The iPhone 14 Max spells the end for iPhone mini — and I'm okay with that

The iPhone xiv Max spells the end for iPhone mini — and I'm okay with that

iphone 13 mini display on in hand with plants in background

(Prototype credit: Tom's Guide)

Update: With a 120Hz LTPO brandish tipped, the iPhone 14 Max could be the phone to go in 2022 .

If you've decided to ignore this year's iPhone 13 update from Apple and concur out for the iPhone 14 release in 2022, I promise you're a fan of large-screen phones. Because if rumors about Apple'due south adjacent phone are accurate, the smallest screen in Apple tree'south hereafter telephone lineup volition be bigger than 6 inches.

That marks a change from Apple'southward approach the concluding couple years. Sure, at to the lowest degree iii different iPhone models rank among the best big phones you can buy. But Apple tree kept a identify in its smartphone lineup for a more compact device. The iPhone 13 mini, like the iPhone 12 mini earlier information technology, offers a v.four-inch display in an piece of cake-to-concur, easier-to-pocket 5.ii x 2.5 ten 0.3-inch frame.

But the iPhone 13 mini could be the terminal of its kind, according to multiple rumors about Apple's iPhone 14 plans. The company is all the same supposed to come out with four new iPhones in the autumn of 2022, the rumors claim, but instead of an iPhone mini, you'll get an iPhone 14 Max. This would exist a vi.7-inch version of the standard iPhone, without the iPhone 14 Pro Max'southward more premium features.

iphone 13 mini display on laying on desk — (Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The writing's been on the wall for the iPhone mini for a while now. While Apple enjoyed record sales for the iPhone 12 models in the final yr, the iPhone 12 mini seemed like the odd telephone out. Reportedly, Apple tree's smallest iPhone didn't sell every bit well as its heftier siblings. That'southward consequent with manufacture trends for smartphone screens, where the marketplace has decided that bigger is definitely better.

This hits dwelling house for me in detail: I happen to exist a fan of small phones, having held on to an original iPhone SE — the original 1 with a iv-inch display — until a technician finally had to pry information technology from my tiny clutches. The phones I used earlier that were similarly modest, though that was dorsum in the era when phablets were the outlier, not the standard for screen sizes.

I like smaller phones because I'm non blessed with uncommonly big hands, so operating larger handsets with just one hand is non possible for me. I also similar being able to pocket a phone and still have room for other things similar keys and coins. That small phones tend to price less than their big screen counterparts — all that glass doesn't come up cheaply, friends — also appeals to my inner cheapskate.

But small phones are increasingly becoming untenable, and not just considering they're harder to detect than they were just a few years ago. Apps are getting more than elaborate with controls, sliders and on-screen info designed to accept advantage of extra screen real manor. Shrunken down for smaller devices, those screens can feel very claustrophobic. And permit's face facts — several decades of screen time, and my eyes aren't equally sharp as they once were. increasingly, larger screens are the simply matter standing betwixt me and having to permanently squint at my smartphone brandish.

google pixel 6 vs. iphone 13 — Small telephone fans improve set up for screens the size of the Pixel half-dozen (left) and iPhone xiii (right). (Epitome credit: Tom's Guide)

Then I've been trying to go used to larger screens for the inevitable twenty-four hours when I — a person who reviews phones for a living — needs to face the harsh new reality.. Lately, I've been bounding back and along between a 6.1-inch iPhone xiii, a 6.four-inch Pixel 6 and — daze of shocks! — a six.five-inch iPhone 11 Pro Max just to go used to using a larger device. And you know what? Having to turn to a large telephone is definitely not the nightmare scenario I used to imagine.

Information technology helps that phone makers have trimmed down the bezels on their devices in recent years, then that you can squeeze those screens into a more compact frame than earlier. That makes the electric current generation of bigger-screen phones a piddling easier to agree and a lot less beefy in your pocket than the phablets of just a few years agone.

So bring on the iPhone 14 and its lack of a mini selection. I can probably get comfortable using a 6.1-inch display, and if another iPhone 14 rumor pans out — the i where Apple gets rid of the notch — maybe I'll have even more screen existent estate than I did before.

iPhone 12 mini size — The iPhone SE is actually bigger than the mini iPhones, even though it doesn't have as big a screen. (Image credit: Time to come)

Of class, there may be an alternative for fans of small phones (or me, if I determine that a half-dozen.1-inch display actually isn't for me). A new iPhone SE three is prepare to come out in early 2022, and right at present, that phone's rumored to retain the 2020 version's 4.7-inch screen size. While the iPhone SE's bezels ways that telephone'south non as compact as you might think — the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini were both smaller even with slightly larger displays — information technology's still a far weep from the big screens that are coming to boss both Apple'due south offerings and the smartphone market every bit a whole.

And that, equally much as anything, is a warning for fans of compact phones. Stock upward on your small-scale screens at present because they're going to exist much harder to detect in the very near future.

Philip Michaels is a senior editor at Tom'south Guide. He has strong opinions about Apple, the Oakland Athletics and quondam movies. Follow him at @PhilipMichaels.