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Apple resumes selling iPhone SE at lower $249 price on its clearance store

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Re: Apple resumes selling iPhone SE at lower $249 price on its clearance store

#131

Post by stevewillows »

lostlogin wrote: post #77
stanmancan wrote: post #71

The only thing that could get me to upgrade from my iPhone 7 would be a premium version of the iPhone SE. I want a smaller phone, not a bigger one, but I want updated specs and possibly an OLED screen.

Not only is this something I’d love, it’s also a comment that gets a lot of upvotes on Hackers News every time it’s made. Do HN readers have an unusual like for ‘small’ phones or is it just an unserved market?

For me, I barely physically use my phone. I use iMessage from my mbp and get most notifications on my Pebble.

I do use the phone itself for audiobooks and podcasts, but otherwise its basically a server (not the best term for that.. but you get what I mean.)

What I don't get about the larger phones is how people comfortably carry them around. Maybe its because I wear skinny jeans / pants, but there's absolutely no way I could fit a larger phone in the pockets of my pants, and I rarely have a jacket on.

But the love of the SE form-factor is not isolated to HN. I know a lot of people who love a smaller phone for various reasons.

As the tech gets thinner, I'm longing for the day when we get something similar to the folding phone from HER, but with a few modifications (e.g. memory LCD / eink for other side..)

Re: Apple resumes selling iPhone SE at lower $249 price on its clearance store

#132

Post by aylmao »

scottmcf wrote: post #114
quicklime wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When my iPhone 5S died on me a few months ago, I bought a large Android phone to replace it. I've tracked screen-on time and noticed it ramp right up - from something like 90 minutes a day to 2 or even 3 hours now. Most of the increase is due to the fact that it's easier to use in bed before I get up in the morning, as well as before I go to sleep. So I tend to waste more time than I used to, watching YouTube or mind…

Yeah, I moved from an SE to an 8+, then an XS Max. I love the new phones, but if they brought out a premium SE I'd swap to that in a second.

I don't care about the size too much, but small has the advantage of one-handed use, of fitting better in my pocket and being less likely to break.

I kind of care about the design. It's elegant-- I like the flat camera, the chamfered edges and the brick-y form (which I appreciate they brought back with the new iPad Pro).

What I care most about though is the headphone jack. This is why I still keep mine around in spite of having another phone-- to listen to music.

EDIT: The fact that it's cheaper, so I could get more memory for the same price as a bigger model also contributes to it still sticking around primarily for music, but also with some games.

Re: Apple resumes selling iPhone SE at lower $249 price on its clearance store

#133

Post by toasterlovin »

lostlogin wrote: post #77
stanmancan wrote: post #71

The only thing that could get me to upgrade from my iPhone 7 would be a premium version of the iPhone SE. I want a smaller phone, not a bigger one, but I want updated specs and possibly an OLED screen.

Not only is this something I’d love, it’s also a comment that gets a lot of upvotes on Hackers News every time it’s made. Do HN readers have an unusual like for ‘small’ phones or is it just an unserved market?

Motivated minorities are over-represented in media (both social and traditional).

Re: Apple resumes selling iPhone SE at lower $249 price on its clearance store

#134

Post by happycube »

Karunamon wrote: post #53
twblalock wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people will never be pleased. When Lenovo came out with that throwback laptop the HN thread was full of curmudgeons nitpicking every little detail they thought was wrong about the retro laptop they always said they wanted Lenovo to make. The same thing would happen if somebody made a new small premium phone. Such people are impossible to please and there isn’t much point trying.

The main problem with that throwback laptop was the horrible battery life. 3 hours rated life might have been acceptable in the early 2000s, but nowadays, that's weak. Combine that with the price ($1900 MSRP) and you have a device that comes off as a cynical, overpriced money-grab directed at the retro aesthetic crowd, especially considering that it's basically a slight upgrade of the T470. It wasn't a bad machine. I…

It was also retro in the wrong ways - 7th gen dual-core "i7" when the 8th gen with 15W real ones was out (or at most around the corner), and an underpowered last-gen CPU.

People wanted something that wasn't just retro, but a true classic in other respects as well.

Re: Apple resumes selling iPhone SE at lower $249 price on its clearance store

#135

Post by dymk »

toasterlovin wrote: post #133
lostlogin wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only is this something I’d love, it’s also a comment that gets a lot of upvotes on Hackers News every time it’s made. Do HN readers have an unusual like for ‘small’ phones or is it just an unserved market?

Motivated minorities are over-represented in media (both social and traditional).

