Seriously. This giant phone trend is nonsense. Nonsense! I'm a 6'5" man with large hands who still swears by an SE, despite being mocked by friends and strangers whenever I pull out my "tiny phone". I had a 6S and promptly ditched it for an SE after feeling like the thing was designed to slip out of my enormous hands. That whole "reachability" feature they added when they started with this phablet obsession was basically an admission of guilt—"Yeah, this phone is too big for your hands and goes completely against our brilliant ad campaign about the phone vs hand size, but Samsung made a big phone and people are buying it! We're scared they're taking our customers away so we're making big phones now. Here's a workaround."
Thanks, I hate it.
As someone holding on tightly to an out of date iPhone and a 2015 MacBook Pro (oh my god, the current laptop keyboard/trackpad/port situation is a whole 'nother even more intense rant), I think Apple has fucking lost it product-wise. I'm saying this as someone who has been on Apple products since 1987 and lived through the dark days of Apple in the 90s.
To me it's an example of what happens when you put a finance guy and not a product guy at the top of the totem pole. Instead of asking "is this product the best it could be?" the thought process seems to be "Will this product make money? How can it make MORE money?"
"Yeah, it doesn't sit on a table flat anymore, but it'll sell when we market it as 'THE SHINIEST IPHONE EVER'"
"It sure is awkward to use one handed, but it'll sell when we market it as 'THE NEWEST IPHONE WE'VE EVER MADE'"
Bigger and bigger iPhones with better and better cameras and more and more letters tacked on to the end will sell to a captive audience when Apple has the brand power they do. And that might seem good enough when all you're doing is comparing yourself to what the rest of the market is releasing, and when market success is beating last year's sales. But is that the Apple we want?
Nope.
I want my Apple back. The SE was the last phone form-factor that still had Steve Job's approval on it, and it sucks that it's so obvious.
SE size but all-screen like the X would be perfect I think. Up to Apple whether they call it the iPhone SEX.
There's nothing current and SE size in the Android world either (except at slow feature-phone level).
Even better, release two new phones, one in SE size but all screen so the screen's bigger, and one with SE screen size but all screen but the phone's smaller.
Amusingly, Apple had to side-step exactly the same naming conundrum in 1989 when they released their new M68030-based models—the Macintosh II was followed by the IIx and the Macintosh SE was followed by the... SE/30.
Here's hoping for an iPhone SE/30. Sadly they missed the ideal time to release it, being that last January was the SE/30's 30th anniversary. That would have been cute. As they were both (for their time) small and powerful computers, it would have been perfect. I was almost expecting it as soon as they released the iPhone SE... and Apple isn't entirely immune to nostalgia, though it is rare.
An interesting bit of trivia: the SE/30 is the only Apple computer to ever to include a slash in its name. (Honorable mention does go to the Apple IIe which was occasionally stylised in type as //e, but that wasn't its actual name.)
> mocked by friends and strangers whenever I pull out my "tiny phone".
Interesting. I don't often get mocked for having an SE, but I do often have people asking what model my phone is and where they can get one.
My current hope is that we might see something like the SE come back now that Jony Ive's had at least a glancing blow from the boot. Maybe now Apple's at least a little bit more able to resist the constant drive to make the phones wider and wider so that they can fit the same amount of electronics and battery into a thinner and thinner device.
Yeah, hopefully! Nobody is asking for paper thin phones, and this needless obsession with THIN is we have to thank for gems such as:
- the phone no longer sitting flat
- the headphone port being removed
- the phone being impossible to get a good grip on without a bulky case
- "nearly one day of battery" life being the bar for "what good battery life is"
Who trades a couple of millimeters of thickness in exchange for the above? I hope someone in Apple is listening and can convince themselves and others inside that thickness is not the enemy.
iPhone 6 (Plus) was when it was realized that people care a lot about the camera. Folks bought iPhone 6 Plus phones they didn’t want for stabilization.
Apple prioritized camera over thickness at that point. Battery is lower on the list and is mostly addressed by CPU improvements.
IMO it’s frustrating that they are so conservative with a mature product. We waited over a decade for basic waterproofing. Apple has an incredible supply chain, but Samsung can deliver better/more diverse form factors. Example: ruggedish phones.
Apple’s focus is both amazing and frustrating to me. They had and lost an opportunity to break Microsoft clients in business.
Basically why I bought a Moto G⁷ Power: it's about the same size as all the other phones these days, and it actually has two to three days of battery life. It's about the thickness of an iPhone 5, which was fine.
I personally think the iPhone 4S's display was a good size and resolution, and the form factor is good for human hands. If they could close in the bezels a bit, cut off a tiny bit of chin and forehead, and make the shell like the iPhone 5C... and make it run Android... I'd probably be game.
They could probably procure a really nice display in terms of colour, switching speed, sustained brightness, and black levels, maybe even increase the refresh rate to 120Hz for the interaction latency benefit. At 960x640, the quality of each of those pixels could be spectacular, and it'd further help with the end-to-end latency.
For the last couple of years I didn't ever bring a smartphone with me, just my trusty Nokia 106, which itself gets about a month of standby time per charge. I still carry the 106 because I'm still not used to having to charge a device so often.
Thing is, it is not nonsense. People here always cry for 'voting with your wallet'. Well, people did and here we are. Apple was massively criticised for _years_ that they did not put out a large phone, because that's where all of the android market went.
