So Walt Mossberg dropped his phone, but like all reviewers with insider access to Apple, he seemed to be quick to make excuses for why it was totally his fault and not Apple's. Then in the next paragraph, he talks about how slippery they are, but then qualifies again how that supposedly had nothing to do with the drop. Yeah right.
I'm going to rant a bit: All this metal and glass makes things slippery. Quite honestly, I've always felt that all of that metal and glass made the iPhone 4 and up models beautiful to look at, but very impractical to actually use.
When I upgraded to the 5, I liked the added screen size, but found that I had to be even more careful using it one-handed. It now became quite top-heavy when typing. These 6's are only going to be worse in that regard.
I know people think that plastic cases make things look cheap, but I want to actually use my phone and not worry about it slipping out of my hand. I would much rather have a phone with that grippy rubbery plastic that some manufacturer's use. And, no, I don't want to use a case. A case makes the phone bigger and cause lint and dust to congregate near the camera opening.
Another thought: I think someone needs to reinvent the smartphone again. Apple did a great job looking at what the Palm, Handspring, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile teams accomplished and reinventing the segment with an all-screen finger (not stylus) optimized touchscreen, UI optimized for finger use, etc. And that device was designed from the ground up to be optimized for a specific size.
Well, people want devices with bigger screens, and I'm one of them. But someone needs to rethink the physical design as well as the UI to make sure we can still use these things in a one-handed manner safely and comfortably. Apple's double-tap to shrink UI isn't a bad idea, but it's got a couple of problems: It only moves things down, it needs to shrink away from the left side (or right side, if you use the phone left-handedly) so that you also don't have to reach as far across right-to-left. Also, if you need to access several things at the top of the screen in succession, you need to double-tap between each action. It should offer you a quick way (maybe a triple-tap?) of having it shrink and stay shrunk, until you un-shrink it.
As for the device itself, the bottom back and sides (if not the whole thing) need to have a grippy rubber texture. And they should rebalance the weight distribution so that the bottom is heavier than the top.
Is this going to stop me from upgrading to an iPhone 6? Probably not, but I'm thinking more about whether I should play it safer and go with the 6 vs the 6+. I'm also wondering if I should give some consideration to other alternatives (Android and Windows Phone) which not only have some of the rubberized case designs I mentioned, but also cost less to replace in case of an accident.
But, I'm tied into the Apple ecosystem, and I'd prefer to stick with it for now. So, I think I may have to plan to get a case of some sort (yuck).
I'm going to rant a bit: All this metal and glass makes things slippery. Quite honestly, I've always felt that all of that metal and glass made the iPhone 4 and up models beautiful to look at, but very impractical to actually use.
When I upgraded to the 5, I liked the added screen size, but found that I had to be even more careful using it one-handed. It now became quite top-heavy when typing. These 6's are only going to be worse in that regard.
I know people think that plastic cases make things look cheap, but I want to actually use my phone and not worry about it slipping out of my hand. I would much rather have a phone with that grippy rubbery plastic that some manufacturer's use. And, no, I don't want to use a case. A case makes the phone bigger and cause lint and dust to congregate near the camera opening.
Another thought: I think someone needs to reinvent the smartphone again. Apple did a great job looking at what the Palm, Handspring, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile teams accomplished and reinventing the segment with an all-screen finger (not stylus) optimized touchscreen, UI optimized for finger use, etc. And that device was designed from the ground up to be optimized for a specific size.
Well, people want devices with bigger screens, and I'm one of them. But someone needs to rethink the physical design as well as the UI to make sure we can still use these things in a one-handed manner safely and comfortably. Apple's double-tap to shrink UI isn't a bad idea, but it's got a couple of problems: It only moves things down, it needs to shrink away from the left side (or right side, if you use the phone left-handedly) so that you also don't have to reach as far across right-to-left. Also, if you need to access several things at the top of the screen in succession, you need to double-tap between each action. It should offer you a quick way (maybe a triple-tap?) of having it shrink and stay shrunk, until you un-shrink it.
As for the device itself, the bottom back and sides (if not the whole thing) need to have a grippy rubber texture. And they should rebalance the weight distribution so that the bottom is heavier than the top.
Is this going to stop me from upgrading to an iPhone 6? Probably not, but I'm thinking more about whether I should play it safer and go with the 6 vs the 6+. I'm also wondering if I should give some consideration to other alternatives (Android and Windows Phone) which not only have some of the rubberized case designs I mentioned, but also cost less to replace in case of an accident.
But, I'm tied into the Apple ecosystem, and I'd prefer to stick with it for now. So, I think I may have to plan to get a case of some sort (yuck).
