How Apple Could Make the Move to 4.7" iPhone Displays

[hachre]

It is for me. Whenever I have to go back to using my wife's iPhone 4 I just love it. It fits in my pocket. It's super easy to use because I don't have to do some crazy thumb stretch just to tap a button.

3.5" is the perfect size screen. There is no reason to make a bigger screen. The "bigger is better" crowd is ruining UX time and time again.

I agree. They should not have cancelled that form factor. And the 4" has been useless from the start. With this 4.7" and 5.5" coming it would have been nice to have a total of 3 options:

3.5" - the ultimate in 1 handed operation
4.7" - the best compromise of device size and screen real estate
5.5" - for females who have handbags to carry their smartphones in

 

[1Life]

I'm very curious to see how the 4.7in iPhone does in the market. I've always felt the phone should get smaller as technology progressed and features like voice recognition became more accurate. Something akin to the Star Trek communicators but even smaller that could be easily clipped to your shirt. However, this supposed public clamoring for a large display seems to have pushed Apple in the opposite direction with the iPhone. I'm curious to see if this "huge" demand is for real or something trumped up by the media. As for me, I will not be upgrading to the larger form factor and hope the iWatch will support calls, texts, email & payment system. C'mon Apple, just give me those features in the iWatch and you can extort $1000+ more from me...lol.

 

[vsighi]

No. The 5.5" will. If anyone expected Apple to release a 4.7" and 5.5" iPhone 6, and have them both be $649 then I feel really really sorry for your lack of intelligence. If there are 3 iPhone 6 sizes at 4", 4.7", and 5.5" then it will likely be $649, $699, $749.

For your intelligence Troll: " Apple is negotiating with wireless carriers to raise the price of the iPhone 6 by $100, claims Jefferies analyst Peter Misek (Via StreetInsider). Carriers initially are refusing to negotiate on the iPhone's $199 base price, but they may not be able to resist as the iPhone 6 is shaping up to be 2014's blockbuster handset. "

https://www.macrumors.com/2014/04/14/iphone-6-100-price-increase/

 

[isopepper]

Make things easier to see, not just increase pixel numbers/density.

I think the design team includes very little use case/usability testing. Or, perhaps not a broad enough set of testers. Things are very elegant, but unusable for smallness. The accursed iOS7 battery charge indicator is an example of unusable but 'elegant' design. Don't do this Apple.

One of the main reason's people want a bigger screen, is that will scale things up and make them easier to read.
...
If the larger screen iPhones don't increase readability, I think the proverbial will hit the fan. And the way my eyes are going, I'd probably have no choice but to go back to an Android phone before long.

My boss went to a windows phone for this reason alone.

I don't want more screen space, I want more visible content!

Everything on current iPhone screens is too small for eyes over 40. That's why so many people move to Android phones, not just bigger screens, but bigger icons and text ON those screens. Of course, they are crap phones, but they give many users what they want - a phone where they can actually read the labels and text!

Example of taking readable badness over tiny portability - Nintendo 3DS is a terrible piece of hardware, but the primary difference between the original and XL versions is the readability of the display - just bigger pixels. The XL is priced at premium over the normal 3DS but is wildly popular. Why? The _only_ difference is readability of the larger screen. No, I don't want apple to have out of date hardware like Nintendo. However, the next time I upgrade I will get a more readable/usable phone - I hope its an iPhone.

 

[DoctorKrabs]

There would be no way that Apple has more rows of icons on the iPhone than on the iPad. This is more what it will be like.

Nobody seems to really notice measurements in the spacing of the icons. The space between the edge of the display matches the the space between the icons. iPhones have 120x120 icons. Horizontally, there are 32 pixels separating icons on 4 inch displays. On a 4.7" 1334x750, the icons happen to be separated perfectly and equally from the edge with a clean and common 56 pixels between them. It also maintains the same 326ppi, so I believe in the 1334x750 rumors.

And there will not be unnecessary letterboxing that further ruins one handed use. It will be upscaled like the iPhone 4.

 

[nofear1az]

Am I the only who hates the bigger phones?

In the past the whole point was to make a smaller and smaller phone, I still remember Nokia 8800.

Now there is an insane idea, that a phone must as big as possible!?

My fingers didnt grove in the last years.

If you need a bigger display, buy iPad Mini!

