>I'd love to see Apple's market research behind the SE to see if our use patterns are normal for fellow owners.

I think the're many more like you, and that Apple is aware of it. My theory is that they don't want to cannibalize watch sales, or basically regard the watch or wearable market as their future, and the Apple Watch as device to cement their leadership role in this market early on. I mean it works for them, they are the number one wearbales brand now.

It's not only watches, the're the headphones and maybe AR glasses in the future, a distributed wearable system if you'd combine them. That's where things are going I think.

If the'd have continued pushing sff phones (pocket watches), their real watches might not have gotten this traction.

The thing with small phones (or pocket watches) is that they're still something that has to go in a pocket (or bag). For me, and I suspect many others, once I'm putting something in a pocket it might as well be more or less as large as it can be (while, in my case at least, being fairly usable with one hand). IMO the Plus models are a bit big for this but the iPhone X is just about perfect.

A watch OTOH is something that you can have right there for just about any activity and which can alert you even if a phone is tucked away someplace. I tend to also agree that AR, better conversational interfaces, etc. will probably make wearables more capable over time.

>For me, and I suspect many others, once I'm putting something in a pocket it might as well be more or less as large as it can be (while, in my case at least, being fairly usable with one hand).

Some popular designer jeans can't fit anything much bigger than the SE into their front pockets. It might seem crazy, but the're people who buy the phone that fits into their favorite jeans vs. the other way round.

Here's something I can't understand.

We're got super-thin "foldable" OLEDs.

Why doesn't anyone make a phone with a RIGID, super-thin, fold-up second (or third) screen?

Bending is a gimmick. Being able to epoxy a super-thin panel onto a carbon fiber shell? Game changing.

I'd gladly take a phone that's SE-sized x 3 widths, with borders between the screens. Better yet, accordion it so I can just use the top panel if I don't need "all screens".

Funny you should say this. This was around the cycle a few days ago

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2018/10/apple-gr...

Having a tiny phone that could be unfolded on-demand would appear to solve everybody's problem.

This doesn’t seem very plausible to me. Still a world of difference between small phone and watch. I just don’t think there’s a big enough market for small phone users who won’t buy the next available size that more people are happier with.

Its funny you mention watches. Another reason I rarely use the SE is because all of my notifications, volume control, etc are on my Pebble.

With this, I think you're onto something. So long as what I see isn't uploaded anywhere, I can't wait for AR glasses. I'm horrible with names, so some form of [completely invasive] facial scanning would be a god-send. And if not that, at least some sort of AR where I can slap a name tag on someone at a function.

I agree with that, and also wonder if they're ignoring the research in order to continue with the current profitable trend of bigger every year, because that's one of the very few distinguishers they have. It's easy to market in one word ideas and easy to understand, same reason cars and cokes are getting bigger.