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People who just pick up their phone to do something useful with it, then put it away again afterwards are in a minority.

The majority spend every free moment of their day gawping into their phones, 'consuming' highly addictive garbage and doom-scrolling sponsored media. This is where the money is for Apple and they're pushing it hard, to the point where fanbois are convinced nobody wants anything else any more.

IMO this is mainly why people want clumsy phablets bulging in their pockets, rather than something simply efficient, compact and functional to do all the great things that a modern smartphone can do.
 
It was a design that only appealed to people (including me) who valued the small size over other stuff. Those who valued battery life more didn’t get a mini. Those who valued better cameras more didn’t get a mini. Those who valued better screen refresh rates more didn’t get a mini. Even those who valued price didn’t get a mini. And so on…

I love my mini it still rock it today, but it just wasn’t a good mix of features for the price for too many people.
This is really what it was.
My 12 Mini was an excellent phone, but it pretty much went back to the battery life of the iPhone 5.
But I also just think that the majority of regular consumers don’t want small phones. Maybe they would be fine with small phones if the majority of people still had several home computers, but most don’t. They just use their phone as their computer, so the bigger the screen the better.
 
It was a design that only appealed to people (including me) who valued the small size over other stuff. Those who valued battery life more didn’t get a mini. Those who valued better cameras more didn’t get a mini. Those who valued better screen refresh rates more didn’t get a mini. Even those who valued price didn’t get a mini. And so on…

I love my mini it still rock it today, but it just wasn’t a good mix of features for the price for too many people.
In addition, it came half a year after the SE2 was released, which many owners of the SE1 (release four years earlier) had already jumped on as the next small iPhone.

Furthermore, the marketing was bad. From the cutesy naming “mini” (“compact” would have been more serious), to the silly segment in the keynote, and afterwards about zero marketing for it.
 
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