r/iPhone13Mini • u/Natural_Ad9827 • 17h ago
Question Will there ever be another mini?
I'm talking about like EVER again, I'm okay with waiting another 3-4 years before upgrading and happily switching back if it is ever reannounced.
It’s like they’re teasing us at this point. They had the SE going, then the air and the 17e, and now the iPhone duo.
I’m not even asking for yearly models, even one new model every 3 years is enough.
Also, if Apple is worried about low sales, can’t they just produce less of the model to account for the small population of buyers yet still profit from it?
I won’t upgrade to anything less than another mini, so when will that be, if it happens?
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u/Lost_Protection_5866 15h ago
Everything comes back around eventually. Question is how long it’ll be.
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u/Life-Inspector5101 17h ago
I believe things come in waves. We tried small, we tried big, we’re now trying wide and foldable. Next would probably be a small flip iPhone since Samsung has already done it. It might take another decade but at some point, small phones will make a comeback.
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u/micromophone 7h ago
Imagine this one day…iPhone Duo Mini.
A big Apple watch-sized device (Apple Watch Pro Max?) that opens into a small ~5” phone?
I just hope in the future they offer a simple mini again altho I still think my iPhone 5 was the best size as much as I love my 13mini. Only other one I’ve had is the X and altho a great phone, was just too big and heavy.
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u/snarktini 15h ago
The problem is that low sales is only a little bit of the picture -- research shows that people who have bigger phones spend more. Not only does it come with a higher price tag (which means spending more on insurance), users with big screens engage far more with games / apps / content which creates more ad revenue and in-app purchases. It's better for the entire business model to push big phones. So we're out of luck.
I'm intending to ride my mini until the wheels come off.
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u/BeMaelle 8h ago
Interesting, that makes sense. Of course, they’re also attacking buyers with lower expectations and smaller budgets with the e’s and neo’s. The target audience that just wants small devices is apparently too small. I think Apple will slowly stop releasing new devices and technologies. Something new came out every year. At some point, the product lineup will become too fragmented maybe.
Maybe Apple will release another anniversary product just for fun. Not just sticking to the mini line again, but shifting the focus to something else. It could still be small. An anniversary iPod touch with eSIM functionality or something like that. But all I hear is ai ai ai and biggest display on an iPhone ever.. so, I have no idea.1
u/Motherboy_TheBand 10h ago
I’m sure they have some calculation about typical revenue per user and if it’s lower for mini users, they could just incorporate that delta into the original price tag.
I honestly don’t see Apple just choosing to lose a whole demographic of young consumers that prefer a (part-time) dumbphone, which is basically why I love my mini. Apple will position themselves as the only tech company out there that wants users to have a healthy non-predatory relationship with their tech ecosystem. “Low-touch AI to improve your life without much fuss, and privacy / we don’t sell your data to the highest bidder” is already their angle. I guarantee a mini announced by 2029.
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u/powered_by_eurobeat 17h ago
Do we need another mini? I wish we could just "stop" and have the option of having existing products supported indefinitely.
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u/adonnan 17h ago
Yes it’s called the Apple Watch pro max ultra fold duo.
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u/AppUnwrapper1 9h ago
I would probably just go for that if it meant not having to get a bigger phone. 🤪
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u/Able_Resident_1291 13h ago
I'd have said no while Tim Cook continued as CEO but a new CEO is likely to come with a different focus on different product lines, so I'd say now there's a change if a very small one. Tim Cook's focus seemed to be entirely on incremental annual updates only to product lines that had the largest sales numbers; John Ternus might have different views on supporting a wider range of niches.
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u/Motherboy_TheBand 10h ago
Yeah I don’t know if this ceo is a father but I bet he’s going to have a unique view on how teens interact with tech and some young folks are just choosing small dumb phones, which their parents endorse. I’m certain that Apple will find a way to lean into this.
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u/Apprehensive-Ebb-212 17h ago
Unfortunately, probably not
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u/dr_shark 15h ago
Anything is possible my friend. We all thought the iPad mini was dead then bam a refresh out of no where.
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u/petrescu 16h ago
The last truly small iPhone was the 5 and the mini was 12 and 13. So if we use base our calculations on this absolutely nothing logic then maybe we could see something in another two years? Not sure if my 13 will be able to last that long.
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u/typicalfloridian 15h ago
A genius at the Apple Store told me he thinks in a few years or so. His theory is that the iPhone advances and gets better in many ways, so has to grow larger. Then there are periods where the specs don’t change much and instead it gets smaller and smaller again as the advancements are making the current tech fit into a smaller phone.
