Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Poll: Do you want to see a 4.5 inch screen on the next iPhone?
- Thread starter wikoogle
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
You're such a terrible poster.
I love how design decisions are suspect because they may have not been made by a focus group. The millions of people that buy iPhones don't really know what size screen they want or need, they're just sheep that do whatever Steve Jobs tells them to do, right? A 3.5 inch screen for a mobile phone that goes in pockets and purses is such an arbitrary decision it must have been done on a "whim."
Their customers? Two of those phones aren't even on sale yet. What customers? 4.3 screens didn't become the standard because some fraction of the number of people that bought iPhones bought HTC Evos.
As long as there's one iPhone model, it's probably not going to be as large as the largest HTC/Motorola phones, both of which also design smaller Android phones. Maybe as mobile capabilities increase and phones become better for watching video and such people will want larger phones, but I suspect the iPhone will be of a size that makes it as appealing to as broad of an audience (and yes, that includes girls) as possible.
So what? they will be soon. The trend has been moving to larger screens starting with the nexus one
I think they didn't change it so that it still feels acceptable in the pocket. It's not comfortable having a hard slab in your pocket.
There are a lot of reasons to keep the screen size the same.
Nearly 2 million phones sold in a couple weeks being one of them.
Honestly, if the screen was much bigger I don't think I would find it comfortable in most situations. Watching a movie would be nice, but texting and using the phone as an actual phone would probably be uncomfortable for me with a bigger screen. While I do find the iPhone to be pretty close to a be all end all device, it will never replace our larger screened computers that we use for the serious stuff.
Nearly 2 million phones sold in a couple weeks being one of them.
Honestly, if the screen was much bigger I don't think I would find it comfortable in most situations. Watching a movie would be nice, but texting and using the phone as an actual phone would probably be uncomfortable for me with a bigger screen. While I do find the iPhone to be pretty close to a be all end all device, it will never replace our larger screened computers that we use for the serious stuff.
Excellent points.*
I too have a desire for the larger size. July 18th AT&T releases the highly successful Samsung Galaxy S, renamed the Captivate. I'm in the cue for one, and will activate it on my other line. While I plan to continue to use my iPhone 4, the Captivate will become my primary smartphone.*
If we were talking about a regular phone, or dumb phone as their now known, the one handed argument would make perfect sense. However we are discussing smart-phones, these are web centric by design. I have average size hands, and would like more room to work within the active area of the window, when using the virtual keyboard. A screen larger than 3.xx inches would provide that space. It will be very interesting to see what size ends up being the "new standard".*
Is that a phone in your pocket or .....
Having an extra 0.3"-0.5" doesn't transform a phone into a "slab". Apple could trim down the bezel sizes a bit and fit a 4.0" screen within the same dimensions.
I was looking at other display phones while siting for the Walmart guy to activate my iPhone today. I played around with the HTC HD2 and it just felt bulky and big. This is with a 4.3 inch screen and the Evo 4G is 4.5. Apple stayed with the same size because of the accessories like docks, speakers, etc. Making the phone bigger is not just a problem for scaling existing apps but other factors as well. Either way, I'm satisfied with my iPhone because the retina display is amazing.
Touchscreen phones with 3.5 - 4 inch screens is ideal enough for me. I also do like the Nexus One form factor and its 3.7 inch screen. I like that this latest iPhone's width is less wider. I remember not liking the original BlackBerry Bold because it was so wide.
Market research, like the people who make every other product in the country, lol..
but really like most people are saying it works great when you have a beer in one hand and can use the whole screen with just the other hand, also I really like the size of the phone and making the screen bigger would make the phone bigger, i think the size is perfect, it's nice and big to make it very usable and readable but not too big to be cumbersome.. I have NEVER looked at my phone and wished the screen was bigger, I think this 3.5" is really that happy medium, and it makes it easier to have an amazing pixel density.. .. and besides, you can always zoom
They will be what? As popular as the iPhone? You can't make up some trend about phones and not include the phone that has sold 2 million in its first few weeks.
For all the arguments in favor or against a different screen size, 'because Apple's less successful competitors are doing it' is a pretty bad one.
Have a look at all the phones in your comparison. Which one has the thinnest bezel across the width of the phone? That would be the iPhone. They simply cannot trim much more along that dimension, and it's clearly the dimension they were most concerned about since the vertical bezel padding is used to house everything else - not just the microphone and speaker but also the dock connector, headphone jack, cameras, etc. You can't trim the width so any increase in screen size is going to change the width of the device.
I think the compromise is reasonable as it is. The main reason competitors have larger screens is so they can say "we have larger screens," not because they're necessarily a better tradeoff. Oh, and because they listened to those focus groups that everyone seems to love so much. Except that focus groups are collections of laypeople who don't understand the tradeoffs they're making. You should ask a customer what they want to understand their perspective, but you should never blindly obey them.
I personally believe the iphone screen is the perfect size, as is. I like being able to use one hand to shoot out texts and emails. I don't want to have to stop what I'm doing to send a message to someone, or stop what I'm doing to reach an app's icon, when I'm busy walking and holding my coffee going to class in the morning.
And that is why we need Steve Jobs to make the "right decision"? I personally am looking forward to buying an either 4" or 4.3" phone. The size does matter. It's still small enough to fit into the pocket and into the hand (unless you want to try the one handed death grip
) but the added screen size makes web browsing (and other uses) so much pleasurable.The simple answer however is that we need different phones. That's where Apple's weakest link is. They always try to make "one size fit all" (figuratively and in this case - literally) products. It's easier for them and maximizes their profits but why should we care?
Maybe you would prefer then the size to be even smaller? Or is this one exactly the perfect size? If there is such thing as perfect size phone it should be custom tailored then. Ideally, we should then have iPhones in all sizes from 2.8" to 4.5" in 0.1" increments.
I think reducing the bezel/shrinking the home button, and cramming a 3.7 or 4" display on the device is the only way to go. Apple isn't going to make the iPhone noticeable larger, so that's the only route they can go. It's possible, and even at 4 inches, the current resolution would still be rather crisp.
However, Apple just invested in the retina display, so I would expect Apple to move to a larger screen only after a couple years, probably coupled with lower prices on AMOLED's from Samsung. So what I'm thinking is we'll see a larger, OLED display on the iPhone 6 or 7.
However, Apple just invested in the retina display, so I would expect Apple to move to a larger screen only after a couple years, probably coupled with lower prices on AMOLED's from Samsung. So what I'm thinking is we'll see a larger, OLED display on the iPhone 6 or 7.
3.5 inch feels a little small to me, especially when playing games like Real Racing. The 4.3 inch on the EVO is too large, though. I think 4.0 inches is about right, and could probably be fit into the iPhone with the same dimensions it currently is.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A306 Safari/6531.22.7)
The one thing I absolutely loved about the Evo was the size. The screen is huge and an absolute delight to work with.
The one thing I absolutely loved about the Evo was the size. The screen is huge and an absolute delight to work with.
When I had the 3G, I thought an overall bigger screen would be the best upgrade. Now that I've been using the iP4 for a while, I think they chose the right thing to upgrade-resolution.
My wife likes her iP4 and would probably have a hard time "pocketing" an EVO-sized device.
I'm a full-sized dude so for my next phone gimmie iP4 pixel density with EVO size. I'll be much appreciative, thanks.