I held on to my original SE for as long as I could. I have dozens of screenshots similar to the ones on the article, and I was getting tired of reporting unusable or hard to use apps on small screens.
This was one of the key factors for me to switch to the iPhone 12 Mini. And even though some apps still have issues, they just don't test bellow the regular 12 size.
The worst recurring bug across apps that still happen on the mini is not having enough UI spacing to accommodate scrolling bellow the keyboard. I very often have apps that won't show the "submit" or whatever button to confirm a form.
Similar here - I just went up to a 12 mini because the SE I had was... well - still worked, but I wanted to 'forward proof' myself a bit. I suspect it may not go past iOS 14 (I just upgraded - was on 12 for a long time). For things like banking, etc, I wanted to know my device will work for the next few years, and this is the smallest I can get that still is in the ios/apple world.
I somewhat regret this, as I miss the Touch ID. Rumors are the 13 models will have a Touch ID under the screen, which will be great, but, I don't know they'll have a 'mini' version either. Apparently the 12 mini is being discontinued? I can't tell if that rumor is true, or production is just being reduced in favor of the larger models. Either way, the "small form factor" just seems to be an afterthought.
Was reading a few viewpoints on this (perhaps it was even on HN?) some time ago, and ... one of the attractions of 'big screens' is that, for most people, that phone may be their only or primary internet access device. For me, I'm on laptops and large screens all day - I want small and conven ient and mobility in a phone, not large screens. If I want a large screen... I go to a large screen. I don't try to wrestle with getting a 7" device in to pockets to carry around with me. But people wanting 5" phones are apparently in a minority.
> But people wanting 5" phones are apparently in a minority.
Let alone 4" phones! I'm still happy with my original SE, but the nuisances are starting to add up. I really prefer TouchID to FaceID and still use my headphone jack, so there's nothing in Apple's current lineup for me.
Fingers crossed that the rumors are right about the return of TouchID and the rumors are wrong about the mini being discontinued. If they finally dump Lightning in favor of USB-C, that'd solve my headphone jack dilemma as I could just use USB-C headphones on all devices. I'm not optimistic that all of this will come together before Apple discontinues support of the original SE, though.
the headphone jack is a nuisance, certainly. I've migrated to AirPods for a lot of stuff, but miss the jack and wired headphones. I did just learn about this 'reachability' thing in iOS, where you can pull down the top half of the screen to the bottom. this makes up for some of the stretching I was needing to do, but yeah, in so many ways the SE was such a good combination of qualities - size, features, etc.
This was one of the key factors for me to switch to the iPhone 12 Mini. And even though some apps still have issues, they just don't test bellow the regular 12 size.
The worst recurring bug across apps that still happen on the mini is not having enough UI spacing to accommodate scrolling bellow the keyboard. I very often have apps that won't show the "submit" or whatever button to confirm a form.