During Steve Jobs

  Rationally sized phones
  No gimmicks
  Few model numbers

After Steve Jobs

  Phablet sized phones
  Gimmicks everywhere (Animoji, AR, etc..)
  Lots of confusing model numbers

Basically Apple has become like every other phone manufacturer. It goes to show how much a good leader at the top of a company matters. I will keep using a SE for the foreseeable future.

  Fits in my hand
  Cheap to self replace screen/battery
  Has a headphone jack

And yet despite your criticism they are selling more devices than during Steve Jobs by a large margin. My iphoneX is by far the most usable and comfortable form factor of a smart phone I’ve used in the past decade. I’m just glad Apple has far better ways to decide on their device strategy than internet hot takes to so reliably and predictably miss the boat.

Are you sure Apple is selling more devices because of the new direction OR the mobile market is just larger than it was 7 years ago.

What new direction ?

Apple is following the same path they have done since the original iPhone. They have always had models at different price points.

The new direction they are referring to is clearly the phone size increase.

Which started under Steve Jobs (the 5 was the first bigger screen).

Crucially, though, it had a bigger height but not width.

> And yet despite your criticism they are selling more devices than during Steve Jobs by a large margin.

They seem to be slowly losing market share, though.

Yep. I bought iPhone 8 because I wanted to try force touch and faster CPU. Well, it's a feature I could skip (actually I don't even understand why is it there, long press would work just as well) and iPhone SE size would be more comfortable for me (I came from 4S). I'm using iPhone 8 for a few monthes and it's still very uncomfortable to use for me, it's too huge and I can't reach every screen point with my thumb. Certainly a degraded experience from using a smaller phone. I hope that they'll make something smaller next time I'll change phone.

Once you've become used to positioning the cursor with force touch, you never want to go back.

This could easily be done in software alone. I had cursor positioning on iOS 5 through jailbreak software.

Have you tried tabbing the home button lightly twice?

I know and it's terrible solution. It oftens gets reset when I'm tapping something (but sometimes it's not), so I have to double-tap again (especially when I want to edit URL in Safari). And anyway reaching any screen point with one hand is vastly superior experience than using workarounds. I've found myself using two hands more and more and that's a step backwards.

May be better UX design would solve that. Any controls should be at the bottom part of the screen. But iOS is not there anyway.

I'm not sure what proof there is than phablets are irrational as you've stated.

I got a Note 1 phablet after my iPhone 4 as an experiment. It was an audacious device where Apple had gotten stagnant. While the galaxy note 1 was a premature priduct, the phablet form factor was a constant constant piece, and it nearly ended the use of my iPad. My android phablet remains in my life/because Apple missed the boat on screen sizes and is playing catchup.

The phablet phenomenon is real and a calculated tradeoff.

Phablets have cut into other markets and for most people globally if a movie is the Mir primary computing device, the phablet is more appealing. In the case where summertime doesn't use a phone much, they often have a tablet, laptop, etc.

Not having a headphone jack remains a pain, Bluetooth ear buds need to be at 20 hrs of battery life to get wider adoption.

Agree, but the iPhone X is damn near perfection, without Steve. Which is admittedly surprising.

During Steve: imac, power mac, macbook, macbook pro.

Now... WTF.

More revisionist nonsense. You left out a few models which makes the product lineup almost identical to today:

MacBook Air was released in 2008.

Mac Mini was released in 2010.

Can you please edit the name-calling out of your comments here? ("revisionist nonsense", "this comment makes no sense"). I appreciate that your comments have gotten less uncivil over the years. Please don't relapse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The MacBook Air didn’t overlap with MacBook as it does now.

The Mac Pro didn’t overlap wih the iMac Pro as it does now.

The iphone overlapping 7,8,Xs,Xr.

iPad Pro 10.5 overlap with regular iPad.

This comment makes no sense.

Steve Jobs was only alive during the early days of the iPhone where Apple was focused on implementing basic features like 3G. We are in the era where what you call gimmicky features are all that is left.

And customers are asking for bigger phones and more phones at different price points. This myth that Steve Jobs never listened to customers is just that a myth.

I went from a 5.2 inch phone to an SE myself, largely for size reasons. Those big phones are just too cumbersome, even if the screen is nice.

