I made the mistake of checking the equivalent Reddit thread on this topic, it was a good reminder of why I’m enjoying Lemmy more.
So many comments about mini owners being out of touch and shitting on them.
There are also a bunch of comments complaining they don’t want the mini to become the new SE and be smaller despite the fact that the mini is already larger than the SE…
My kid cousin randomly came up to me and said “why is your phone so tinyyy”…that’s when I finally understood small phones like my 13 mini really aren’t a thing for most 🥲
I have a pixel pro I got for app development, but I only use it for wordle and Sync (which has been better than the iOS lemmy apps I’ve tried). It’s so large that I can’t imagine lugging it around.
I can see a kid who’s watching YouTube and TikTok and playing Fortnite for 8 hours a day wanting a big phone, I can see somebody with a purse having one, but I do not do those things.
Many of the iOS ones are wrappers for some kind of web view, so they’re missing smaller details like native views.
Voyager for example never felt better installed than it did a PWA, and it would get itself into some weird states. I had issues with the text editing not feeling right.
I tried Memmy and it’s pretty good, but kind of buggy (for example the match system theme setting doesn’t work for me and it wouldn’t jump to the correct message in long threads when clicking a reply in my inbox).
I’ve been trying Avalont which is the best so far, does feel better being a native app, but the scroll component on the comment text box is very buggy, and refreshing my inbox doesn’t use the native pull to refresh action so it only works after I scroll down and up again.
Sync benefits from being many years old, so everything works really well and it’s very full featured.
The one feature no iOS app does: different settings for different accounts or communities.
Edit: I do appreciate the effort on all the new lemmy apps, I know they’re a lot of work and most of the devs aren’t getting paid.
Mlem! Yea, native experience is one of top reasons I use/contribute to Mlem (beta is full I think, so you’ll have to try the App Store version)🥲
I love Avelon’s in-line media viewer for sure. I have like 10+ lemmy apps, and all of us have strengths and areas that need work…it’s like 2009 all over again :) I did use Voyager (wefwef) and Memmy for a bit too :p
For me the shock was less so “kids want big phones”, and more like people think it’s natural for phones to be a certain size nowadays (just like house ceilings are usually 8-9’ high)
Kids don’t own computers/laptops as much anymore. Use their phones to watch way more video than older folks do. I sort of understand the younger generation wanting larger phones on that context. Pretty much every new flagship that comes out is bigger than I want a phone now unfortunately.
Posting this from a 13 mini. It’s the best phone I’ve ever owned. Fits comfortably in my hands, easy to use one-handed, doesn’t feel bulky in my pockets. It’s a shame that the trend is towards bigger phones nowadays
@Bobicus@tst123 same here. I type this message, like all messages, with my thumb only. I really like having one hand free. Sooo much more efficient and relaxed. And yes, my hands are big, but not that big.
There’s that solution of not using the upper 1/3 of your screen, I know. But it’s difficult to access that option. I’m open to suggestions how to do that quickly.
And I have an iPhone 13 mini and indeed…keeping it as long as possible.
Eh, I think the problem is customers just prefer bigger phones. I mean, personally I prefer the mini, but I think it’s clear I’m in the minority.
Using a rebrand to try and downplay the compactness may work for sight-unseen buyers, but in the end if they’re shown the bigger phone in-store, past sales would suggest they’re likely going to pick the bigger phone. (Phones ended up so big in the first place because people preferred them, too.)
Eh, I think the problem is the customers just take what apple gives them
I think this is true to an extent, but my argument against it would be to point to the period where Apple resisted making large phones, while Android phones were getting bigger and bigger. (This would be approximately the era of the 5/5S) In the more wild-west product lineup of Android, it became clear that bigger screens equaled more sales, for better or for worse.
I don’t think Apple has ever made their own phone screens. They are a not a manufacturing company.
The limitation was the size of the human hand. Jobs wanted it designed to be single hand navigable. This was widely broadcast and know since the introduction of the first iPhone, and criticized once android phones got larger.
The last form factor Jobs oversaw was the 5. The screen did change so a preexisting contract wasn’t constraining the size. The screen got slightly taller but was kept the same width. It had the smallest screen of major phones released that same year, and was still smaller than the flagship android phones of the previous year.
The first form factor that jobs did not oversee was the larger 6 and even larger 6plus.
Very well said. I will also be stuck with my 13 mini for as long as it works, mainly because - as you said - I want a portable tool with the full Apple ecosystem access.
Or the mini will become the new SE? I don’t even bother keeping up with phone releases any more. As long as you have a phone that came out in the past few years you are fine.
My 11 pro max ultra absorbent™️ is still doing what it needs to and that “capitalism itch” has been there for years I just haven’t had a reason to update.
Dont know if you should upgrade. Phones have peaked performance from past 4-5 years. I don’t see a reason to upgrade. People give reasons like refresh rate etc. It doesnt bother me , I can do basically all tasks that a phone suppose to do. Dont care about refresh rate, 200mp camera etc
I can’t see Apple stopping the “will they, won’t they?” since it probably drives sales or doesn’t set expectations ahead of time but I’m convinced (although I could absolutely be wrong) that the 2020 SE’s launch kneecapped demand for the 12 mini since it came out months earlier with no sign of any mini phone on the horizon. Since my 8 met with a horrible fate at the time I bought a 13 mini, looks like we might be here a while.
Maybe I’m wrong here, but I definitely feel I can get another 2 years out of my 13 mini easily, especially with a battery replacement once that starts to fade. I had the se 1 for about 4 years, and 5 years of support for iPhones is pretty standard for Apple. I do hope though that the SE becomes the new mini moving forward. One every 3-4 years I think would be just fine, and would be a welcome push back to the “upgrade every year” mindset, IMO.
Fair enough. I’m not sold on the vision pro yet, personally, and imagine its use cases for most people may take some time to pan out, but I can see your point. Certainly agree that some actual guaranteed upgrade path for the mini would be nice, but I’m betting, like the iPad mini, they’ll just upgrade it periodically every now and again for the dedicated user base.
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