The only way I could live with a bigger phone, is that the phone would be the size of iPhone 5/5s, but the screen would be from edge to edge.

yes, it was a race to reduce the size of phones since all you were doing was calling or texting. Today though, we are using the screens on these phones for more than just dialing such as email, web, and a plethora of applications so it makes sense to benefit from a bigger screen since your staring at this "internet device" for all your information.

A generic flip phone serves one purpose nicely as a smartphone serves its purpose nicely as well.

For me - it's like do I prefer a 15" monitor at my desk or a nice 24" monitor to do my work. And since I'm mobile a lot I prefer that nice 5" screen that my Nexus 5 provides as opposed to anything smaller. To each their own.

I guess I could ask the question, why not make the iPhone a 2" screen if you like it so small and that would really be pocket-able. I think there's a within reason a certain size that is amicable to most.

Right now, the iPhone is just about the smallest screened smartphone on the market except for those cheezy 3.5" Android phones still selling out there.

 

[SurferMan]

Going to be funny seeing what Apple fans say now considering for years especially on here how many talked smack about any phone larger then 3.5, then complained the 4 was too big but became "perfect" since it was Apple lol . What are they all going to do or say now when the iPhone becomes 4.7"? Either complain, or magically b/c it's Apple it too is perfect again ha.

I switched over two years ago b/c sometimes I'm running around or traveling and can be busy on the phone doing stuff with clients etc, and got sick of dealing the iPhones screen. The S5 I have now is awesome for work and personal, if anything I find it more comfortable then our 5/5S, I always wished they made the iPhone wider, not just taller, that made it feel like a still small but now awkward way of using it one handed, at least to me. I don't have big hands either, the S5 size is the limit of a phone for me, but Samsung always does a great job of balancing height and width.

If they make it 4.7 I hope they add some decent width and not just stretch the phone

 

[zipa]

Going to be funny seeing what Apple fans say now considering for years especially on here how many talked smack about any phone larger then 3.5, then complained the 4 was too big but became "perfect" since it was Apple lol . What are they all going to do or say now when the iPhone becomes 4.7"? Either complain, or magically b/c it's Apple it too is perfect again ha.

I guess it should be pretty obvious to anyone that the fanbois will regard it as perfect, and in every way better than a completely equal display on an Android or Windows phone.

 

[MythicFrost]

Yes, it's good where it is. No it doest need to be depressible. It only needs to be capacitive. Like I said all companies favour Planned Obsolescence. Thus the archaic button.
.

I see "planned obsolescence" more as putting 1GB of RAM in the 5S. I think the home button will be around for a while yet.

Apple has a road map of features that get rolled out when they are mature.

True, but there are many things Apple patents that they don't use. And this feature doesn't necessarily mean it's coming to the iPhone or iPad. Perhaps the iWatch will have on-screen unlocking like that.

Validity Sensors (who just got bought by Synaptics, the trackpad people) also demonstrated an in-screen reader over a year ago.

Validity Sensors demonstrates screen-based fingerprint recognition at CES - Jan 2013

Apple's already placed it on the home button, I'd be surprised if they moved it. It's not like Apple to do something like that, and then change it the next iteration. Plus, who knows how accurate this type of fingerprint recognition is compared to what Apple's currently doing?

How is that an advantage?

It's easier for developers to code apps for iOS, which has and will continue to result in more apps for the platform.

 

[Toltepeceno]

but Apple and all the fan boys said 3.5" is the perfect size

......and then they all clapped their tiny little hands in unison.

 

[Abazigal]

I see "planned obsolescence" more as putting 1GB of RAM in the 5S. I think the home button will be around for a while yet.

More like sticking with 1 gb of ram in the iPad Air. Apple doubles the ram in their phones every 2 years, so 1gb of ram in the 5s is actually right, if we follow their progression.

Conversely, Apple has taken to doubling the ram in the iPad every year, yet the iPad Air continues to sport just 1 gb of ram despite having the 64-bit processor. It would have made more sense to include 2gb ram, then double that again to 4gb in this year's iPad.

The only reason I can think of is that they wanted the iPhone and iPad to share the same specs and advance together at the same pace, maybe to make universal apps easier to develop?

 

[MythicFrost]

More like sticking with 1 gb of ram in the iPad Air. Apple doubles the ram in their phones every 2 years, so 1gb of ram in the 5s is actually right, if we follow their progression.

