SJ didn't say customers don't know what they want until Apple tells them in the context of Apple al;ways beign right and its customers being blind followers.
"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new."
"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."
Calidude doesn't actually want honest opinions on which screen size people want, unless it backs up his belief that everyone wants larger screens. This is proven by his mocking of anyone who says they like the 3.5" screen. This thread should have been called "The current screen size is too small, what is the perfect larger size for the iPhone's screen?".
There are a couple of reasons why Android phones are getting larger. First, the 4G chips are too large to fit in phones the size of iPhones. So to fit the larger chip the phones have to be physically larger, and they need larger screens or the bezel will appear too big.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4925/why-no-lte-iphone-5-blame-28nm-maturity
Secondly, if Google increased the screen format to 1280x720. Had they not increased the screen size the UI elements would have been too small.
"Android OEMs and Google responded to the 3.5-inch 960×640 Retina display by improving the pixel format to 1280×720. But because Android renders text and graphics like desktop OSes (e.g. Windows, OS X) increasing resolution above 320 ppi means smaller UI elements. The display had to grow in size to compensate for shrinking UI elements. iOS renders the Retina display not by shrinking UI elements by one fourth but by doubling clarity and sharpness. Unless Google adds an additional “DPI level” beyond XHDPI, Android smartphones that match or beat the iPhone 4/4S in resolution will always be bigger, much bigger."
http://www.displayblog.com/2012/01/16/why-android-smartphones-are-bigger-than-the-iphone/
Beyond that, many people do want larger screens, and batteries are good enough to where they can drive the larger screens while still having good battery life. A little more choice is a good thing so having a variety of screen sizes addresses a need.
I actually feel that 4" is the sweet spot for phone displays, and while I don't have to do a bunch of zooming to read webpages a little larger would be nicer. I think Apple will increase the size some, but not at the cost of introducing another resolution target for devs to hit unless iOS6 is built on vector-based resolution independence. The current res at 4" would be around 285ppi which is pushing what could be called retina, but going from 3.5" to 3.7" isn't really enough of a size increase to feel like an upgrade.
But.
Dismissing people who like the current size as blindly following what Apple did four years ago just makes you and your POV look ignorant, and turns you into the same anti-choice brigade you are calling others.