Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
It is!

But you know what, after playing around with it for an hour or so last night, there really is something to be said for true one handed use.

Not that I would go back to a phone that size on a daily basis, given the media consumption we all love today, but it really was the perfect size for it’s time.

I mean who doesn’t love one thumb texting!?
Man. I forgot about the possibility of that. I went from 4S to 5S to 6 to 7 Plus to X to XS Max and every Pro Max since then (skipped 14PM). The thought of true one handed texting is a long forgotten idea in the catacombs of iPhonery for me at this point but I will still take this larger screen and all the things I do that take advantage of it all day.
 
  • Love
Reactions: ozapple
IMG_0038.jpeg
I don’t have a 16pm, but I do have a 16p and what gets me most is not the size of the device itself, but of the size of the cameras!!
 
The thought of true one handed texting is a long forgotten idea in the catacombs of iPhonery for me at this point but I will still take this larger screen and all the things I do that take advantage of it all day.
I totally agree. It’s enjoyable to play around with and reminisce for a little while but it’s not something that would suffice in this day and age.

But back when it was new and phones were still very much about calls and texting plus a little bit of browsing/emails, music etc, it was the perfect device.

‘Catacombs of iphonery’

- Love it 🤣 👏 👍
 
They are a business, they have to release new products or they would be out of business. It's as simple as that. If the iPhone 14 series was still the latest model because there has been no groundbreaking feature in the last 2 years, how many people would want to replace an iPhone 14 with another iPhone 14? They would start to look elsewhere. Releasing new products and keeping excitement around them is a must.
It was not always that way. I beleive it was GM (but might be wrong) that pioneered the model year approach so as to be able to promote the idea that there was something better to upgrade to every year, when really, there was not. It was a ploy, and now the masses have become accustomed to it. But it is not a must.

Anyway, I still have my iPhone 4 (but none of the others). Every time I pull it out, I wish I could have a phone in its form factor with an edge to edge screen. It was the pefect size in my experience (well actually I preferred even smaller phones, so I could be convinced to go with the the design of the 4, but smaller and thinner, tech allowing).

I refer to the heavy, cumbersome things passing for phones these days as boat anchors, and laugh to myself as I think we went full circle right back to the first cellphones. And I say all this becuase I truthfully do not find a 16 Pro Max more functional than a 4, not accounting for a better camera, as a tiny user interface is a tiny user interface. I am not composing prose on either of these sizes of screens. I am not editing books on either of these screens, etc.

So to OP, thanks for the reminder of how wonderfully portable the 4 was... I do wish we could have that back.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.