Conversely, Apple has taken to doubling the ram in the iPad every year, yet the iPad Air continues to sport just 1 gb of ram despite having the 64-bit processor. It would have made more sense to include 2gb ram, then double that again to 4gb in this year's iPad.

The only reason I can think of is that they wanted the iPhone and iPad to share the same specs and advance together at the same pace, maybe to make universal apps easier to develop?

I think the iPhone's and iPad's amount of RAM should be kept the same, as it's easier for developers when designing games.

The shift to 64-bit on the 5S resulted in more RAM usage from many apps though, so increasing it would've been good. We better see it with the 6.

 

[Abazigal]

I think the iPhone's and iPad's amount of RAM should be kept the same, as it's easier for developers when designing games.

The shift to 64-bit on the 5S resulted in more RAM usage from many apps though, so increasing it would've been good. We better see it with the 6.

The problem is that the iPad sir has more pixels than the iPhone, which I believe is the reason my apps seems to crash more often on my retina iPad mini.

This may change this year, if the new iPhone sports a new resolution closer in line with the iPad. Would have been nice if both iOS devices had sported 2 gb of ram last year though. I used to be able to airplay a show to my Apple TV in the background while playing a game or surfing the web in ios6. Now, the airplay keeps getting interrupted in ios7, and I attribute this to a lack of ram to run background processes in.

 

[Retired Cat]

I'm going to guess that we will see 1600x900 on the 4.7" display. This will do 2 things:

(1) Retain the 16:9 ratio of the current iPhone, so things look more or less the same, but give us a standard resolution.

(2) Increase PPI to 390. A modest upgrade from the level we've had since iPhone 4.

 

[Renzatic]

I see "planned obsolescence" more as putting 1GB of RAM in the 5S. I think the home button will be around for a while yet.

Honestly, I can't think of many reasons why the iPhone would need more ram. Save for games, most of the apps you'll use on a smartphone won't be tremendously resource intensive. While having a little more ram wouldn't hurt at all, I don't see it as a particularly pressing need.

The iPad, on the other hand, I think could use all the ram it can get. I equate the capabilities of tablets more in line with laptops, and we're already starting to see applications come out for it that could use the extra breathing room more ram could provide. I think Apple's stinginess with doling out memory is holding back the full potential of the platform as a whole.

 

[MythicFrost]

The problem is that the iPad sir has more pixels than the iPhone, which I believe is the reason my apps seems to crash more often on my retina iPad mini.

This may change this year, if the new iPhone sports a new resolution closer in line with the iPad. Would have been nice if both iOS devices had sported 2 gb of ram last year though. I used to be able to airplay a show to my Apple TV in the background while playing a game or surfing the web in ios6. Now, the airplay keeps getting interrupted in ios7, and I attribute this to a lack of ram to run background processes in.

Yeah, however 2GB of RAM should give us enough that you probably won't notice the difference between the RAM usage of the iPhone and iPad.

Honestly, I can't think of many reasons why the iPhone would need more ram. Save for games, most of the apps you'll use on a smartphone won't be tremendously resource intensive. While having a little more ram wouldn't hurt at all, I don't see it as a particularly pressing need.

The iPad, on the other hand, I think could use all the ram it can get. I equate the capabilities of tablets more in line with laptops, and we're already starting to see applications come out for it that could use the extra breathing room more ram could provide. I think Apple's stinginess with doling out memory is holding back the full potential of the platform as a whole.

More RAM so apps reload less often. 1GB on the 5 was just enough, though 2GB would give you a nice buffer. But on the 5S, that 1GB isn't quite enough (due to the move to 64-bit) but 2GB will be plenty for both iPhone and iPad.

 

[chleuasme]

I'm going to guess that we will see 1600x900 on the 4.7" display. This will do 2 things:

(1) Retain the 16:9 ratio of the current iPhone, so things look more or less the same, but give us a standard resolution.

(2) Increase PPI to 390. A modest upgrade from the level we've had since iPhone 4.

