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100%. It was so funny to see how for years, everyone on HN was harping on about how well a smaller iPhone would sell. Then Apple finally released the iPhone min
by mmmmmbop 7d ago
100%. It was so funny to see how for years, everyone on HN was harping on about how well a smaller iPhone would sell. Then Apple finally released the iPhone mini and nobody was buying it, so they had to kill it after a couple of iterations.
Basically, try to do the opposite of what HN is saying and you might just create a successful product.
- bigstrat2003 7d ago> Then Apple finally released the iPhone mini and nobody was buying it, so they had to kill it after a couple of iterations. And by "nobody", you mean "actually a lot of people, just not as many as the bigger model". It's ok to have a model that meets a less common, but still extant, need in the market. If everyone followed Apple's logic on this, people with very small or very large bodies would have to go naked because companies would go "that size doesn't sell as much, we have to kill it" rather than (as actually happens) charging more per unit to make up for the overhead of lower volumes of sales.
- sosull 7d agoThe mini accounted for 3% of sales. Personally I’m a believer, and a buyer, but 3% isn’t a good number.
- cheschire 7d ago6 to 7 million units is a good number.
- asutekku 7d ago6 to 7 million units at the scale of Apple is not necessarily worth the investment.
- Y-bar 7d agoI’m willing to bet that the minis made Apple more profit than the AirPods Max and their display business combined.
- asutekku 6d agoI see AirPods Maxes daily, I hardly ever see iPhone mini in the wild, anecdotal of course.
- Y-bar 5d agoMy estimate is very much anecdotal as well, but at my office alone there are three iPhone mini users than (used to be four until they switched job), only one AirPods Max user. I think this year I have only seen one other person wearing them. Much harder to see the exact model of phone people use without staring in a bad manner.
- 6_7 7d agoI'm sorry, how many units?
- majormajor 7d ago"Try a different smaller form factor every couple of years" is a reasonable strategy. First Mini, then Air. Supposedly they're gonna refresh the Air next year, we'll see. But even if they don't: we're well into the "keep phones 3 years or more" era of the smart phone. You don't need an exact match for every phone for everybody every year.
- alex43578 7d agoBut I think you do need some level of consistency to retain customers. Churning models, especially given Apple's otherwise-excellent retention metrics and mechanisms, seems like a self-goal by almost encouraging those buyers to switch after 3 years. If you bought an iPhone Mini or an Air, but that model is gone at T+3 years, that's a lot more likely to result in you looking to Android, than if you bought an iPhone 13 and want to upgrade to an iPhone 16/17.
- jloawjelrjl 7d agoThe Air wasn't "smaller", it was thinner in some areas and as far as I can tell just a pathfinder for a folding phone
- MYEUHD 7d ago> "Try a different smaller form factor every couple of years" is a reasonable strategy. First Mini, then Air. The iPhone air has a 6.5" display. That's bigger than the base iPhone 17 (6.3") and the iPhone 17e (6.1") You're probably thinking about the thinness of the phone. iPhone air is 2.4mm thinner than iPhone 17, but I don't think anyone is asking for that, as most people use a case which makes the phone thicker.
- majormajor 7d agoYeah, it's smaller in a different way than the mini was small. But the thinness isn't actually the appeal. The key thing is that it's a lot lighter. (And yes, a case adds weight as well as thickness. But if you start from a lower baseline, you still end up in a lower place.)
- smokel 7d agoBy that logic a supermarket would sell only 33 items.
- pertymcpert 7d agoIt's not ok if it uses resources that could be better spent elsewhere. At 3% share what do you expect them to do?
- jloawjelrjl 7d agoI'm going on ebay to buy old iPhone 13 Minis because I hate giant phones
- illiac786 7d agoI kept an iPhone Mini until an App I need for work started consuming so much memory it became unusable on it (iOS would kill it after 15s). Even then, I raised ticket after ticket with support to get them to fix their app – which they did, then slipped again, for months. Now I own a 17 pro, which feels like a brick in comparison but has 12 GB of RAM instead of 4. I really miss my mini.
- smt88 7d agoYou're just proving the point of this thread by pining for a niche phone that almost no one wanted enough to actually own.
- grey-area 7d agoYou think this big clunky thing isn’t going to be a niche at $2000?
- sejje 7d agoSuburban wives will have it in droves
- smt88 6d agoEnough people can (and already do) spend that, especially if this replaces an iPad for them. A huge number of people get smart devices from their employers for free, and $1,200 for a regular iPhone vs. $2,000 for a Duo is a rounding error.
- dingaling 7d agoApple sold around six million Mini models per year that they were on sale. It's hard to envisage a boardroom scenario where that's not considered successful, but apparently it exists.
- dopeboy 7d agoApple sold ~230M iPhones the year the mini was discontinued. 2% is an unquestionable failure. -an iPhone mini fan
- blauditore 7d ago6/230 seems closer to 3%. And while the number is relatively low, it seems to be a niche where they might lose customers to other platforms. It must have been unprofitable/very expensive to maintain that they killed it. OTOH, it's Apple, so users would rather buy a bigger iPhone and complain than switching brands (see other comments here), in which case Apple loses nothing.
- pbmonster 7d agoI don't get that mentality. Millions of units, shares many parts with other models, OK margin. This is no reason to kill a product. For comparison, that's roughly like Ford killing the Bronco Sport, or VW killing the ID.7.
- Daz912 7d ago[dead]
- pistolpeteDK 7d agowell, VW has cancelled the ID.7 for the US market, and by 2030 will have killing 50% of their models across all brands (according to topgear).
- pbmonster 7d agoOf course, they never even brought it to the US. It has no chance there, there's barely a market for lowslung station wagons, and close to no market for EV wagons. Always was a niche in the US, while it was always the primary family vehicle in Europe. And yes, VW is fighting for survival. The things they are killing are the low volume models specific to the Chinese market (because absolutely nobody in China is buying any VWs) and a lot of the variants and overlaps they've accumulated over the years. They'll continue making less than 100k iD.7s, and will be happy to do so (it's modestly profitable).
- anshumankmr 7d agohttps://youtu.be/FJgTKx-rg18?si=LRWaCeOMC5z-dLOg https://youtu.be/FJgTKx-rg18?si=LRWaCeOMC5z-dLOg very relevant video from almost 10 years back which was about Oneplus but says the same thing in much greater depth.
- wooger 7d agoIt was an lower spec, gimped version to be fair. No one in the market for a new phone on launch day is excited to buy a lower end, worse battery & camera version that's missing multiple features present on the other versions.
- nurumaik 7d agoThey should make 20" iPhone Ultra with latest amd threadripper, dslr camera and a diesel generator to power it on the go Sure anyone will be very excited to buy it instead of lower end, worse battery & camera iPhone 18 pro
- geon 7d agoThe mini was not mini enough.
- ubermonkey 7d agoYour average HN reader is very very bad at understanding that they are NOT the mass market.
- david422 7d agoI'm still waiting for my small android phone https://smallandroidphone.com/ https://smallandroidphone.com/ ... written May 2022 :(
- racl101 7d ago> "Basically, try to do the opposite of what HN is saying and you might just create a successful product." If every instinct HN has is wrong then the opposite would have to be right.