4"+ smartphones -- the market has spoken (and it says yes)

Cart <- Horse

 

Are we thinking there might be two iPhones this year? A 3.5inch iPhone 'Basic' which could be the iPhone 4 with 8gb of memory and a 4.3inch iPhone 'Advanced' with an uprated processor and camera and larger storage capacity maybe. Stranger things have happened, and Apple have already expressed a desire to go mass market.

Yeah. I know what you mean. Those 15" desktop computer monitors and 19" televisions were the bomb. And no one will ever need more than 640kB of RAM.

 

As my eyes get older, I find slightly larger screen size to be more useful than pixel density. My optometrist agrees.

 

Have I ever mentioned on HTF that I love my Captivate?

 

 

This report, as summarized, says nothing specifically on those points. They may be correct statements, but they can't be drawn from this report.

 

All that says is that in 28% of Verizon stores, the Thunderbolt outsold the iPhone. But it says nothing about total volume of Verizon iPhones sold compared to total Thunderbolt volume nationwide. Nor does it account for total numbers sold at BestBuy, Apple Stores, etc. As reported, the claims it makes are true but not necessarily informative

 

Nor does it does say anything about the buying experience: Are customers coming in wanting to buy a Thunderbolt? Are they ignorant and salespeople tell them to buy a Thunderbolt over an iPhone? Do they come in wanting an iPhone, but after receiving a thorough and unbiased comparison, choose the Thunderbolt instead? Or is it because the majority of new phones have larger screens, so they are the biggest sellers by default? This issue doesn't matter in terms of sales volume, but it does mean that screen size may have nothing to do with the purchase decision -- or it's everything -- but we don't know as these are given in the reporting.

 

Lies, damn lies, and statistics :)

 

Perhaps I'm being unfair, but assume these "analysts" are of the same ilk as the jokers at IDC:

http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/29/technology/windows_phone_7_forecast/index.htm

Edited by DaveF - 4/6/11 at 9:58am

P.S. I like the idea of a 4.5" 1280 x 720 screen. But 4.5" 800 x 400 screens leave me ambivalent.

My cart before the horse comment was directly responding to the Steve Jobs jab.  Apple doesn't do ANYTHING just because it's popular or because that's what everyone else is doing.  If you think that's even remotely true then there's nothing I can say that has relevance because you are in a different universe.

 

I think Apple will go back the opposite direction starting w/ iPhone 6 and start a new trend to get rid of the screen *and* use of flash memory (among other things) completely.

 

Actually, I think the future of smartphones *should* be to head toward semi-convergence between phone and tablet where you can have a small phone module (maybe w/ minimal display, if any at all) that can interchangeably plug into a portable PDA device or a larger tablet or whatever else so the wireless service can be shared across devices and be used w/ whatever device is most suitable to whatever your current need, eg. a large tablet would make sense at home and in the office, a 4-7" PDA would make sense for quick-and-easy on-the-go use (and for apps like GPS nav), a mid-size PDA/tablet might make sense if you expect to be able to use it in sit-down situations, etc.

 

If the phone module doesn't actually need to do any PDA stuff (other than be a data service conduit, etc.), it can probably be tiny.  Probably only needs to be big enough for a chip+OS to handle dumb phone features and connectivity w/ PDA/tablet, the wireless chipset (including BT), big enough battery (which can be smaller for no/minimal display), etc.  Use BT for remote headset (w/ voice control) or maybe even plug the phone module into a separate, dumb handset perhaps to keep the phone module as small as possible (and maybe even always have it operate off the handset/PDA/tablet host's power instead to further reduce its size)...

 

I can dream a little, can't I?   

 

_Man_

 

Now if my 3.2" LG could project an image...

Having 20/20 vision (corrected), I prefer the iPhone 4 screen to anything else I've seen. In 5+ years, when I've got presbyopia my preferences may well change.

I won't rehash this topic past that

My point remains that these "analyst" reports don't tell us much. If we draw the right conclusions, it's more luck (or personal reasoning) than from solid data in these articles.

There's a big difference between doing something BECAUSE it is contrary to what the rest of the crowd is doing and doing something that is against the grain because you feel it is the right way to go.

 

Apple isn't above doing things that at least on the surface seem like they are mimicking the crowd.  Social:Ping.  Web:cloud tech.

 

I posit that it's following the MONEY and -opportunity- rather than blindly copying what others have landed as a tenuous beachhead. 

 

The difference is that, usually at least, and there are exceptions here too, (iPod hifi i'm looking at you!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod_Hi-Fi) once Apple identifies a real opportunity they pick at it and refine it after starting small and getting at the essence of what has interested them.

 

So yea, it wouldn't seem all that odd to me that Apple gets more into social and cloud and it will seem like they are doing it just because everyone else is.

 

But to go from a form factor that has been breathlessly described as 'the perfect thing' to bigger just because the monkeys at Motorola thought they could differentiate their phone by making it a little bit bigger and a few other also rans are flocking to it to show how savvy they are?  Not so much.

