On Sunday, some of the trusted sources of Apple rumors revealed that we will anticipate 4 new iPhones later this 12 months: two with 6.1-inch display sizes more likely to be the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro, and two with 6.7-inch screens doubtless dubbed the iPhone 14 Max and iPhone 14 Pro Max. Four telephones in whole.

The tweet made me gasp due to what’s lacking. There’s nothing even near the 5.4-inch display measurement of my beloved iPhone mini.

I do know, I do know, many individuals favor huge screens, and the iPhone mini wasn’t precisely a hit in response to provide chain reviews.

But that didn’t preserve me and 11 different Verge staffers from shopping for one – and after I polled my colleagues this week, seven of us nonetheless agree that the remainder of the world’s too-big telephones can shove it.

We’ve acquired small fingers, or a want to make use of our telephones one-handed whereas juggling different duties, and there’s nothing else that comes even shut. In the US, the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini are among the many solely full-fat compact smartphones available on the market, they usually’re arguably in a category of their very own: rivals just like the Sony Xperia 5 III are a lot taller, and whereas a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 would possibly fold down to suit right into a pocket, it’s nonetheless notably wider than the iPhone mini’s blissfully graspable type. (Also, each of these telephones begin at $1,000 and run Android, although that wouldn’t cease all of us.)

As an proprietor of a Google Pixel 4a and an off-the-cuff admirer of my spouse’s iPhone 13 Pro, I can inform you proper now neither of them are viable alternate options to the mini: their 5.8- and 6.1-inch screens now really feel big by comparability, and the Pro’s hefty metal construct all the time makes me really feel like I’m going to drop it, too.

Despite the iPhone mini’s iffy battery life, a major variety of us right here at The Verge consider there’s no higher possibility. But if analyst Ming-Chi Kuo’s prediction is true — and he’s hardly ever fallacious with regards to sizes, by the way in which — it means Apple is finished providing a yearly improve path for individuals like us.

But there’s one other place the place small telephone lovers at The Verge agree: it doesn’t have to be yearly. We might wait. And that may line up properly with the different revelation that Kuo tweeted this week.

Normally, if you purchase the brand new iPhone, you get the brand new A-series chip, proper? Not in 2022, says Kuo — the iPhone 14 may have the identical chip that got here with the iPhone 13 in 2021, with newer A16 chips solely headed to Apple’s new “Pro” collection telephones. If true, which means Apple was already planning to vary its annual improve cycle in 2022 – and that may give it a pure alternative to carry again the mini when it would truly depend.

If Apple provided a mini in 2023 as an alternative of 2022, maybe it might be in time for a brand new, extra environment friendly processor that might theoretically assist with its battery life. (Apple’s earlier resolution was to make the iPhone 13 mini’s battery 9 p.c larger than the iPhone 12 mini’s pack, which undoubtedly helped some.)

Or, Apple might carry it again in 2024 as a brand new iPhone SE – the telephone that pioneered the concept of bringing again an historic Apple type issue from time to time. The first iPhone SE in 2016 was a remake of the 2013 iPhone 5S, with a 4-inch display. 2020 introduced us a remake of the iPhone 8 with its 4.7-inch display, and Apple simply did it once more by including processing energy, battery life, and 5G to the telephone for these individuals who nonetheless demand a bodily house button in 2022.

But in our evaluate of the 2022 iPhone SE, Allison concluded that its five-year-old design might be on the finish of its rope, notably its getting old LCD display with huge bezels. That’s the place I’m hoping the iPhone mini can are available in: at 5.4 inches, the iPhone mini provides way more display in a smaller type issue that I discover far more comfy to carry.

It’d be silly to recommend that Apple ought to carry again the iPhone mini this 12 months, as a result of the selections about which shapes to chop out of aluminum and which screens and batteries and boards to acquire doubtless occurred lengthy in the past. (That’s in all probability why we nonetheless acquired an iPhone 13 mini lengthy after reviews that the iPhone 12 mini didn’t promote.)

So Apple, we’re not asking you to carry it again in 2022. Our telephones will maintain out for an additional 12 months or two or extra — some Verge mini fans admitted they don’t improve all that always — so long as their batteries don’t dwindle down prematurely. We’re simply asking you, within the new spirit of giving your clients what they need, to not kill it off for good.