One small reason why I won't be upgrading to an iPhone 14

Apple is retiring the iPhone mini, but its rumored replacement isn't good enough to get me to give up my lovely little handset.

- JASON SNELL

I come here not to bury the iPhone mini but to praise it. If reports are true, the iPhone 13 mini (fave.co/30Fv5p9) will be the last of its line, replaced by a larger iPhone 14 Max this fall. And as someone who owns and loves an iPhone 13 mini, this makes me sad-sad enough to hold onto my mini for another year.

It seems, however, that not enough people share my love for the iPhone 13 mini for Apple to update it for the iPhone 14 generation. No matter: The iPhone 13 mini is a great device. It's so great, in fact, that I suspect we haven't seen the end of its design yet.

IN PRAISE OF THE LITTLE GUY

There's no denying it: People love big phones. The iPhone went on a huge growth tear the moment Apple made it larger with generation 6. Sales figures seem to bear it out. I won't deny that my love of smaller phones makes me a niche iPhone buyer.

But...do people really love big phones? I think they love big screens showing more information and playing bigger movies. I'm not sure they love the extra weight, the extra volume, the extra amount of bulk in the pocket-but it's worth the trade-off for that big, bright screen.

Every year I have the privilege of using all of Apple's iPhones as part of the process of reviewing them. And for the past two years, I've kept coming back to the iPhone mini design.