iPhone mini – preparing for the future

[eisa01]

So I'm one of the few who purchased both the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini (*)

I was considering to update to the iPhone 16 Pro to get a better camera, but I've reflected in recent days that I would really miss the one-handed use
I'm considering if the drawbacks of going Android may be a better compromise, but currently there's no good small Android phones either...

Apparently a few of the Pebble founders are working on a project: https://smallandroidphone.com/

What are you others going to do?

(*) I'm blaming poor marketing of Apple, and it not being offered as the cheapest model in the normal lineup as it should have been if following normal Apple logic. It was a premium device when initially released as they "missed" the older generations. In addition, corporate buyers often didn't offer it, or tell people they could get it. I got quite some surprised faces when I told them it was my corporate phone, "Oh, that size would have been so much better. Didn't know I could get it and it existed"

 

[japtor]

I'm one of other iPhone 12 mini then 13 mini owners. Also a long time (suffering) Mac mini and iPad mini owner. Just got the new iPad, will be getting the Mac soon, so by logic obviously a new iPhone mini will be coming soon too.

Maybe it'll have to be like when I gave in and got an iPhone 6, then the original SE came out (and been on the small phone train since). Maybe I'll just have to bite the bullet and get a 16 or 17, then a new mini will surely come out!

 

[gabemaroz]

I will see what the iPhone SE update brings and then inevitably acquiesce to Big Phone and get an iPhone 17 Pro.

I’ll miss the mini but there’s little that can be done.

 

[dh87]

I own an iPhone 12 mini. I am not planning to replace it until it is irreparably broken. Not sure what I would do if "broken" occurred tomorrow. Maybe a 16 Pro and a small wagon to carry it around.

 

[analogika]

I‘m sticking with the 13 mini for as long as I can.

I rather liked the non-pro 16, and it fixes my only real problem with the 13 — the lack of a non-wideangle camera —, so I believe that IF they bring out another mini, it will be perfect.

If not: I’ll see when this phone becomes intolerable.

 

[Bonusround]

I’ll be waiting to see what becomes of the ‘iPhone 17 Slim‘ rumors.

 

[analogika]

I’ll be waiting to see what becomes of the ‘iPhone 17 Slim‘ rumors.

I fear it’s going to be a regular idiot slab, except thinner and more easily breakable.

I want hand- and pocket-sized.

 

[Entegy]

I'm sticking with my 13 mini until major iOS updates are no longer available for it. I don't know what I'll do then.

EDIT: I don't know what I'll do, but it definitely will be an iPhone. I'll just have to see how stupidly big phones are in 2027.

 

[leet]

I preferred the size of my Essential PH-1 to my 12 Mini (10 mm shorter and 7 mm narrower) or my XR (9 mm taller, 5 mm wider). Depending on the next SE, I'll probably deal with the slightly larger (6mm taller, 1 mm wider) base model. But that's probably a year or two off.

 

[Bonusround]

I fear it’s going to be a regular idiot slab, except thinner and more easily breakable.

I want hand- and pocket-sized.

Last month I had cause to spend a week with a new flip-style foldable phone – the most continuous time I’d spent using one.

It’s an excellent form factor with incredible potential. I just hope Apple agrees.

 

[ant1pathy]

Last month I had cause to spend a week with a new flip-style foldable phone – the most continuous time I’d spent using one.

It’s an excellent form factor with incredible potential. I just hope Apple agrees.

Hamburger fold or hotdog fold?

 

[cateye]

Hamburger fold or hotdog fold?

Brilliant.

 

[Bonusround]

Hamburger fold or hotdog fold?

PB&J with a single slice of bread.

 

[analogika]

PB&J with a single slice of bread.

Damn phone always falls on the display side.

 

[eisa01]

I’ll be waiting to see what becomes of the ‘iPhone 17 Slim‘ rumors.

If I read those right, it will be a ~6.6" screen

https://www.macrumors.com/2024/11/01/iphone-17-slim-everything-we-know/
Going Android would be strange, but maybe all the EU DMA efforts make it more fluid in the future to be cross-platform...

 

[Bonusround]

Yeah, the rumors don't quite add up for me. I can imagine, but can't fully envision why Apple would go super-skinny and upmarket without applying that slimness toward a novel form-factor, such as a folding iPhone.

Admittedly this is a case of speculation informed by a great deal of wishcasting.
In any case I'm excited to see what Apple have in store for us.

 

[wco81]

wrong mini thread.

 

[PuglyWont]

I'm still completely happy with my mini 12. I'm not a heavy phone user though... email/maps/weather/music/browser that's all I use it for...and hotspot.

If this dies I'll look into a lightly used 13 (or new if I can find one). But I could see using this until it's done with security updates. I'll have to see what the next SE is like... or whatever this Air version is about.

Maybe Apple will get really retro in 3 years and release a throwback model that's the size of the original iPhone. Or Apple gets enough telemetry that there's still a million or so of us diehard mini users to release a mini for one generation to squeeze another $1000 out of us.

