Born Out of Frustration
For those who’ve joined the “Plus Club”, the iPhone SE probably doesn’t look that appealing to switch to. iPhone Plus users know, going in, what the trade-offs are with buying a huge phone.
But many 6S users (at least in my Twitter timeline) have become drawn to the SE which I found interesting. The crowd that I’m following had the 6 for a year and the 6S for seven months, so you’d think they would have adjusted to the 4.7-inch form factor, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
I have adjusted to 6/6S size and have been happy with how it feels in my hand. The first few weeks did take some getting used to, but I no longer yearn for something smaller.
This got me thinking. Why are people willing to forgo 3D Touch, a faster Touch ID sensor and a better front facing camera to get an iPhone SE?
After about 48 hours of letting that question simmer, I think that I’ve come up with the reason:
Reachability
Apple didn’t do a good enough job at promoting and pushing Reachability. When the 6 and 6 Plus came out, a commercial may have shown it being used, but after that, Apple hasn’t talked about it.
Maybe it’s because they are ashamed that they had to compromise with this feature to give customers what they wanted which was bigger phones. But I’ve incorporated Reachability into my daily workflow of using my 6S and it has become a valuable tool for how I use the phone.
Ask any non-Apple-tech-obsessed friend of yours what Reachability is and I can almost guarantee that they won’t know what you are talking about. But then show them what Reachability is and I think you’ll be surprised with their answer.
When the 6 came out, I was still working at Apple as a Genius. And I remember so many people asking me why their phone would have this “bug” of shifting down the screen. I would then explain Reachability’s purpose and benefits, but by that time, the customer was frustrated and just wanted it to stop. So I would show them how to disable it.
This was Apple’s failure.
As much as people hate when an app launches with a tutorial, Apple should have had a pop-up describing the feature when the 6 and 6 Plus released. My suggestion would have been to describe what Reachability was in the top section of the display that’s blank when the feature gets activated for the first time. I feel that so many users don’t know about it.
Which brings us back to the iPhone SE. For those who wanted the latest and greatest iPhone, they had no choice but to move to the 4.7-inch form factor. With Reachability out-of-sight and out-of-mind, users have had to shimmy their phone up and down in their hand while stretching their thumb uncomfortably and now that they can have almost the latest and greatest iPhone in a 4-inch size, the temptation is greater than ever.
Although the iPhone SE was born out frustration, I think Apple was smart to introduce it. They will sell millions and their margins are probably going to be fantastic, though I can’t help but think that if more people knew about Reachability, if we would even have an SE to talk about.
