Ahead of iPhone 6 Launch, One-Third of Smartphones Sold Have Screens Larger Than 5"

age234 said:

I'm probably in the minority, but large screen phones have zero appeal to me. I like being able to grasp the phone with one hand and actually fit it in my pocket.

I mean, IMO the primary reason other companies developed these absurdly large screens is because their OSes are inefficient and require more battery life. Bigger screen = bigger battery.

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Which phones don't fit in a hand or pocket? Even if Apple built a 5" phone instead of a 4.7" phone it would fit in the vast majority of hands and pockets. Skinny jeans notwithstanding.

Bolded: I fixed that for ya It's still wrong, IMO, but at least it doesn't read as you presenting it as some sort of fact.

DTphonehome said:

Would it have been so terrible for Apple to release iPhones in multiple screen sizes? This trend isn't that new, they should have seen this coming. Now they look like they're reacting to the market (which they are) instead of anticipating where it would go and being ready with a product.

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I can see both sides to be honest. They could have focused on putting out a larger phone and not have it sell as well as they anticipated (like the iPhone 5C) and have to worry about different screen sizes than they needed to. Or they could have taken the risk and put it out and maybe their phone sales would have been even higher. No-one really knows...

There's also the fact that in reality, up until the 5S things were highly influenced by Steve Jobs (who was said to have really focused on that phone, even though he passed before it came out), and he wasn't a fan of the bigger screens.

ewkp said:

i think some people confuse iphone popularity with people not wanting bigger screens. many people love that iphones live with the smaller screen because they don't have any choice. the real test is going to be when apple finally gives people a choice in phone size (hopefully soon). i am betting that the larger display phones are going to surpass apple's expectations, by a lot.

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Exactly.
It's the mistake they keep making

Oh No one wants a larger iPhone, look how well they are selling.

Errrr, well that's because people who want an iPhone have zero choice.

Put a 4", 4.7" and 5.5" iPhone side by side in an Apple store for the day on sale.
If no one buys the 5.5" model (as some here keep telling us Apple folks don't want) Then I will get down on my knees and worship you all knowingness

Or course, we all know that people would love a bigger iPhone given the choice.

Personally 4" to 4.7" seems a bit... meh, what the point.

5.5" is a worthy jump.

I could fully expect 3 phones from Apple soon.

An iPhone 6 in 4.7" and 5.5"
And they will keep selling the old 4" current ones like they do the older models now.

4.7" will be the new 4" perfect size before long, I would not be surprised.

I don't mind having choices.

I personally have no need for an iPHONE but in our family we have five iPodTouches which have essentially all the functionality without the phone feature we don't need. Yes, I'm aware of the rumors Apple will discontinue the iPodTouch - that would be a mistake since they're still making billions of dollars selling them and some customers don't need the phone.

Having a variety of price points, sizes and features is good so that people can pick what fits their needs. Otherwise they go to the competition.

age234 said:

I still prefer my 4" 4S to the 5. I prefer the aspect ratio.

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I hate to point it out but the 4s screen is 3.5"...... I do prefer the aspect ratio of the 4s as well though.

efktd said:

cool phone back in the day. View attachment 472349

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Coolest phone at the beginning.

bsolar said:

Excluding iPhone buyers, most of these 2/3 buy cheap smartphones, that's why in the high-end segment large smartphones reach almost 50%...

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So nearly half who have no use for a large phone are inadequate, they just haven't gotten the memo. An important distinction.

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TechGod said:

Really bad logic here that you have.

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Really bad logic you have there.

Dimwhit said:

The mind shutters at the thought of what Apple is going to charge for the larger iPhones.

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It's more expensive and much harder to make a smaller phone than a larger one with the same quality of internals. That's why you can't find a high end 4" Android phone. The larger size could quite possibly be cheaper than the smaller ones.

Jesus Christ. Am I the only sane person on the planet who DOESN'T WANT a larger screen size?!? I don't have freaking Inspector Gadget thumbs... I can barely reach the corner of the screen as it stands now without using 2 hands. Plus, since I'm one of the few people in America who isn't obese, my pockets aren't oversized enough to hold a larger iPhone anyways. I seriously hope that Apple hasn't completely lost their minds on this, and that they still offer the existing sized iPhone as an option.

fallenjt said:

Coolest phone at the beginning.

