Going With the iPhone Mini - Let’s See If It Is the Right Move After A Year Using It

I got the iPhone 12 Mini.  A few years ago, I would have gotten the iPhone 12 Pro Max without a second thought.  Things have changed.  I no longer want the best but only need enough to maximize my productivity in both my daily life and my work.  

Let me get some of the obvious shortcomings of the mini compared to the bigger iPHone 12s out of the way:  the Pro have better cameras including the 2x zoom camera which I miss but not as much as I expected, battery life is shorter than the other iPhones, and its smaller screen.  Other than that, it is still an iPhone 12 in a smaller body with the fastest Apple developed chip available for the iOS devices.  Not even the iPad Pro has the latest chip yet.  

Still, if the sale stats are correct, the mini is the worst seller of the iPhone 12s.  If Apple is disappointed, I would be surprised because they likely know the mini served a specific market, a niche segment of the iPhone market that remember the perfect iPhone 5, 5S, and original SE size that allow one to easily hold and operate with one hand and stow away in a pocket without having to give it an extra shove.  And over time, the iPhone SE could adopt the iPhone 12 min form factor with a lower price, opening up an even bigger market for Apple.

I am going to keep updating my personal uses of the iPhone 12 mini over the year, concluding whether I’m going to hold onto it, upgrade it to another mini in 12 months, or go back to the Pro version.  

Let me start with the intimacy of the iPhone 12 mini.  when I’m out and about using it in public, I enjoy being able to use it without a 6.7” screen for all the world to see.  And the smaller form factor also satiate the nostalgia of devices past - the Palm devices, the original iPhone, and, yes, even a couple of Windows Mobile devices.

I send messages back and forth between friends on various messaging apps, hardly something requires bigger iPhones.  And among other things that I use the mini for:  Twitter (no Facebook/Instagram or any other social apps - by choice and also no need to use anything else), consume news, writing, and, once in a while, play games.  And on occasion, I use the iPhone for work as well but only as needed.

And I do need any iPhone.  Today, I left the house without it on purpose.  I had my cellular Apple Watch 6.  And it was a Sunday after all.  And I’m not all that important that I could go without my iPhone for a few. Hours.  But when I needed to take a photo of something, that was when I realized there are still times when I had to carry around a smartphone.  I tried to remember the details of what I was trying to take a photo of.  But the time I got home, not only had I forgotten the information, I had completely forgotten what I was trying to photograph.  

That will be all for now.  And I definitely think I made the right move going with the iPhone 12 mini.  There will be times when I wish I have some feature like the better camera on the Pro or longer battery life but I think those times should be quite rare.