After years of fans complaining that the beloved iPhone mini disappeared, Apple brought back a pint-sized phone that costs as much as a MacBook Pro. I want one.
You may remember me as the author of nearly 3,000 words about how the iPhone 16e seemed like a stupid product. You also may remember that a large portion of that rant was, more or less, me yelling about how Apple should have never discontinued a small iPhone SE or the iPhone mini.
After I wrote my iPhone 16e piece, the one thing that surprised me was the number of people who also missed the iPhone mini. There were a lot of you.
I learned that we often had similar traits. A lot of us are women who prefer smaller phones for ease of use.
A lot of us are slow to upgrade, even before the iPhone mini. And a lot of us were people who didn't live on our phones, either.
The iPhone mini, it seems, was a perfect mix of small enough to take anywhere while still being capable enough to do daily tasks. And there were a lot of us who missed it.
But, apparently, it was still an underperformer, and just like the iPhone Plus-sizes, it was entered into the annals of history as "a nice idea, but the customer base has spoken" product. I fully expected Apple to shitcan the idea of a small iPhone for the rest of eternity.
Initially I thought the iPhone Duo, back when we were all calling it the iPhone Fold, was going to be two iPhone Airs stuck together. But then at some point enough credible leaks came out suggesting that the iPhone Duo would be a squat little guy.
I didn't want to like it. And, from a cursory search on the internet, it turns out that I'm far from alone.
I will say, there are still a very vocal subset of users who are still begging Apple to bring back the iPhone mini proper. I am one of those people.
If Apple would have announced the iPhone 18 mini, I would not even look at the iPhone Duo. Seriously.
But I live in a world where I didn't get an iPhone 18 mini announcement. I got an iPhone Duo announcement, and now I have to live with everything that entails, starting with the price.
I hate how much iPhones cost. Any of them. Point at a brand new iPhone you can buy right now. They're all too expensive.
It doesn't matter if it's the iPhone 17e, the iPhone Duo, or anything in between. Unfortunately, that's just the time we live in.
Normally I'm somewhat insulated from needing to worry about what an iPhone costs. I update pretty rarely, so if I buy an iPhone for $800 and it lasts me 5 years, I can justify it as costing about $0.44 per day to participate in society.
Is it ideal? No, but all things considered, I've spent more on less.
But if I upgrade my iPhone now, and I've only had it since October, my price-per-day of owning it skyrockets, and then I have to deal with the idea of plopping down well over 2 grand for the base model.
The timer resets. Even if I do keep the iPhone Duo for five years, that's $1.10 a day.
There's a lot competing for my Apple hardware money. I could also take $2000 and buy myself a 14-inch MacBook Pro. I think that's maybe the part that is killing me here.
So, the sane thing, of course, is to just not buy the iPhone Duo. And currently, that's where I'm at.
My iPhone 17 is not a small phone. And, as I highlighted in my initial piece about switching from the iPhone 13 mini to the iPhone 17, it doesn't fit in my pants.
A while back I had to go to a semi-formal event, which required me to throw on a pair of slacks. I tossed my phone in my pocket, not thinking about how it didn't fit.
I realized I'd forgotten something upstairs, took up over the steps, and about three-quarters of the way up my iPhone 17 pressed eject on the whole situation. My reward for stowing my iPhone in the pocket of my dress pants was a brand-new crack in my screen protector when my phone caught the doorjamb at the bottom.
Behold, my punishment for putting my iPhone in my pocket.
My iPhone 17 takes tumbles. I knew it would. I'm a clumsy person, almost comically so. It happens, and I really can't place any fault on anyone but myself.
But for years, my iPhone 13 did not swan dive out of my pockets. If I dropped my iPhone 13, it was because I was doing something wrong.
And I could return to that life. An iPhone Duo would fix me.
Okay, it wouldn't fix me, but it would be, if nothing else, spatially convenient. If you haven't caught on, a lot of this is being written tongue-in-cheek.