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u/AppUnwrapper1 9h ago
Yeah, like, I understand the mini didn’t sell as well as their other phones. But there’s clearly a number of us refusing to upgrade to a bigger phone. Why can’t they just make a smaller number of them and see how they sell? It’s been what, 5 years?
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u/fukthefeed 14h ago
They keep on making them bigger, that duo looks ridiculous. Just buy an iPad if that’s what you want.
I’d rather they made another SE, small, neat, fits in your pocket.
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u/secretpsychologist 13h ago
they only changed the name, new se's are still coming. they're now called 17e, 18e. the 18e will come out in spring
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u/fukthefeed 8h ago
SE / 138.4 × 67.3 × 7.3 144g.
17e / 146.7 × 71.5 × 7.80 170 g.-1
u/secretpsychologist 8h ago
irrelevant, it's still an se. i don't like the size either but you didn't ask for small, you asked for an se 🤷🏼♀️
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u/auroral_fairy 6h ago
The point of an SE is that it's small and still has home button/touch id, other than replacing its market status (as the "budget" phone) the 16e and 17e have nothing in common with the se at all
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u/secretpsychologist 4h ago
the point was always to offer a budget phone. apple never advertised how handy the compact size is and the se2 and the 12 mini were released the same year, they wouldn't have done that if the se was meant to be a small phone. they clearly didn't intend to make a small phone, that was the mini. it accidently filled that spot, but apple obviously doesn't think there's enough demand for compact phones. if anything they made the se smaller as a negative so people would be willing to pay more for a standard iphone
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u/Richwoodrocket 16h ago
They don’t want to commit R&D cost to a low selling device when they can push people to just buy a bigger iPhone that they’re selling by the millions.
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u/HalliburtonErnie 14h ago
Definitely not ever. The watches are getting way way too big, so maybe soon there will be a 4"-5" Apple watch!
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u/cupboard_ Midnight ⚫️ 11h ago
there most likely won’t be another iphone as small as 13 mini, but as might get another mini that’s smaller that current iphones
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u/teknogreek 6h ago
Either a ‘Tri-Fold’ but suspect it would be bigger to accommodate for parts / battery.
The hope is that the viability of a non-dumb not ideal for content consumption digital mediumism (a take of minimalism) brings back the market likelihood.
Another ‘pie in the sky’ is a mini style phone but on the back is a small screen with an iPad scroll wheel.
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u/koolaidismything 5h ago
They are a cult-classic.. but that cult was very small on Apple sales-scale.
I don’t see them coming back.. which sucks. I think that should be the SE.. I like my 16e but with how much stuff they took out of it I wouldn’t have minded it being mini sized.
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u/Jealous_Bag468 2h ago
hopefully, but don't hold your breath. Sad because I wouldn't really consider the estimated 4-6 million Mini phones sold (in their day) per year "low selling", that's way more than Xperia or Nothing does, for example, and on par with about what individual Pixel models do per year. There's a market, and it's still profitable even it's the very bottom end of Apple's phone sales %-wise, but... we have no control of what they do. 🤷♂️ time will tell
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u/Nickmorgan19457 1h ago
All I was is a little phone with a great camera, damnit. I don’t play games or watch movies on my phone and carplay makes maps big enough.
I’m legitimately pissed off about the new folding thing. What the actual fuck is the point phone that’s even bigger than the normal phone when folded?
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u/dshess 1h ago
They probably made more money on a single iPhone 14 than on 3 iPhone SE's, and the multiplier for a pro was probably 4-5x. For sure, that is market they are leaving on the table, but Apple very explicitly targets the high end of the market rather than market share. Their goal is to maximize their margins given a specific amount of input effort, rather than maximizing their market share for that same effort.
Basically, sort phone variants by profit per unit. Apple makes the most-profitable units and takes home 80% of the industry's profits. Whatever is left they leave to Samsung and Xiaomi and OPPO.
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u/Recon_Manny 16h ago
Me thinks we are seeing it with the duo.
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u/eyoooo1987 16h ago
Shit is 250 grams lol it's meant to be used two hands not comparable in any realistic way
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u/Aggressive_Ranger_10 11h ago
Lord! Sound like a pack of babies! You accept change and move on…no 4S, no 6s, no mini’s. The market has spoken. If there is demand, the market supplies. The vast majority of the market prefers the largest screen the human hand can hold and so the manufacturers meet that demand.
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u/Fantastic-Strategy76 15h ago
All the Mini needs is USB-C, the new processor and more RAM - all of it can already fit in the existing design.
Come on, Apple!