I know lots of people who quite like the smaller format phone (or say they do). I’m not 100% certain because this September my wife said she didn’t want a iPhone 6, she would be happy sticking with her 5s. I said try it and she has never gone back in fact when she was using her French phone she was forever going back to the bigger phone as a preference.
But assuming that my anecdotal evidence is wrong and that there are people who would prefer a 4 inch phone then the problem since the launch of the 5C is that the 4 inch phone has for the last few years been under powered and lacking in “core features”.
What are these “core features” well they are:
- 64bit
- Touch ID
- Apple Pay
Selling 8 and 16Gb phones to make them appear cheaper is not really good for the consumer (though there may be reasons within a corporate environment where it makes sense) but for pretty much any normal end user anything less that 32Gb these days will end up in tears.
I actually like the design of the 5C and the 5S and although everyone talks about a new design for the new 4 inch iPhone I wonder if the old design might be a better differentiator. Simply a form factor that looks less cool and looks like it is 3 years old might give that differentiation for the next generation iPhone that is needed.
Leave the 4 inch phone the way it looks (5CX / 5SX) and just update the processor to last years (which ticks all the core features) under-clock the processor so that you get a good days battery use out of the phone. If Apple wanted to push the boat out this years processor would be an even better option as it is so much more powerful and so under-clocking it would provide an even better battery performance curve.
It looks old so it will not be seen as cutting edge, its slower, and it doesn’t have some of the higher memory options (maybe) then you will see if there is really a demand for smaller phones or if my experience says the 6 size is actually best for a smaller phone.
I doubt Apple will go down this route which is a shame as Apple don’t make “cheap” phones so why give the impression they do and why not just tell the truth and create 4 / 4.7 / 5.5 sized phones smallest is cheapest and smallest looks like it comes from a previous generation.