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Coolest phone at the beginning

Misleading data

Its hard to draw even remotely useful conclusions from this data because, as anyone who follows the smart phone market knows, the flagship phones for most non-Apple manufacturers only come with larger screens. You can't even get a Galaxy Phone smaller than 5" anymore. And for the phones that are available in smaller screen sizes, they are lower specced versions. Carriers and manufacturers are driving screen sizes to be larger, rather than the market showing they want the larger sizes by having choices.

OceanView said:

Agreed.

I would never have even considered an Android phone but the larger screen size was just too compelling to stay away from. Now that I've gotten use to Android, I'm not sure I could go back to an iPhone with iOS's limitations.

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A jailbroken phone gets you away from those limitations. I would dearly love an iphone 6 that is jailbroken. If it's 4.7-5" that is!!

This size fad is annoying me, can we be done with it and get back to shrinking things and make an iphone mini? 2.5"-3" screen and 40 grams please.

bsolar said:

The article itself?

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Funny when you find out that even a moderator would come here comment without reading the article.

It's not how big it is it's how you use it Keep the iPhone the size it is

When not in the market for an Apple branded smartphone, what are the decent alternatives under 5" ?

newagemac said:

It's more expensive and much harder to make a smaller phone than a larger one with the same quality of internals. That's why you can't find a high end 4" Android phone. The larger size could quite possibly be cheaper than the smaller ones.

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It's not all about money we all pay a little more for quality also we don't put are money into a company who copies and steals from others. Samsung sucks big time.

bsolar said:

Apple doesn't care about the low-end segment of the market. If you consider the market segment Apple is interested in, which is the high-end segment, larger smartphones are much more popular. From the article:

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True, but there is a pretty obvious distortion of things caused by the complete inability of Android OEMs to make a high-performance phone that isn't huge. Apple has never had that problem and so it is quite likely the demand for a huge iPhone is less than the media fools think. Remember how much Apple had to make a smaller iPad? The mini wound up having little impact on total sales. So let's not assume that a 5" iPhone will change much.

dejo said:

Headline could easily be restated as:

"Ahead of iPhone 6 Launch, Two-Thirds of Smartphones Sold Have Screens Smaller Than 5"

Takes on a very different tact then, huh?

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Or you could just state the facts.....

The five-inch market -- some 90 million units in the quarter -- was the fastest growing portion of the smartphone market in the first quarter.

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Now that puts things in a new context.........

I would like to see how the would look if they included phones bigger than 4.0.

d-klumpp said:

An alternative conclusion is that 1/3 of smartphones are cheap.

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Bingo! I think people would be surprised how many 5" phones cost <$200. Apple leaves the cheap market to others.

proline said:

Correct. Mega-phones are a small portion of the market. Big enough for Apple to go after, but certainly not deserving of 3+ years of endless media attention. Most people want their portable devices compact.

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Exactly. I cannot grasp the concept of a phablet or in fact anything bigger than my iPhone 5s. Even it is on the fringe of being too big for me to carry without advertising it to the world. And what is really funny is that smaller and smaller guns are popular in those places where US citizens are allowed to carry a concealed weapon.

DTphonehome said:

Would it have been so terrible for Apple to release iPhones in multiple screen sizes? This trend isn't that new, they should have seen this coming. Now they look like they're reacting to the market (which they are) instead of anticipating where it would go and being ready with a product.

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You might be itching for multiple screen sizes but I can tell you that developers are thanking Apple for not knee jerking into this growing market. There's a reason why the App Store is still the best marketplace for apps and that is partially due to the fact that Apple allows developers to take their time with new IP to make it work with hardware that basically stays the same for a few years. Imagine having to support 5 different screen sizes for one app. It's enough to make a developer pick and choose which platform they'll support and that's exactly what has happened.

Is it a lost cause to hope for a 6 version at the current 4" size? From the mockups the 4.7 looks too big for my taste (and front pocket).

dejo said:

Headline could easily be restated as:

"Ahead of iPhone 6 Launch, Two-Thirds of Smartphones Sold Have Screens Smaller Than 5"

Takes on a very different tact then, huh?

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It should have stated what percentage had screens larger than 4", that would put it in better perspective to the iPhone.

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attila said:

I remember when this was cool

Image

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That was a good phone.