Technology

This author should’ve spent digging into the iPhone 12 / 13 mini, and how it was received in Apple communities a few years ago.

That experiment really showed that the small phone demographic is passionate and vocal, but small (no pun intended). Those phones sold well when the small-phone-fans ran out to buy them, but the sales numbers cooled off quick.

Given that Apple is working on a lightweight 17 “air” phone, my guess is that they learned screen size is too important for too many people, but they’re going to see if they can strike a middle ground with weight / pocket fit.

Because most people want big screens?

I mean, it is simple.

There are small phones. There's more small phones than big phones. And I have big thumbs so stop whinging about the minority.

Edit: Omg I just lost to clickbait. FUCK.

Because people don't buy them.

One thing that annoys me with the market at the moment is that the majority of folding phones available are like small crappy tablets that fold into a large, impractical to carry phones, and not large, very usable phones that fold into something much more compact that is easier to carry..

I don’t want a small phone, I just want a normal phone that I can use in one of my normal sized hands. I have an iPhone 13 Mini right now and it’s pretty ideal but I know they’ll go end of life one day and there’s nothing to replace it right now.

Smaller phones do have a place though. I've got a 7-year old son with Type 1 diabetes. We wears a Glucose Monitor that requires a Bluetooth connection to get a reading. He needs to carry a mobile phone for this reason, and because of his size, and the fact that he needs to carry it basically all the time, a smaller phone is best. He does not need a camera, or to browse social media.

We can, there's just less demand for them. Sony was among the last holdouts for small phones with their compact series, but they stopped because they were their worst selling models.

Even Apple stopped selling their small SE model (that was basically iPhone 5 sized) despite it being the cheapest iPhone to get your hands on, because it sold terribly.

Small phones is something the tech community says it cares about, but the market has proven that the average person doesn't care. Same as the headphone jack and microSD slot.

I don't like it either, but phone companies aren't deliberately leaving money on the table. If they thought small phones would sell gangbusters, they'd bring them back.

I'd like to have no phone at all, I don't like small screens, nor being interrupted. Problem is that phone apps are now almost obligatory for IDs, transport tickets, passes, banking, etc. So I'd just like a phone-receiver (modem) with a sim card on a USB stick that can enable phone-app-stuff via my laptop or tablet. (Yes some tablets have data sim cards, but we still need sms and occasional phone functions for 'verification' etc.). Any suggestions?

power usage of screens scales as O(n^2), but battery scales as O(n^3), meaning bigger phones will have better battery life

we can't have small phones because the os design can only be so flexible before it starts either being crap at every size or having so many edge cases that internally it's stupid complex.

having limited sizes means the sizes they do have can be well covered

Shit battery capacity, bloated OS causing worse battery life, and not enough people actually buying them.

there is one option.

well and a couple others that are also made by Unihertz depending on your needs/wants

more companies making them would be cool but the general consensus I'm reading here is that there are 0 and that is incorrect.

Probably for similar reasons we can't go back to small cars: People are getting older and can't handle them.

ETA: Old people need giant text so they can read things. Big screens show more big text. They also don't want to drop down into a small car, so they buy SUVs and trucks. So they make SUVs and trucks and great big screens for the old people who are most of the population.

Source: I am an old person. Except I drive a small car because it's fun