• four devices = three devices + watch / AR glasses
It does not take a genius to see that the iPhone SE form factor is the logical choice for Apple customers with three or four devices. These are the customers spending the most money in Apple's ecosystem.
In the absence of a product visionary at the helm, large companies may want to ask why US/EU customers purchased a product developed for the Indian market. Abandoning emerging markets' low-cost phones does not require abandoning the global market of customers buying a coordinated portfolio of fit-for-purpose devices.
On a secondary footnote, the creation of "Screen Time" is likely a pre-emptive defense against future lawsuits for smartphone health consequences, ranging from eye health to psychological effects on developing brains.
What reduces screen time? A small phone like the iPhone SE that can still be used with headphones for audio. So there is a legal argument to be made for small phones: the presence in a corporate product line allows liability to be shifted to customers — if you suffer negative consequences from screen time, you should have bought the small phone to discourage screen use.
On the other hand, if companies only offer large phones, and we find out years later that they knew the health risks of excess screen time were increased by large phones, they would have contributed to the problem instead of possible solutions (like the iPhone SE).
I think screen time is a very clever play by apple against Facebook/Instragram, who are known as having time used per day as their core metric. With screen time, users see that they again spent several hours on those useless apps and start thinking about how they spend their time.
Overall a win/win for people who get pulled too much into social media.
It's just an opinion, I assume. Or you have any market research to back it up? I'd say "hype" has more to do with people buying biggest possible phone than anything else. But again, it's just an opinion.
The rationale for large phones is well documented in emerging markets where it is the customer's only computing device. Over the last few years, that has been a growth segment ("next billion") relative to the saturated US/EU smartphone markets. Apple followed Samsung's market leadership in phablets.
Other than Apple itself, market data on cross-device ownership would be hard to obtain, since the iPad is the dominant tablet. By definition, it would be a subset of the larger smartphone market. But the adoption behavior of this subset has strategic value to Apple, since it could extend Apple's iOS and phone silicon investments to compete with Intel in laptops.
A hypothetical (2018? 2019?) "always-connected iOS laptop" would again alter device portfolios.
I do not support this logic. Phone size is not dependent on device count. The type of person who likes the idea of a huge phone does so regardless of whether they also have a laptop or an iPad. My thumb does not grow longer, nor my pockets bigger, regardless of what devices I own.
Apple setups I have observed users be happy with:
- 15" laptop, iPad Pro 12, largest phone, watch
- 15" laptop, largest phone
- 15" laptop, medium phone, watch
- 15" laptop, smallest phone
- 13" laptop, largest phone
- 13" laptop, smallest phone
- Largest phone, watch
- Largest phone (nothing else)
- Smallest phone (nothing else)
We’re all just spouting anecdata but I agree with walterbell.
If someone only has a phone, they’ll go for the largest device possible as it basically fills the role of laptop (‘serious’ stuff), iPad (media consumption) and phone (‘opportunistic’ stuff).
If someone owns a laptop as well, they still ‘need’ a big phone because they’ll use it for a lot of their media consumption.
However, once someone owns an iPad + phone or laptop + iPad + phone, the phone gets relegated to messaging, quick internet searches, transportation and music.
While the logic is sensible, I believe that the phone is the least likely device to be affected.
That is, if you have an 12" iPad Pro, you're unlikely to also have a 12" MacBook, as they're devices of similar size and portability, and for "normal" people, also similar capability.
However, a phone is a different portability class. You have a phone with you at times where you do not bring an iPad. No amount of devices will help me when I do not have them with me. Even if I am at home, my phone is in my pocket, which an iPad, laptop or desktop never will be.
Therefore, I believe that the question is more about preference than about device overlap for phones.
But yes, you are right—anecdotes and opinions, rather than data.
There's something to be said for people not buying devices that are too similar in form factor to each other.
But I think this tends to better explain why mini tablets aren't especially popular than anything about phone size. Large or small, phones are still a pocketable device that people have with them much of the time. I use my phone a lot for things that I could, in principle, do better on some other device but that other device either doesn't have a cellular connection or it's just not with me--even if it's just up in my office.
The one device market is growing, even in developed countries, while the multiple device market is shrinking. iPad and Macbook sales haven't grown for almost a decade now.
The multiple device market may provide more revenue per customer, but they definitely don't provide more total revenue than the single device market.
We have years of data from closed device ecosystems where carriers and other gatekeepers decided what devices could do, including restricting TCP/IP connections (hello Blackberry).
If the Apple Watch meets all your use cases, it is the preferred option to reduce sceeen time.
If you need intermittent, short and all-day business critical mobile access to an application or web browser, a small "phone" (mobile computer with radio) is the device which currently supports the most use cases.
• one device = biggest phone
• two devices = 13/12 laptop or iPad Pro 12 + medium phone
• three devices = 13/12 laptop, iPad 10.5 + smallest phone
• four devices = three devices + watch / AR glasses
It does not take a genius to see that the iPhone SE form factor is the logical choice for Apple customers with three or four devices. These are the customers spending the most money in Apple's ecosystem.
In the absence of a product visionary at the helm, large companies may want to ask why US/EU customers purchased a product developed for the Indian market. Abandoning emerging markets' low-cost phones does not require abandoning the global market of customers buying a coordinated portfolio of fit-for-purpose devices.
On a secondary footnote, the creation of "Screen Time" is likely a pre-emptive defense against future lawsuits for smartphone health consequences, ranging from eye health to psychological effects on developing brains.
What reduces screen time? A small phone like the iPhone SE that can still be used with headphones for audio. So there is a legal argument to be made for small phones: the presence in a corporate product line allows liability to be shifted to customers — if you suffer negative consequences from screen time, you should have bought the small phone to discourage screen use.
On the other hand, if companies only offer large phones, and we find out years later that they knew the health risks of excess screen time were increased by large phones, they would have contributed to the problem instead of possible solutions (like the iPhone SE).