I'm very disappointed they didn't use the edge-to-edge screen ability to reduce the physical size and keep the screen size the same. A 4.7 inch screen in an iPhone X design would be perfect for me. It would be barely bigger than the SE with a much bigger screen.

Yes, the 4.7-inch screen is optimal for me, too. Apple should've kept this screen size and made the bezels as small as possible.

This applies to the SE, too -- keep the screen size and makes the bezels smaller.

In a way, the iPhone XS is a step back from even the iPhone 6, because it's bigger.

Apple seems to be doing things arbitrarily nowadays, like Dell and other OEMs that Apple (fans) loved to mock years ago.

An 19.5 : 9 Screen Body with the same width of iPhone SE would incidentally lead to a 4.7" iPhone Xr. I think it is highly likely we see that next year. Although also likely to cost $649.

I also recently went to an SE from a 6S. The iPhone Xs costs $1349 for a 512 GB device!

I have some younger kids who have the SE models, I like them because they are cheap(er), they work in the apple ecosystem I have, they are small enough for kids to carry around w/o breaking them, and I can easily track everyone. I won't be buying them any of these new ones, either stick to older SEs or purchase cheaper androids for them now.

Much the same story here. Was hoping for an SE 2 for my kids as they're moving up to secondary school and hoped they could keep their iPad game progress. Android ahoy

What's wrong with the SE1?

It's not sold anymore

It is, just not from the Apple store.

https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/ "Available at authorized resellers"

Translation: "Discontinued, but 3rd-party retailers will keep selling their stock until it runs out."

So what's wrong with topbanana buying the SE for his kids right now?

For one, it won't be supported anywhere near as long as a device launched today. It would still be getting iOS updates during their entire high school career.

Nothing, but should probably move fast if the intent is to get a new one.

If the 128gig SE was $1000 I'de still buy it.

Aren't the new 7's near the same price as the old SE's? You also get something cool with the 7, no breakable home button :)

yea. I usually buy them a phone when they head to middle school because communicating with them becomes more important for pickups after school etc. Even the 7 seems a little too big for them, and they are definitely more breakable even with a case (aside from the mechanical button as you mention), more surface area I guess.

I'd love an SE sized super-budget iPhone (for kids).

iPhone SE started at $349. iPhone 7 starts at $449, so somewhat more expensive.

And a _lot_ larger. 'Reachability' is pretty much required for one-handed use, so it makes using the phone more annoying.

I was really hoping for a sweet new SE replacement. I don’t want a big phone but I do need to upgrade my SE’s battery and move on from a 16gb drive. What are my options?

Bought a 32GB one myself to get out of that situation, along with the larger battery were the assurances that (second hand) it was probably a year newer than the 16gb (16 and 64 models were year one, 32 and 128 were year two).

Aside from the size, I'm more concerned at the prices of phones going over the $1k+ mark as the new normal. Sigh.

Probably pointless to argue this, but I really see new iPhones as cheaper than ever given how long I can keep one without feeling left behind.

I have an old 6 that is quite snappy on iOS 12 beta for everything but intensely graphical new games. I really don't expect to replace last year's X for at least 2-3 years. It wasn't that long ago that it was crazy to keep a phone longer than a year.

Now, AppleCare really needs to be extended a year to 4 full years from 3.

I bought last year's iPhone X and it was $999 for the cheaper version + $200 for apple care + $160 for airpods + $20 for case + Taxes.

I think the iPhone XS is only marginally larger than the 7/8 and has a much larger display.

The size of the display is actually the important measurement for one handed use. My thumb can reach the far corner of the screen on the 8 but not the X.

The swipe-based navigation system on the X family actually makes a huge improvement on the old “reachability” feature of the 6/7/8/Plus. Instead of the awkward double-touch-the-home-button-without-pressing gesture to slide the screen down for one-handed use, you can actually just swipe the little home indicator down instead of up and it will do the same thing, only faster.

For some reason, this isn’t enabled by default, but it’s a big enough usability improvement that I would actually consider a large X-family iPhone because of it.

There is a thumb extension sold in Japan for such iphones.

That's a good point, and an argument for why the iPhone X should've had the same screen size as the iPhone 8, just with smaller bezels.

Besides, the slightly bigger body of the X (ignoring screen size) makes it slightly less comfortable to hold in my hand.

Does anyone think they'll make a next-gen SE next year? It could simply be they didn't want to release four phones this year.

