by r0fl 11 hours ago
It always surprises me that the mini was ~1% of sales and yet the pro mini comments get so many upvotes
Tenth of millions of devices were sold (somewhere between 20 to 35 Million?). You could build multiple plants for it, with government funding in Europe.
The MBAs at Apple noticed:
* Big size is a status symbol in Asia. And TV replacement. Their a lot of people in Asia.
* Due to vendor lock-in people need to purchase anyway. So just sell them the standard phone.
So Apple launched failures like the Max or Air which nobody wants. The Air is even thicker than and SE 1st Gen. Apple just measure were it is “slim” and calls it Air?
It was 3-5%, if I remember the numbers correctly. There are rumors that the Air didn’t sell better.
I don't have any official numbers, but it sure seems like the Air is selling worse than the Plus which sold worse than the Mini.
(source: keeping an eye out on the NY subway, which I have found to be a pretty damned good gauge of consumer electronics popularity)
Also, the mini had worse cameras than the larger screens.
Camera quality is the second most important thing to me (after not needing finger enhancement surgery to hold the phone).
So, they designed it to fail, and it still was 3-5% of sales vs. ones that actually got good spec bumps every year. (If you’re upgrading the phone every 12 months, why buy the one with cameras a few years behind the curve?)
Anyway, I like my mini. I wish it had touch id instead.
The Minis had the exact same cameras as the non-Minis. The Pros had the only camera improvements. In my experience all were worse than the contemporary Pixels though.
You are misremembering. There was no issue with the cameras on the mini, unless you expected a Pro mini for some reason.
1% of iPhone sales is more people than live in most countries.
Yes but 99% of non mini users upvote other things
"1%" of the massive Apple base is still more phones than sales of iPhone 1, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and many others.
You do understand what a "percentage" means? And that there's a lot of people in the world, right? :)
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.
> The release schedule was crap, as well as the 12 mini being an objectively bad phone.
I still use my 12 mini; it's by far my favorite iphone I've had since my 5s. It might have had sucky battery life but I was just happy to have a phone that could fit in my pocket.
I've replaced the screen twice, battery once (by myself) and I have really very little intentions on moving to anything newer than the 13 mini.
I'm not sure why Apple doesn't care about the mini apple users. My friends, when they pull out a 17 pro look absolutely ridiculous, constantly having to pull the phone out when doing any real work since the phone just keeps getting in the way.
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.
Count me in this group. I wound up buying the 13 mini right before it was going to be discontinued because I knew that would be the last small phone they would produce and I'm keeping it until it dies (or I can't get a battery for it).
Crazy people fixate. It’s why you get people talking about how 4o was the best AI model ever and crying for it to be brought back. (It had no internal thinking process and would believe you are the messiah without question)
It's a good phone though. Also on the 13 mini and no desire to switch to a chunkier one.