Very hard to imagine this resolution at this size/pixel density:

. scaling current apps to this new resolution and size is not an option
. higher pixel density prevents from using current @2x bitmap assets for any touch area, usability would be bad
It would mean devs would have to update for both a new resolution and pixel density their app UI layout. Worst possible situation

. you can't do retina 3x with a width under 960 pixels, unless you add some AutoLayout magic that would then treat this screen with a smaller area (points-wise) than the 4" iPhone i.e. contracted 4" apps UI but blown-up on a 4.7" screen. Meh

Apple's likely only options are there: https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=19008953#post19008953

 

[Renzatic]

Yeah, however 2GB of RAM should give us enough that you probably won't notice the difference between the RAM usage of the iPhone and iPad.

More RAM so apps reload less often. 1GB on the 5 was just enough, though 2GB would give you a nice buffer. But on the 5S, that 1GB isn't quite enough (due to the move to 64-bit) but 2GB will be plenty for both iPhone and iPad.

Yeah, I'll concede and say that 2GB would be preferable. 1GB does work alright with the iPhones now, but having that extra memory would make some things a little smoother.

But 2GB isn't enough for the iPad, I don't think. There, it's not just about providing a smoother experience, it's about giving developers the hardware to create more capable apps. Yeah, 2GB would be plenty if your only concern is being able to keep more tabs open in Safari, or being able to keep more current level apps open behind the scenes. But throw in 4GB, and you suddenly have a little tablet that can start doing stuff we normally associate with desktops. Why settle for a minor upgrade on we've got now when we could very easily have so much more?

 

[MythicFrost]

Yeah, I'll concede and say that 2GB would be preferable. 1GB does work alright with the iPhones now, but having that extra memory would make some things a little smoother.

But 2GB isn't enough for the iPad, I don't think. There, it's not just about providing a smoother experience, it's about giving developers the hardware to create more capable apps. Yeah, 2GB would be plenty if your only concern is being able to keep more tabs open in Safari, or being able to keep more current level apps open behind the scenes. But throw in 4GB, and you suddenly have a little tablet that can start doing stuff we normally associate with desktops. Why settle for a minor upgrade on we've got now when we could very easily have so much more?

I think we'll get there, but not yet. I think Apple really wants to keep the iPad and iPhone quite similar in specs. They have thus far, at least.

 

[Tumbleweed666]

However, this supposed public clamoring for a large display seems to have pushed Apple in the opposite direction with the iPhone. I'm curious to see if this "huge" demand is for real or something trumped up by the media

There's nothing "supposed" about it at all.
Internal apple presentations revealed in the Samsung trial show that it's real, an acknowledged loss of market to consumers who want either bigger phones or cheaper phones. Two very real market forces. Obviously Apple will only be interested in one of these demographics.

Alternatively you could just open your eyes and look at all the high end phones being sold by the likes of Samsung, Nokia, htc in their millions. 50 million Samsung s3's sold, 40 million s4, that's hardly "supposed"

Just because you personally don't want a smaller phone doesn't invalidate the market for them. Also I'd welcome your explanation for how voice recognition on a phone would help reading web pages on an every shrinking screen

Phones are morphing into mobile internet and multi media devices. A pure phone might be smaller but for everything else it's undeniable if you ignore your own personal desires, that there is very real and large market for bigger screens than 4 inches.

I don't understand why people who themselves don't want a large phone invalidate everyone else's demand for one.

 

[fermat-au]

Actually, if you remember back to 2007, many people said the 3.5" iPhone screen was TOO LARGE. (People were used to very small 2.5" screens with dialing buttons below).

I think a screen that filled up without bezels would be amazing, but maybe back then it would have seemed WAY TOO LARGE. I don't know.

Image

Interesting to look back at that table 7 years later. One important difference between the iPhone and the other four other phones if the buttons or lack there of. The iPhones lacked a physical keyboard, but had an on-screen keyboard that used up little under half the screen, When entering text, eg email, the iPhone had a similar, may be smaller, text viewing area. An iPhone with a 2.5" screen and on-screen keyboard would only have one or two lines of text on the screen.

 

[the8thark]

But a bigger phone can easily create double digit growth on the high end. It's Android's biggest weapon, and people love big screens.

If Apple releases one, it's a great move. They will attack where it hurts.

Of course they sell 100" million 4" phones, so they will keep parity, like they do with both iPads and Macs.

Saying what you are saying is being stubborn and having 0 knowledge about the matter.

Besides, they can streamline their products a lot. 3.5" screens will go away, non-retina displays will go away.