I was looking forward to March this year for a new SE. Then I was looking forward to today. Now I'm looking forward to March again.

I remember people saying the same last year.

Then why discontinuing it now?

The iPhone 8 is still available in a 4.7" screen, right?

That's only marginally larger than the iPhone SE's 4.0" screen.

I use an iPhone SE, but only because it was ~AU$400 cheaper than the 4.7" iPhone 8.

Edit: I'd like to be on the record as having said I think these large screen size phones are, for my use case anyway, ridiculous. I work in a metal fabrication workshop and have to have my phone on me. There's no way a 5.8" phone is going to last more than a month in my pocket.

Apple's adoption of Face ID is a big deal from a design POV. Apple was famous for adopting superior technology early and with Face ID they're adopting inferior technology late.

https://www.apple.com/iphone-xs/face-id/

face id is more relible than touch id. you no longer have to remove gloves, you can open it with wet fingers and it is faster. also, all mu touch id phones started to give more fingerprint recognition fails after 1year+

I have a 6s and I'm going to get an 8 at the new lower price. That should last me a few more years as phones are "fast enough" now. Hopefully, by the time I need another phone, the bigger is better thing will have passed.

I think the most important reason of having bigger devices is performance vs battery.

You can not extend a smartphone and give feature like OLED, Neural Engine etc without considering affect on the battery.

They want bigger device to solve many those issues. If they release the iPhone SE update they can not compete with other iPhones in terms of feature and performance.

Also it have huge involvement of iOS updates also. When they release iOS update you have to think all the device these updates support else people will make noises.

I would expect quite the opposite. The bigger the screen the more dramatic the power draw to illuminate all the extra square inches.

That was borne out by my experience with the SE when I first got it, having better battery life than any other smartphone I'd owned.

My plan for now is to hang on to the SE for another couple of years, with battery replacement when it gets too tired.

Small point, but you are assuming the only direction a phone can grow is height and width. Thickness would also allow a larger battery.

This give Apple 2 years time to replace the SE. Actually more one year to research, observe the various markets and to decide and then one year to implement. In any case the button seems to be dead 8-( so any small form factor phone won't be a straight successor of the SE.

The reason I don't totally discount the SE is the effective lowering of prices by Apple in the new line-up. They clearly want to grow on the lower end of the price band now.

One reason I moved to iPhone SE from a 5.5 inch Android one and a half years ago was its size and form factor which among all the options available at the time seemed perfect to me. (The other reason was of course being invested in Mac ecosystem all over)

I would want to go back to stock Android after I retire this SE, but when I look around I don't really see a decent 4 inch stock Android phone either.

> seems like a bad idea.

Bad idea for whom, and why? Because of your personal preference for a smaller phone? Clearly, the market doesn't agree. Well TBH, I don't know the market numbers, but surely Apple doesn't cull their lineup of products that are selling well?

The market has spoken loud and clear since 2010, when Androids bigger than iPhone became popular. iPhone dragged it's feet till 2013/2014 because they didn't want to appear conceding that they were wrong, but eventually they had to buckle.

There haven't really been many attempts at making small flagship-quality devices in years. Didn't the SE immediately sell out when it was released? I struggle to believe no similar market exists today, but Apple obviously has a easier and more profitable path maintaining the device collection they announced today. I just wish they didn't.

I was thinking about replacing my SE with whatever was announced today, but instead I'll be continuing to use it until it dies/isn't supported any more. Maybe I'm alone on that, I dunno.

You’re not alone! I think I may replace my aging SE with a new SE.

Edit: I was wondering if an Apple Watch / iPod Touch combo could be an option but it seems they don’t play well together.

I wonder how much of a factor size was in SE sales; of course some customers clearly chose it with size a primary concern, but I suspect many more bought it because it was a good phone at an attractively low price.

The iPhone 7 still carries the flag for price conscious customers today, even if it is more expensive. The SE was a very unusually strong low end value proposition by Apple standards at 349 dollars for the 32GB handset, and I suspect this _much_ more than size mattered. Cheap small sized Android handsets have never really sold in remotely meaningful numbers in recent years (and Sony made some resonably solid designs), which gives me further pause as to how well "small" as primary feature sells now.

It is definitely a shame for those who did value the SE for its size, but iPhones are unabashedly mass-market devices, and for better or worse bigger appears to sell. I do think an imaginary SE design with the full size screen design of the X with FaceID etc would be a gorgeous looking little device though...