Then, when they finally made the iPhone 6 their sales were so large that the next year's phone was deemed a flop even though it did extremely well. (If one would remove iPhone 6 from the sales chart, the 6S would still continue the trend in increased sales every year).
I would love apple to also offer a smaller phone, but offering people what they actually want was not a mistake.
> offering people what they actually want was not a mistake.
You can’t read customer preference from the market when they stopped offering choice in this regard. I bought a large phone because that’s the choice they offered and fucking hate it.
I think they do have pretty good numbers because the iPhone 5S was still sold even after the 6 was out. So, when the 6S came out they could compare how well the 1 year old 6 fared against a then one year old 5S.
Also they did make the SE. I am pretty sure Apple knows what is most money making strategy.
This being said, they do offer (or will soon) a Mac Pro which clearly is not there to make big bucks. They could (and I would love them to) offer a smaller phone with latest internal specs. They do have bandwidth for that.
My fear is that what makes apple money is inherently an expensive, shitty phone for everyone. They are incentivized to keep us purchasing high dollar products, not to make quality products.
The software has me over a barrel. I would dump Apple hardware in a heartbeat if I could get it running on a phone built for reliability. I’d stop complaining about the hardware so much if they allowed independent app stores with better curation. Together makes me look for alternatives (which also suck mostly for software reasons).
1) I can't remember anyone reliable who thought the iPhone 6s was a flop, as opposed to the fact that the iPhone 6 had an immediate surge due to pent up demand.
2) The fact that Apple went so many years without a big screen phone, with people demanding it, and then when Apple.did release it they underestimated demand, proves that Apple can be mistaken in their assessment of the market. You're correct that just because people here seem to indicate they want a small phone doesn't mean a market for it exists. But I do remember the exact same comments being made about a larger screen size phone as well before the iPhone 6. IOW, just because Apple doesn't offer a small phone, doesn't mean the market for that doesn't exist either
It's quite spineless and revealing to abandon the standard smartphone screen size right after running those ads.
I guess they're doing product development out of fear instead of boldness, now. Just a typical committee-led US corporation trending back to the mean. Maybe they should get a new CEO from Pepsi, again.
Amen. The SE is the ideal size for me because, with an Otter Box case, it fits in a shirt vest pocket or a jeans front pocket although I prefer the shirt pocket. I'd love it if they'd make a new one in the exact same size. I know I will try to keep this one going as long as I can but would buy a new one immediately were it to be offered. I should have bought the last of the old ones that Apple was closing out for cheap. Darn me for not.
"I'm a 6'5" man with large hands who still swears by an SE"
It appears that the SE is 4 inches and the 6S is 4.7. I have a Pixel 3 non-XL and it is 5.5 which seems fine to me. But the Pixel 3 XL at 6.2 was going too far.
Anyway, a real Apple SE[1] has a screen which is a little over 8 inches...
I feel the same way but heard an interesting take- ordinary people with ordinary size hands couldn't one-hand anything bigger than four inches, so most of the market has been using two hands since 2010.
You are not alone. There are many that agree with you and even apple did, before it hindered with what the "shareholders & wolfs of wall street" needed.
The point has been made before that the problem is most people don't have large hands (especially the quite small people in the rest of the world) - and they have already had to get used to using two hands, so for them - the size increases are a non-change. It's only us giant-handed people that are now hitting this change. But we're not most consumers.
DISCLOSURE: I'm a long-fingered former SE user who recently upgraded to an XR.
On the flip side, I'd also be cool with it if the phone industry can manage to move the fashion industry to produce clothing articles with pockets that fits these phones in places that doesn't prevent you from sitting down etc.
I have massive front pockets, so my XS Max happily fits in there, along with my work iPhone 8, and I don't generally notice when sitting down. It seems weird to me that you'd have non-jeans pants that you _couldn't_ do that with.
I have a Xiaomi 6" flagship and it's too big for me. I mean, I can use it, but it's not too comfortable. I wish there was a bigger market for the 5" phones, but seems the trends are for bigger and bigger.
Having an uneven phone back such that it falls off of even level surfaces when receiving a phone call is a _vital feature_ that I cannot live without. How else will my phone land on a corner and crack the screen, requiring an expensive repair? Am I supposed to drop it like it's 1999?
Thanks, I hate it.
As someone holding on tightly to an out of date iPhone and a 2015 MacBook Pro (oh my god, the current laptop keyboard/trackpad/port situation is a whole 'nother even more intense rant), I think Apple has fucking lost it product-wise. I'm saying this as someone who has been on Apple products since 1987 and lived through the dark days of Apple in the 90s.
To me it's an example of what happens when you put a finance guy and not a product guy at the top of the totem pole. Instead of asking "is this product the best it could be?" the thought process seems to be "Will this product make money? How can it make MORE money?"
"Yeah, it doesn't sit on a table flat anymore, but it'll sell when we market it as 'THE SHINIEST IPHONE EVER'"
"It sure is awkward to use one handed, but it'll sell when we market it as 'THE NEWEST IPHONE WE'VE EVER MADE'"
Bigger and bigger iPhones with better and better cameras and more and more letters tacked on to the end will sell to a captive audience when Apple has the brand power they do. And that might seem good enough when all you're doing is comparing yourself to what the rest of the market is releasing, and when market success is beating last year's sales. But is that the Apple we want?
Nope.
I want my Apple back. The SE was the last phone form-factor that still had Steve Job's approval on it, and it sucks that it's so obvious.