a year ago (and they broke the screen in the process so got a new screen too)
Huh, I had a 12 mini and had the same thing happen at an independent repair shop I used to frequent. I've been pretty salty with the shop, but I guess it's an easier fuckup than I've been giving them credit for.
Just replaced my 13 mini battery this past week which was at 80%. Noticeable improvement. I'm not a very heavy user but did find that I was getting to the 20/10% range at the end of most days. Now its 30/40 and I'm happy! Many more years in the old steed yet.
I got the base 13 at launch day whose battery health now states 86%. While I have noticed degraded battery performance, the stated health has been stuck at 86% for quite a while now.
I guess it's bugged out and would opt for a battery change if you're feeling the battery pains, I'm thinking of upgrading to the new base model this year for the usb c and 120hz display.
One can only hope... My 13 mini's performance, especially for the Camera and Safari seem to have hit new lows with iOS 26. I'm sticking with the mini for its size, but also its weight. So far the Air is the only alternative I think I could switch to, but apparently that's also on Apple's chopping block due to poor sales.
Been thinking of doing the same. My 12 is showing its cycles, but it’s either I have a phone that lives in my front pocket, or I can go phone-less.
I refuse to have a phone I have to constantly carry, hold, or move from back pocket when I sit. This damn thing is in my hands enough, I don’t need to increase the surface area for potential distractions.
My next upgrade if my 12 mini gives up will be an 13 mini. And from there I will probably just stick to refurbed 13 minis until a good alternative comes out.
I highly recommend hunting down a 13 mini now (with a lot of battery left) so you can switch when you have to. I did last summer and was glad I didn´t have to organize one on short notice. And if you avoid ios26 - make sure the ios18 on the device is updated because now you no longer get updated within ios18
my wife upgraded from a 13 mini to an Air and she loves it. She thought she hated the larger size of new phones, but after holding the Air in her hand she realized the weight and thickness was the issue for her!
It’s a tough call though because the Air has a lot of pros and cons! My wife never takes nature photography or macro photography, so she was OK with the 1 camera compromise.
If you truly want a shorter phone, my condolences lol. Apple seems to be ignoring this user segment.
I tried the Air and went back to the mini because of the camera compromises. One big issue for me was losing Cinematic video, which I use all the time.
I can relate. I actually used to be jealous of the ladies because they always have a convenient purse to put things in. These days I wear a light weight cross-body “sling” bag, and i’m happy as a peach.
Easy way to bring my phone, sunglasses, wallet, keys, etc with me. Pockets can be pretty annoying.
Waiting for the first pro line phone with both the Apple modem and Apple wifi/BT stack in it. Battery life is always a struggle when the phone gets older.
> iPhone 17e also features C1X, the latest-generation cellular modem designed by Apple
But the 17e iPhone seems to lack the Apple developed N1 chip that provides Wifi 7 + Bluetooth 6. So presumably they're using off the shelf components for Wifi and Bluetooth in the 17e.
I'd love to have a smaller/cheaper phone but I continue to hold onto my Pro from a couple years ago is for the high end camera, particularly the telephoto lens.
I have the same issue with my Pixel. It's nice to be able to use a real zoom when I need it, but that means I can't get the one that's otherwise what I really need.
I'm happy for the existence of the e line mainly because it forces them to bump up the specs on the base iPhone. 17 is so good now that there's very little reason to get the 17 Pro.
I'm glad they added MagSafe with this version, that was my biggest "issue" with the 16e. Thankfully you can add a ring to the back of the device to "give" it MagSafe (the magnets part at least, if not the faster charging).
I really want to like the lower cost e phones, but the lack of ultrawide band support is a deal breaker. Does adding this feature really increase the cost, or is this a calculated move by Apple to ensure those who use this for air tags or keyless entry continue to buy higher end phones.
Taking inflation into account, a $599 iPhone in 2026 would have been $380 in 2007. Given that the actual launch price in 2007 was $499, that's a pretty hefty drop.
No, Mercedes Benz is definitely a luxury brand. They don’t want to sell to everyone. Apple (Steve Jobs) has explicitly stated that as one of their goals.
> It’s not a luxury brand, it is a quality brand. There is a difference.