"selling out" doesn't mean anything without an actual quantity number. It doesn't even mean apple underestimated demand, because they could have intentionally understocked to get the "iPhone SE sells out in minutes" headlines.

The best clue that the small phone market is actually a small market is to look to android: the smaller phones don't sell particularly well, especially in the premium tiers. The only company really making a go at the small phones is sony, and they're basically failing.

Big phones fit in my pockets and in my wife's purse, but not in my kid's pockets. He chose the SE, because it fit his pockets. He's still growing, so we'll probably be able to postpone getting him a new phone until he's bigger, but it seems an odd choice for Apple to eliminate the most kid-friendly size. I would think that bringing more kids into the controlled theme park that is iOS would matter more than the margins on this particular device, but I guess Apple moves in mysterious ways.

> Didn't the SE immediately sell out when it was released?

Pretty sure no one in this thread knows more about SE sales than the product people at Apple making these decisions.

Right, I get this feeling that there's a boardroom of execs out there saying "well, the Samsung Note sold a whole lot of devices, clearly the reason is because it's big!"

Then the release a bunch of only-big iphones, which sell more than the previous generation of iphones, and they go "Aha! We're on to something here!"

Like, there's a ton of reasons that sales of a new gen of iphone could be higher than previous, or that the note sold more than some other iphone model, etc, without having anything to do with physical size of the device.

I for one am absolutely desperate for a galaxy s1 sized device with a headphone jack, long battery life, and reasonable performance, regardless of thickness. I would probably pay 800 dollars for such a device. It's just me here and now but judging from other comments I've seen I bet I'm not alone.

You think that product demand is only conducted by putting a product on the market and seeing how well it sells? And you're posting on HN?

Sorry for the snark but damn this trope was stale 4 years ago. Apple has more than enough money to throw at researching whether or not it's worth it to make a particular size phone without first producing said phone.

If you knew the top part was snarky, and snarky enough to justify apologizing for, why didn't you just save you the time of writing it and me the time of reading it and thinking "gee thanks asshole"?

Nope, I don't work at Apple, I have no idea how they do market research. They sure do know how to make money, though.

Well, there's 4 generations of phones now that came in two sizes (6, 6S, 7, 8) so I would assume they've got a little more to go on than Samsung's quarterlies.

Yes, they were stock constrained for many months.. infact, I tried to buy one 3 months ago, and they didn't have any in the store. I think they just didn't want to make them...

If you want to push margins, larger devices selling for higher absolute prices are a better option.

Imho, it's harder to convince people a "smartphone" is worth USD $1k+. But a laptop / tablet replacement? That's reasonable(!) compared to a MBP...

Given Apple's build costs don't scale with device size (++screen, +battery, +gpu/mem), selling the same internals in bigger devices for more is a win.

So you continue expanding device size and price until you discover the market boundaries. And unlike Samsung S*/Note, Apple has the ability to say "These are the only form factors this generation, if you want the newest iPhone..."

> Given Apple's build costs don't scale with device size (++screen, +battery, +gpu/mem), selling the same internals in bigger devices for more is a win.

Only if those customers buy the bigger device, and if smaller phones require the latest internals. If these people stick with their older/smaller devices, you've lost a sale. If you can get away with 2-year-old internals in these smaller phones, it could be much cheaper to produce than the latest flagship.

I don't know what Apple's margins are on these devices, but a couple months ago AT&T was offering the current (final) iPhone SE for $50.

> Apple has the ability to say "These are the only form factors this generation, if you want the newest iPhone..."

True, but the SE was never about appealing to users who wanted the newest iPhone.

Apple wouldn't leave money on the table in an effort to save face. It came out in the Apple vs. Samsung lawsuits that they were caught flat footed.

From a technical standpoint, they could have released larger phones before they did. What stopped them is that UIKit and iOS apps were not designed to handle multiple screen sizes or any screen except for the 4 inch iPhone and the 9.7" iPad until iOS 7 and support improved in IOS 8.

From a technical standpoint they could, but they didn't because their technology wasn't ready?

So .. they couldn't?

Hardware - they could release bigger phones.

Software - they didn’t have the framework to allow for it.

It would have been like all of the Android phones that copied the notch before the OS was ready.