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

The iPhone 14 Max spells the stop for iPhone mini — and I'yard okay with that

iphone 13 mini display on in hand with plants in background

(Epitome credit: Tom's Guide)

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

If you've decided to ignore this year'south iPhone thirteen update from Apple and concord out for the iPhone fourteen release in 2022, I hope you lot're a fan of big-screen phones. Because if rumors about Apple'due south next phone are accurate, the smallest screen in Apple's future telephone lineup will be bigger than vi inches.

That marks a change from Apple tree's approach the concluding couple years. Sure, at least three different iPhone models rank among the best big phones you can purchase. But Apple kept a place in its smartphone lineup for a more compact device. The iPhone thirteen mini, similar the iPhone 12 mini before it, offers a 5.iv-inch display in an easy-to-agree, easier-to-pocket 5.2 x ii.5 ten 0.3-inch frame.

But the iPhone 13 mini could be the final of its kind, according to multiple rumors near Apple's iPhone 14 plans. The company is still supposed to come out with four new iPhones in the fall of 2022, the rumors claim, only instead of an iPhone mini, you'll get an iPhone 14 Max. This would be a 6.7-inch version of the standard iPhone, without the iPhone 14 Pro Max's more premium features.

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

The writing'due south been on the wall for the iPhone mini for a while now. While Apple tree enjoyed record sales for the iPhone 12 models in the final year, the iPhone 12 mini seemed like the odd phone out. Reportedly, Apple tree's smallest iPhone didn't sell also as its heftier siblings. That's consistent with industry trends for smartphone screens, where the market has decided that bigger is definitely better.

This hits home for me in particular: I happen to be 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 it from my tiny clutches. The phones I used before 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 not blest with exceptionally large hands, so operating larger handsets with just ane manus is not possible for me. I also like being able to pocket a phone and even so take room for other things similar keys and coins. That small phones tend to toll less than their large screen counterparts — all that drinking glass doesn't come cheaply, friends — also appeals to my inner cheapskate.

Only small phones are increasingly becoming untenable, and not just because they're harder to discover than they were just a few years ago. Apps are getting more elaborate with controls, sliders and on-screen info designed to have advantage of extra screen existent manor. Shrunken downward for smaller devices, those screens tin can feel very claustrophobic. And allow's face facts — several decades of screen time, and my eyes aren't as sharp every bit they once were. increasingly, larger screens are the merely thing continuing betwixt me and having to permanently squint at my smartphone display.

google pixel 6 vs. iphone 13 — Pocket-sized phone fans better gear up for screens the size of the Pixel six (left) and iPhone 13 (correct). (Image credit: Tom'southward Guide)

So I've been trying to become used to larger screens for the inevitable mean solar day 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 13, a 6.4-inch Pixel 6 and — stupor of shocks! — a half dozen.5-inch iPhone xi Pro Max just to get used to using a larger device. And yous know what? Having to turn to a big phone is definitely not the nightmare scenario I used to imagine.

Information technology helps that phone makers accept trimmed down the bezels on their devices in recent years, so that you can squeeze those screens into a more than compact frame than before. That makes the current generation of bigger-screen phones a little easier to agree and a lot less bulky in your pocket than the phablets of merely a few years ago.

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

iPhone 12 mini size — The iPhone SE is actually bigger than the mini iPhones, even though it doesn't accept every bit big a screen. (Prototype credit: Future)

Of course, there may exist an alternative for fans of small phones (or me, if I decide that a six.1-inch display really isn't for me). A new iPhone SE 3 is fix to come out in early 2022, and right now, that phone's rumored to retain the 2020 version'southward 4.seven-inch screen size. While the iPhone SE'due south bezels means that phone'south not as compact every bit you might think — the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini were both smaller even with slightly larger displays — information technology's all the same a far cry from the large screens that are coming to boss both Apple tree'southward offerings and the smartphone market every bit a whole.

And that, as much as anything, is a warning for fans of meaty phones. Stock upward on your small screens now because they're going to be much harder to find in the very almost future.

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