It’s an attainable luxury brand. There aren’t many products that a high school kid has in common with billionaires, superstar athletes and movie stars—the iPhone is such a product.
Last time I complained about the pricing of the iPhone, people pointed out that inflation included the prices wasn't to far of from the original iPhone.
Still, I don't care that the phones are faster, have larger screens, better camera, FaceID, AI, are thinner light and what have you. The iPhone design peaked in 2015, from there they could just have release the same phone year after year, making it cheaper and cheaper and I'd still be happy with it.
The prices are, in my mind insane, and I'll be buying used, but those are also overpriced.
> Still, I don't care that the phones are faster, have larger screens, better camera, FaceID, AI, are thinner light and what have you. The iPhone design peaked in 2015, from there they could just have release the same phone year after year, making it cheaper and cheaper and I'd still be happy with it.
This obviously isnt relevant generally though, this is not how the general public feels at all.
I'd argue that is worth the money if you're going to be using a phone every single day of their life. People will drop a few hundred on fancy shoes and wear them once a month, but they treat phones as cheap commodities.
Seems like a decent deal for what it has and getting the full support lifecycle out of it instead of used. Does anyone know if this gets $50 off with the education discount?
Is massive storage on a mobile device really still a thing that's important?
I'm saying this as someone with 512GB, but I just checked and I'm using 85GB at the moment, including the OS.
Photos and videos are the likely reason why the phones have so much storage, but these days both apple and google offer decent cloud backup solutions which negates the need for massive on-device storage. I'd rather the storage be smaller, and the savings going toward more battery or whatever.
Cloud storage do not help you sharing that old photo album with friends spending the night in a cabin far from the closest cell phone coverage.
Also, cloud service typically move your older stuff to colder/slower storage which are painfully slow to retrieve whenever you decides to do it. I realized this when browsing some old pictures before closing a google account I had not been using for years except emptying the gmail inbox every few months.
I personally prefer having a local copy of my files and syncthing them to my NAS at home (which is itself backuped in a storage in the cloud).
Unfortunately yes. Some mobile games are 30+ GB (and this is probably the major reason for increasing minimum storage), high-res videos take any amount of space and are slow to sync with cloud, in-app downloaded data caches are routinely 2-5 GB each in addition to apps themselves.
Both third party developers and Apple have increasingly become terrible at respecting the user’s disk space. Recently my iPhone started crashing as it ran out of space. I found that Apple Maps was using twenty gigs. Fortunately the fix is simple as the issue is widespread and it has become the first search result. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256084682?sortBy=rank
If you have 512GB I don’t think you really experience the worst of it. A lot of bugs are just Apple creating humongous temporary files before they are deleted as they age. Unless you check every day you don’t really know how much is really being used. You don’t really experience these crashes, and you have no skin in the game to make an informed comment.
I don't think it's inherently impossible, but Apple at least seems to do a really poor job at local cache management on iOS for Photos and Messages attachments. I am constantly amazed to find my non-tech-savvy relatives deleting stuff from their phones to free up local storage.
I've had at least 256GB on my phones for the last couple of generations after having had to deal with storage issues beforehand, and it's been much nicer.
But I picked up a 16e for my son a few months ago, with 128GB, and yes, we're running into issues with storage space when it comes time to do an OS update. Between local music and photos storage, base storage, and the image for the new update, two or three times now we've had to delete stuff temporarily in order to get the update going. So I'm happy the new base is 256GB, at least that will probably last us a couple more generations before ~~640KB~~ 256GB is enough for everyone.
Cloud backups are great for keeping your photos long-term, but if you want those photos on your phone so you can show them to people or share them, you need to download them anyway.
I need storage because Honkai: Star Rail is 32gb and I like being able to have more than one game on my phone.
I know good network connectivity is not a privilege that everyone has, but on google photos I can scroll back all the way to 2007 when my digital photo collection started (I uploaded everything I had manually), and it's as if all those photos are local on my device.
Sad it doesn't have the dynamic island, was going to pick up one of these for testing for iOS app development. Everything else looks fine however, as expected.
I'm trying to understand what you mean by this. Are you saying they're "bad" in terms of resolution, or artistic value, or something else? They seem good enough (far from "bad") by any definition I can think of.