imax1

charlesn said:

Honestly, I keep thinking the rumor mill must be missing some killer feature(s) of the iPhone Slim because what has been reported seems so preposterous. To recap: if the rumor mill is right, the iPhone Plus is getting pulled from the lineup because it didn't sell--regular iPhone buyers weren't interested in paying $100 more to get the 6.7" screen and significantly increased battery life--according Apple's figures, about 25% longer for video playback, 33% longer for video streaming and 25% longer for audio playback. THAT, with the bigger screen, wasn't worth paying an extra $100. Okay, got it.

SO.. the replacement for the Plus is a phone with essentially the same size screen, but it now has a stripped out feature set: only one camera lens, no fast mmWave 5G (which now blankets big cities), almost certainly reduced battery life vs. the Plus AND... the icing on the cake... it will be more expensive than the Plus! And what is the big selling point that will justify to buyers this reduced feature set with shorter battery life at more expensive prices than a phone that Apple buyers have allegedly already rejected? It might be up  to 2mm thinner... that's maybe a 20% slimmer phone. Spare me the comparisons to the Macbook Air introduction -- there is no magical "pulling a laptop from a manila envelope" moment that's going to happen. This will be, "Hey, if you look at the phone from the side you can see that the Slim is a little thinner than the Plus." If you doubt that this difference is as unimpressive as I'm saying, go look at Samsung's photos for its upcoming Galaxy Edge, which is practically a dupe for the rumored dimensions for the Slim, but will beat the Slim to market by several months. Is the side profile slimmer than the regular Galaxy S25? No doubt. Impressively so? Meh. You'll also note that the Edge will have two camera lenses, not one like the Slim.

Once Apple gets past the initial wave of buyers who simply like owning the latest, especially when its form factor identifies it as such, who is the iPhone Slim for? Certainly not Pro buyers since the main differentiator for Pro and Pro Max phones is their camera system. Does Apple think buyers who rejected the $100 upcharge for the iPhone Plus are going to embrace a phone with fewer features and a worse battery life for even more money because it's thinner? Good luck with that! This is a phone for nobody or, to be fair, it's for a niche that's going to be far smaller than the niches that existed for the iPhone Mini and Plus, a niche that's willing to pay more for *maybe* 2 millimeters of added thinness at the cost of features and battery life. So what is the point of this exercise in thinness to pursue a market that's smaller than the one for the phone you're replacing? That said, I really do hope that Apple will surprise us in some great way with the iPhone Slim that they've managed to keep secret from the rumor mill. Apple and the iPhone lineup, in particular, could really use a moment like that.