I’m not sure why the Author makes the assertion that Apple stopped making small phones. For the iPhone 12 mini and 13 which was the premium product they just didn’t sell enough to justify the model itself while social media was clamoring for this model and Apple tried two iterations .
Also the new iPhone 15 pros are lighter than the previous models and have features that justify it such as a fully functional usbc port that while it’s only USB 3 it can function with a wide verity of dongles to get Ethernet and external media recording so you can not rely only the local amount of storage on the phone.
Hi! Author here: I use a Balmuda Phone now, an exotic Android 12 Japanese discontinued phone that still receives security updates and weighs 138g with a 4.9" display. The iPhone Mini is my previous phone. It sold millions and millions of units, close to the entire number of yearly shipments of Google's Pixel line, but that was not enough for Apple. I like phones that are less than 140mm in height, less than 5" screen, but run modern software. Apple made enough that it would have been considered a huge success for any other company in the world. But alas :)
Also the new iPhone 15 pros are lighter than the previous models and have features that justify it such as a fully functional usbc port that while it’s only USB 3 it can function with a wide verity of dongles to get Ethernet and external media recording so you can not rely only the local amount of storage on the phone.