<story><title>The iPhone SE was the best phone Apple ever made, and now it’s dead</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/14/the-iphone-se-was-the-best-phone-apple-ever-made-and-now-its-dead/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>RodgerTheGreat</author><text>I have an SE, and I like it. The size is nice, I like that it lays flat, I like that it has a headphone jack. Newer models don&amp;#x27;t have compelling features my SE lacks, and take away things I like. I have no incentive to upgrade, and will likely explore other manufacturers when it eventually wears out.&lt;p&gt;I have an 11&amp;quot; Macbook Air, and I love it. The size and weight is nice, the keyboard is great, the touchpad is precise, I love that it has MagSafe, and I consider the ability to plug in DisplayPort monitors and my USB-A devices a must-have. Newer laptop models don&amp;#x27;t have compelling features my Air lacks, and take away things I like. I have no incentive to upgrade, and will definitely explore other manufacturers when it eventually wears out.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s frustrating when a company makes products that suit your needs well, and then changes its mind. I just don&amp;#x27;t seem to be in Apple&amp;#x27;s target market anymore.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jrockway</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m in exactly the same situation.  The SE&amp;#x27;s killer feature for me is that I can easily operate it with one hand.  I commute on the NYC subway, and that means I have to be able to hold a handrail with one hand while using my phone with the other.  I &amp;quot;downgraded&amp;quot; from an iPhone 6... because apps put controls everywhere on the screen, and I just couldn&amp;#x27;t hold the phone and operate it with the same hand.  (The thing was also very slippery; it never slipped out of my hands and got smashed, but I always felt it was inevitable.)&lt;p&gt;I am also not planning on upgrading.  The iPhone X family looks great.  Amazing screen.  I don&amp;#x27;t care about a home button or a headphone jack or whatever the improved battery life is.  Until I can be guaranteed a seat on the subway, it&amp;#x27;s all a net negative because I can&amp;#x27;t actually interact with applications during my commute.  (When I&amp;#x27;m not commuting, I have a 32&amp;quot; monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse which is WAY BETTER than a 6&amp;quot; phone and my finger.)&lt;p&gt;(More honestly, I don&amp;#x27;t see $1000 in value-add over my current phone.  I don&amp;#x27;t need the latest gadget to be happy... but if it makes me $1000 happier over its lifetime, sign me up.)&lt;p&gt;I feel like it&amp;#x27;s a cultural thing.  &amp;quot;Designed by Apple in California&amp;quot; where you just drive to work so a bigger phone is only a benefit (larger battery, easier-to-read text when you&amp;#x27;re using the phone).  But in NYC, small is a huge benefit, and it&amp;#x27;s a shame that the transit-deprived West Coast tech companies don&amp;#x27;t understand our use case here.</text></comment>
<story><title>The iPhone SE was the best phone Apple ever made, and now it’s dead</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/14/the-iphone-se-was-the-best-phone-apple-ever-made-and-now-its-dead/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>RodgerTheGreat</author><text>I have an SE, and I like it. The size is nice, I like that it lays flat, I like that it has a headphone jack. Newer models don&amp;#x27;t have compelling features my SE lacks, and take away things I like. I have no incentive to upgrade, and will likely explore other manufacturers when it eventually wears out.&lt;p&gt;I have an 11&amp;quot; Macbook Air, and I love it. The size and weight is nice, the keyboard is great, the touchpad is precise, I love that it has MagSafe, and I consider the ability to plug in DisplayPort monitors and my USB-A devices a must-have. Newer laptop models don&amp;#x27;t have compelling features my Air lacks, and take away things I like. I have no incentive to upgrade, and will definitely explore other manufacturers when it eventually wears out.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s frustrating when a company makes products that suit your needs well, and then changes its mind. I just don&amp;#x27;t seem to be in Apple&amp;#x27;s target market anymore.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>happertiger</author><text>I had a 13 inch MacBook Pro 2016. Sold it. Went back to using my 2013 MacBook Pro. I have an iPhone 7 and I miss my headphone jack every day. The best phone I ever owned was the se.&lt;p&gt;Apple is happily going off in a nonsense direction where their products are less and less useful because they are less complete and therefore less “self reliant” as devices.&lt;p&gt;See that’s what people don’t articulate. It’s not that the design changes are bad. Some are great. It’s that the balance of great design and great utility is what made apple impossible to beat as a phone and a laptop, and &lt;i&gt;then there was the fact that they were seamlessly integrated&lt;/i&gt; (something apple has still failed to fully exploit — their stuff could be mind blowing). This is what made the brand great, and I feel like people miss that part of the argument.&lt;p&gt;When you bought a 2013 MacBook Pro, you didn’t need to buy accessories because it had it all - hdmi, usb, etc. - and it was useful without any additional accessories and met or exceeded my needs in almost all circumstances. I didn’t need a dongle to present and I didn’t need a cable adapter to charge my phone. When I packed for a conference I would grab my laptop, a power supply (that I could trip over in hotel rooms while working with no worries and that neatly wrapped up), and an hdmi to dvi adapter in case the projector failed, but that was it. Now I feel like Apple has externalized &lt;i&gt;all of that utility&lt;/i&gt; in an effort to boost margins or go thin, and it’s basically made the devices reliant on a host of adapters, both for phones and laptops (and actually the 2013 Mac pro was the same problem).&lt;p&gt;Apple needs to understand what made them great was that they weren’t the ultimate steak knife, they were the ultimate survival knife, and get back to building the most &lt;i&gt;useful, thought out and self-contained&lt;/i&gt; devices like they used to. They had a sweet spot, but we’re going back to the Apple cube across all product lines again, and nobody wants that.&lt;p&gt;The pro computer failure and the move away from nerd needs to slab of glass has lost balance and is heading into design over substance. The pendulum needs some rebalancing.</text></comment>