I'm still waiting on a 11" Air (or 12" MacBook) replacement though... don't think that's ever coming back. Though the new Mac mini gives some hope that Apple isn't completely done with making things small just because they can.

 

[skiierguy]

13 mini user here with similar worries that I won't be able to buy a modern, feature-rich iPhone of this physical size again. And that pains me greatly because I am quite sensitive to (and utterly despise) UI lag, particularly input lag.

I assume most of us already updated to iOS 18. My phone is noticeably less responsive (and consumes more battery) since the update, and that will probably only get worse. I can deal with the battery issue; can't easily work around the input lag issue. Any tips/insights on helping the UI and touch inputs be more responsive? I've tried the standard Google search recommendations to enable reduced motion (had this on for years) and free up disk space (currently using 40% of total capacity).

Fellow mini owners: did you notice a similar performance impact?

 

[japtor]

Fellow mini owners: did you notice a similar performance impact?

Yeah, seemed to settle down eventually but took a long while. I was also on a degraded battery which made things worse, but got that replaced finally. Things seem a little better recently still, which coincides with me updating to 18.1 a few days ago, so maybe that helps.

Still hiccups here and there but it's generally back to being a similar level of acceptable enough.

 

[educated_foo]

Fellow mini owners: did you notice a similar performance impact?

18.0 was a buggy PoS, but 18.1 at least seems to work. I didn't notice the input lag getting much worse, but recent Apple software on both iOS and Mac has been obnoxiously laggy for me. I blame the increasingly aggressive auto-incorrect on iOS, but am not a good enough thumb typer to turn it off entirely.

 

[gabemaroz]

I notice more lag and the phone runs hotter. I think it’s simply an issue of iOS 18 being poorly optimized to be honest.

Probably a better idea to wait for 18.2 or 18.3 to drop before you make any decisions because I don’t think newer hardware will necessarily mitigate all of those problems.

 

[mark r]

Battery life is noticeably less: where I could get to the end of the day with usually some 20-30% to spare, now I regularly need to charge in the late afternoon/early night to get to that point. And every now and then (not too often fortunately) it becomes hot without any obvious cause: puzzling

 

[Chris FOM]

Don’t forget an iPhone 13 is also simply three years old now, and a mini with its smaller battery will go through comparably more charge cycles in that time. It’s worth considering a battery swap at this point if life has gotten noticeably worse (and no, I don’t trust Apple’s own battery health report, it’s been way off more times than I can count).

 

[Bonusround]

Don’t forget an iPhone 13 is also simply three years old now, and a mini with its smaller battery will go through comparably more charge cycles in that time. It’s worth considering a battery swap at this point if life has gotten noticeably worse (and no, I don’t trust Apple’s own battery health report, it’s been way off more times than I can count).

<nods>

One sometimes suspects the algorithm driving battery health consists of warranty actuarial tables with live lookups to the past few quarters' earnings.

 

[mark r]

<nods>

One sometimes suspects the algorithm driving battery health consists of warranty actuarial tables with live lookups to the past few quarters' earnings.

Age matters (I know that also from my own case, not just from my phone ). I bought mine two years ago(as a replacement of an SE I had for three years). For what it's worth (and as you point out, that may not say much), it is at 89% maximum capacity. That sounds quite reasonable for two-year old phone?

(edited for autocorrect interventions )

 

[ham bulu]

My 13 Mini is degrading although not at a concerning pace (85%). If it was my personal device (it's not/emloyer-provided), I'd definitely think about changing the battery in about a year. Loved it and will miss it but I'm ready to move on to regular sizes.

I will look into purchasing it when it's phased out and offer it to fellow Arsians (in Europe)

 

[Entegy]

My mini has been at 81% battery health for a suspiciously long time now. I'm a Pokémon Go player, there are days where the battery health graph says I've used nearly 300% of the battery in a single day. I don't believe that the health hasn't gone down in over half a year.

 

[japtor]

Could try this thing to check cycles:

https://lifehacker.com/tech/use-this-shortcut-find-the-battery-cycle-count-on-any-iphone
Need the iPhone analytics turned on...which I didn't apparently. But do on my iPad mini, which has very slightly more capacity than it's rated for apparently.

 

[singebob]

Don’t forget an iPhone 13 is also simply three years old now, and a mini with its smaller battery will go through comparably more charge cycles in that time. It’s worth considering a battery swap at this point if life has gotten noticeably worse (and no, I don’t trust Apple’s own battery health report, it’s been way off more times than I can count).

This is why I miss the Xperia Compacts. Small phones done right, right to the bitter end.