True, but they're proportionally represented where product decisions become important - in the revenue spreadsheets

Re: Apple resumes selling iPhone SE at lower $249 price on its clearance store

#136

Post by justtopost »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #124
twblalock wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the demand really is that low. People who want a smaller phone in 2019 are a very small yet very vocal minority. If there was a large untapped market for smaller phones, then the limited number of small phones on the market would be selling a lot better than they actually are. Somebody would notice and start making more of them. Like phones with physical keyboards, phones with small screens have become a niche p…

> Yes, the demand really is that low. As a person with bigger hands I always wonder is the demand for larger mice is really that low?

Plenty of large mice available, I am partial to vertical mice for long periods of work.

Re: Apple resumes selling iPhone SE at lower $249 price on its clearance store

#137

Post by raydev »

kbrackbill wrote: post #48
twblalock wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the demand really is that low. People who want a smaller phone in 2019 are a very small yet very vocal minority. If there was a large untapped market for smaller phones, then the limited number of small phones on the market would be selling a lot better than they actually are. Somebody would notice and start making more of them. Like phones with physical keyboards, phones with small screens have become a niche p…

Do you have any insight as to why? I'm part of that minority and small phones seem better in so many ways. My hands are relatively big I think, but even with "small" phones now I can barely use them with one hand. The smaller screen uses less battery. Larger phones don't fit in pockets very well and result in a spot that wears through on my jeans where the corner of the phone pokes out from my pocket. I'm really stru…

> The smaller screen uses less battery

I just upgraded to the XS Max and it lasts far longer than my 5S, 6S, and 7 before it. It's even in Apple's support docs, the bigger phones have better battery life.

> I'm really struggling to think of advantages to larger phones

For me, it's all about reading. Most weekends I'm taking my kid to events that don't require my full attention. As I started using my phone for reading more, I found I was getting frustrated with the cramped space, constantly scrolling.

So this year I went all out and got the XS Max, and I gotta say: I couldn't be happier. Less scrolling, I make far fewer typing mistakes with the bigger phone, I'm not scrambling to charge my phone at 5pm.

Sure, I had to give up typing one-handed as my thumb cannot reach the opposite side of the keyboard. That's fine.

Re: Apple resumes selling iPhone SE at lower $249 price on its clearance store

#138

Post by dymk »

huebnerob wrote: post #122
maz1b wrote: post #106

I don't understand why Apple can't update the SE in its current design iteration. Obviously if they can release a redesigned iPhone in a small form factor, I'd hop on it. I want a small one handed device that has the latest specs and TouchID, and a headphone jack.

Simple, because people would buy it instead of the more expensive new iPhones. They don't want unit sales anymore, they want ASP.

Firstly, final phone price doens't matter. Margins matter. These phones are old hardware; it's not inconceivable that mass-producing them would yield margins just as good (if not better) than the cutting-edge.

Secondly, Armament Systems and Procedures? Active Server Pages?

Re: Apple resumes selling iPhone SE at lower $249 price on its clearance store

#139

Post by bscphil »

huebnerob wrote: post #119
dklsafhjskljfl wrote: post #4

The upcoming sony xz4 compact may be the only small phone with premium components, and it's extremely frustrating. It's not even /that/ small. You can find small phones but they have terrible cameras, sub HD resolutions, and bargain basement SOCs. Is the demand for a premium (or even mid range) small phone really that low?

Small phone equals small battery, and when you have a reduced power budget there's some things you just can't do. Small phone also obviously equals small hardware components. To the extent that components occupy physical space on a logic board, there's going to need to be a trade-off there. People say they 'just' want a 4" modern phone, but they define it as a phone with multiple cameras, high storage capacity, and f…

>People say they 'just' want a 4" modern phone, but they define it as a phone with multiple cameras, high storage capacity, and fast processors, etc. etc.. It's a nontrivial engineering challenge to get everything into a smaller package, and this at a time where the market at large has picked bigger phones as the winner.

I don't know. My Nexus 4 was fine with respect to all of these things when it came out. Not top of the line power, of course, but not shabby either. Surely our ability to get faster processors into the same package has significantly increased since then. If I could get the exact form factor of a Nexus 4 with any hardware improvements available since it came out over 6 years ago, I'd pick one up in a heartbeat.

Re: Apple resumes selling iPhone SE at lower $249 price on its clearance store

#140

Post by weaksauce »

lostlogin wrote: post #77
stanmancan wrote: post #71

The only thing that could get me to upgrade from my iPhone 7 would be a premium version of the iPhone SE. I want a smaller phone, not a bigger one, but I want updated specs and possibly an OLED screen.

Not only is this something I’d love, it’s also a comment that gets a lot of upvotes on Hackers News every time it’s made. Do HN readers have an unusual like for ‘small’ phones or is it just an unserved market?

for me it's more of a i'd rather be able to put it in my pocket easily and not have to worry about breaking it than anything else.
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