They will end with less products.

About the delusional stuff that you were saying about the 90s, Apple could start losing 2 billion dollars today, each quarter, and they would survive almost 100 quarters, more than 40 years.

They made 13 billion last quarter. Google made less than 4?

Don't worry. You will die first.

The Netbook was a large part of the market. But Apple didn't stoop to enter that market as netbooks are good for nothing really, even though millions used them. Apple just made something that was better than a net book in every way for the same prices. And one would hope Apple does the same thing with the current phablet craze. Apple can't ignore the craze. But they can release something else, a phablet beater.

And it's not about Apple going out of business tomorrow. You are correct in that. It's about trends. We want the right trends happening at Apple and not the wrong ones.

Think of a phablet as basically the biggest most powerful computer that a person can fit in their pocket and go places without resorting to a tablet or laptop instead of a lesser device, and you'll understand why they are popular.

I get this very well. The phablet market is huge. Apple just can't ignore it. Phablets though (some of them) are now bordering not being easily pocketable or easily usable with one hand. Their cpu grunt can't be denied but really that's not the issue here. It's more a size issue.

I have seen people using the larger phablets as a phone and holding them up to their face. It looks so strange, something that large. A couple times I have even seen people do this two handed. To me that defeats the purpose of the ease of use phones have.

Is a 4.7 inch iPhone a phablet? That is debatable. But it is starting a trend of ever larger iPhones. And not knowing where/when the trend will stop is the scary part.

I remember in the iPad 1 keynote, Jobs said the iPad was the perfect size. I do understand that nothing is perfect and years later people might want other sizes of products. That's why the iPad mini was born. But just saying phablets exist therefore Apple needs to make one to enter that market is bad logic. Apple need to understand and respect the phablet market yes. That does not mean automatically entering it with an iPhablet. It means understanding what the customers in this market really want and making a new product (or changing/marketing more efficiently) the current products to fit their market.

I am interested to see that Apple's response to the phablet market is. I know one response option is the iPhablet. But what else is there? Apart from better bluetooth ear pieces for taking calls (which does not really fully answer the phablet question) I don't know. I'd have to seriously think about it.

 

[hachre]

The obvious answer is move all the "display-less" features to an iWatch and create a larger iPhone as a "Control Panel" that allows you to manipulate iWatch settings and do all the things that require a large display.

 

[rols]

Well that's the problem, Autolayout is a freakin' nightmare to work with, especially if you want to do it visually in Xcode. It's horrible and frustrating to work with, easy to break your layout by changing anything, and difficult to debug when it's not working right, which is often. You can also do it programmatically, but that's a lot of extra code because you need TONS of constraints for an even moderately complex layout.

That was true of Xcode 4, it was horrible, Xcode tried to guess what it thought you wanted, basically never got it right and it was far too easy to add one more thing and have it destroy constraints everywhere re-guessing what you wanted, incorrectly. It was a complete mess.

I did most of my constraints in code.

Xcode 5 tossed that model away and let you choose exactly where to put constraints, warned you about inconsistencies and added full support for custom constraints between properties. Since then, I've gone back to Xcode/IB for layout building and it's been fine even for complex layouts. I only add constraints in code now if I'm doing something really odd. Autolayout is now very usable. It's not perfect, I hope it gets even better this year, especially in the area of being able to quickly pick and edit a constraint, clicking an 8px long, 1px wide line hidden among other lines is not a reasonable way to expect people to develop.

There are going to be new screen resolutions and with Autolayout out in the wild for 2 years now, that's going to be the technology Apply expects most devs to use for most of the layout issues.

I pity the game makers.

 

[H00513R]

I agree. They should not have cancelled that form factor. And the 4" has been useless from the start. With this 4.7" and 5.5" coming it would have been nice to have a total of 3 options:

3.5" - the ultimate in 1 handed operation
4.7" - the best compromise of device size and screen real estate
5.5" - for females who have handbags to carry their smartphones in

I also agree, but am on the larger-is-better side. I doubt I will get the 5.5" if offered, but the 4.7" size is looks like a great compromise. I just have to do the pocket test to see if it'll fit without exploding lol.

It all comes down to what you use your phone for nowadays. I don't do Office, but read a lot and do the basics of email/Twitter/RSS feeds/etc. I just want a functional keyboard...