Pour one out for the iPhone mini, a device I loved in concept, but not in practice.
With Apple discontinuing the iPhone 13 mini today, its experiment with smaller handsets is officially over. The writing was on the wall when the iPhone 14 Plus took the place of a mini model last year, but it's nonetheless sad to see. Small phones are dead.
The promise made by the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini was that they were small, incredibly pocketable phones without compromises. They had a comparatively tiny 5.4-inch form factor, but paired with the same cameras, processor, and display as their larger siblings.
The iPhone minis pulled this off to an extent, but a smaller device that makes no compromises simply isn't possible. Physical limitations start coming into play eventually. The biggest drawback was battery. Both the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini have some of the shortest battery life of any modern iPhone.
Apple probably could have given the iPhone mini a bit more longevity with a thicker design, but how much larger would the handset have needed to be? I'm sure Apple would have started running into camera-related challenges too. The camera bump on the Pro Max is over half the width of the iPhone 13 mini.
On paper, I love the idea of a 5.4-inch iPhone with the battery and camera of a Pro Max. In reality, achieving that would probably make the phone as bulky as a 3110, and then it takes up pocket space in a different way.
But even if you're not after best of the best camera and battery, smaller phones don't make as much sense as they once did. Our handsets have been trending toward maximalist, do-everything devices. They tend to be the most important computers in our lives. We use them for photography, watching videos, reading, sending emails, and more. All this functionality tends to be better with a larger screen.
Of course, the iPhone mini wasn't without its fans. One of my friends is considering buying two more iPhone 13 minis as a backup for when his dies. It's lighter, less bulky, and entirely usable with a single hand. It makes phone calls, runs Google Maps, and takes a pretty decent holiday photo.
For a certain kind of user, the iPhone mini was perfect. In some ways, it was the modern interpretation of the classic idea of a mobile phone. A phone that's still mostly a phone, rather than a pocket computer.
And in the same way that feature phones have all but lost relevance, small phones have too. Maybe a TikTok-led trend will make them relevant again when Generation Alpha discover the iPhone mini and praise it as a way to use your phone more mindfully. Or maybe we'll end up with an iPhone flip-phone foldable as a happy medium of a big phone that doesn't feel like one.
But for now, rest in peace, tiny prince.
Alex Choros
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