 

[karthakon]

I have a 12 mini. I got the battery replaced at an AppleStore last year. I’ll hang on until they reintroduce a mini or they make a foldable iPhone. The SE honestly isn’t a a solution, it’s still too big. I actually converted from Android when the 12 mini came out. Before that I got a new phone at least every two years. I totally agree the failure of the mini versions was a marketing failure. I rarely saw the mini on display in stores and it often was missing from carrier sign up offers. I still have people ask me what it is and where I bought it to this day.

 

[Vincent Hanna]

They're never going to make another mini, and the folding iPhone is going to be $2000+.

Make your peace and buy a 16 or 16e that will blow that 12 mini out of the water.

 

[sleepcountry]

I'll never understand why Apple didn't just relegate the iPhone mini to an iPad mini-like release timeline. That way they could save on annual hardware updates but still serve the users who like the form factor.

I'd even say it was quite unlike Apple to kill off a product line so quickly. If you look at Apple's product history, they usually let unpopular products languish for a long time in the lineup rather than outright killing them off.

Looking back at the utter lack of marketing, I really think Apple's heart just wasn't into the iPhone mini from the get go, and it's a real shame.

 

[Vincent Hanna]

Nobody bought it and Apple rightly killed it. A supposed lack of marketing had nothing to do with it.

The market spoke more than 10 years ago: people want big phones.

 

[japtor]

They're never going to make another mini, and the folding iPhone is going to be $2000+.

Make your peace and buy a 16 or 16e that will blow that 12 mini out of the water.

I hope this ages as well as your take on the M3 Ultra Studio rumor!

I do have some wild hope that eventual SoC integrated Apple radios, higher capacity silicon carbon batteries, and maybe just a single high pixel camera (a la the 16e, but hopefully better quality) lead to the return of the mini in some form. I'd even give up MagSafe if necessary...well only cause cases can roughly take up the mantle, as long as it can still wirelessly charge.

I'll never understand why Apple didn't just relegate the iPhone mini to an iPad mini-like release timeline. That way they could save on annual hardware updates but still serve the users who like the form factor.

I'd even say it was quite unlike Apple to kill off a product line so quickly. If you look at Apple's product history, they usually let unpopular products languish for a long time in the lineup rather than outright killing them off.

Looking back at the utter lack of marketing, I really think Apple's heart just wasn't into the iPhone mini from the get go, and it's a real shame.

I think the price and placement in the lineup put it in a difficult spot, particularly with the market increasingly wanting bigger phones. But you could probably say that about the iPad mini too. Maybe just an overestimated expectations thing? And perhaps some self sabotage with the new SE around the time being cheaper and being marketed as a small phone option (which was a lie, it's trash as a small phone!).

Kinda feels like they've left room to serve niches with the Macs and iPads, but not so much the iPhones. Perhaps something to do with economies of scale and margins when it comes to iPhone component costs.

 

[Sulis]

Apple likes to keep a small range of all their devices, hence the iPhone 17 Slim (apparently) nudging out the 17 Max. It's assumed there will also be a folding iPhone in the nearish future - so it's not clear how that would fit in the lineup (making the prospects for a new iPhone mini look even bleaker), or whether the new form factor would become a semi-separate category.

 

[Your Dishes]

Nobody bought it and Apple rightly killed it. A supposed lack of marketing had nothing to do with it.

Apple's marketing did do the small models dirty.

I'm willing to bet that the iPhone mini sold more than the Apple TV and Airpods Max and Mac Pro combined.

 

[ant1pathy]

Apple's marketing did do the small models dirty.

I'm willing to bet that the iPhone mini sold more than the Apple TV and Airpods Max and Mac Pro combined.

Mac Pro? Certainly, although I would expect the revenue and margin on the Mac Pro to far exceed the iPhone Mini. Apple TV and AirPods Max? Highly unlikely.

Stop blaming marketing failures and recognize that while the small phone contingent exists, it's outsized vocally compared to the actual number of buyers. Not enough people want small phones, just like not enough people want hardware keyboards.

 

[sleepcountry]

Apple's marketing did do the small models dirty.

I'm willing to bet that the iPhone mini sold more than the Apple TV and Airpods Max and Mac Pro combined.

To say nothing for full-sized HomePods! If you pay attention, Apple typically keeps weird, unsuccessful, low volume products in their lineup for ages instead of killing them off. The only products I can think of that Apple has straight up killed off in recent memory were the iPhone mini and the 27" iMac.

 

[Bonusround]

I suspect that once Apple saw how a mini-sized battery performed with 5G radios they decided to pull the plug ASAP. Did Apple do the mini dirty by rushing its demise? There is reason to believe they did.

Apple famously keeps mum on the sales performance of specific model lines. They haven’t this broken out this information in their quarterly reports to Wall Street for at least five years now. And yet, somehow, following the launch of the 12-series and before the holiday season was over, leaks sprung up from multiple sources, simultaneously that the mini was a flop.

The mini was cancelled a year later, after the 13. Apple plans their iPhone lineup multiple years in advance. At the launch of the 12 they already knew the mini’s days were numbered.