 

I'm all in on both sides of Apples OSX/iOS ecosystem, but that doesn't mean I blindly buy whatever they put out and it doesn't mean I'm religiously entrenched at the 3.5" form factor of today.  If Apple makes a bigger iPhone you can be sure it will be nothing like the bigger Androids that you are a fan of.  And I cannot speculate whether that device would captivate me enough to buy one or not but I suspect that they would have to make the form factor different enough to be worth it.  I'd have to give it a hard look and evaluate it on it's own merits for being my next phone.   I don't like the bigger androids today because of a number of factors:

-The form isn't comfortable in my hands

-The resolution is about equivalent to the iPad and I'd rather have a bigger device with that (OR BETTER!) pixel density or a smaller device with remarkable pixel density, this seems like a poor equivalent for the size

-They tend to eat up more battery life

 

Could Apple solve these issues and make me happy?  Probably.  I bet an Android developer who wanted to could too, but I'm not holding my breath for either of them to do so.

Edited by Sam Posten - 4/7/11 at 1:41pm

 

Yeah, issues #1 and #3 are very significant.  The device is first-and-foremost a phone afterall, so it really needs to do what a regular dumb phone can do well -- and any phone should be able to last at least 2 days of practical/normal usage before needing a recharge (although I do think the iPhone should do better than others just because the battery is not easily and cheaply replaceable, which means it needs to require less recharging to extend the useful life of the battery).  #2 is not a real issue to me since I think the newer Android smartphones have high enough res now.

 

Having said that though, honestly, I don't think *any* of these devices make solid phones ergonomics-wise anyway.  That's one reason why I was dreaming about the "future" in my post above.  At this point, I'm just about resolved to simply use some sort of hands-free headset if/whenever I need to make a long-ish phone call -- and my Sennheiser "made-for-iPhone" headset seems to work quite well for duo purpose needs (ie. music and phone calls) although I'm hearing some states, including NY, are considering legislating laws against use of stereo headphones even for pedestrians (though such laws may just end up like typical jaywalking laws and not be strictly enforced in anyway).

 

_Man_

 

You were serious about wanting a smartphone with no screen ???

Rather than having to plug and unplug, and physically manage devices -- only allowing me to use the phone or the tablet or the laptop, not all three at once -- I'd rather have a unified cell account. That's essentially trivial on the carrier's part and give the core data unification you want. Data sync can be done with a good "cloud" system.

Get the behaviors you want without the nightmare usability of modular hardware

Haha...  No, I wasn't serious about screen-less smartphone...  ... but on 2nd thought, why not if we'll ever get very far w/ cloud computing and end up in a Star Trek future reality?

 

 

Yeah, I suppose just having unified account on the carrier side may be good enough though it'd still be nice to be able to reuse these devices across different telecom techs that would only reside (and require changing) in the wireless data/phone module I was thinking of.  That way we also wouldn't need to be stuck w/ one carrier or another, especially here in the USA, or one flavor of 3G vs whatever other flavor of 4G or maybe even WiFi, etc.  I guess this will matter more if/when we ever get to the point where these devices reach a certain maturity level similar to current PC tech so that you may not want to move to a new device every year or two...

 

_Man_

 

It's speculated that the iPhone 5 or iPhone 6 will be a universal phone, straddling both GSM and CDMA for use on AT&T and Verizon. I don't know if that's possible -- antenna design is an art -- but if so, would partly answer what you (and others) want.

 

But this issue of modularity, carrier portability, etc., isn't a technical problem so much as from corporate antipathy -- it's a byproduct of the US phone business. :) No amount of hardware will overcome the carrier's refusal to play ball.

the US phone industry is hard for a brit to get their head around tbh

Once you understand a few key things, it's easy to understand :)

 

* Phones on one carrier don't work on another carrier

* You buy a two year service contract with the carrier of choice and they give you a free (or cheap) phone

 

This creates a few consequences:

* There's a real lock-in to your carrier; You can only really switch but once every two years, when you come off contract.

* There's no "free market" for phones. Their real cost is masked by contract subsidization.

* You can't shop for the best phone independent of carrier (and vice versa, which is why some many people switched to AT&T for the iPhone, and grumbled about it the whole way)

* Until the iPhone, carriers ruled the roost. They dictated all aspects of what features were on your phone, what programs you could or could not download, how you could access music and photos, and so on. If a manufacturer made a phone with some super-awesome feature, a carrier might tell them to remove / disable it for their network.

This isn't strictly true. In the UK most people have two year contracts too, but at the end of the two years it is mandatory for the carrier to unlock the handset to any network if asked. So, to save money, you may get a month to month contract (at a very cheap rate) for the handset that you have 'paid off' over the course of a two year contract.

 

What confused me about the US market is how each carrier has their own version of each handset. So your decision about which handset to buy isn't independent from the decision of which carrier to be with. I think this is the major difference.

 

Thanks for your replies Hanson and Dave, I think I understand it a bit better now (although terms like CDMA and LTE still mean nothing to me, I guess they are just different network types).

Say I am considering buying a Samsung Galaxy S in the UK I have two options. I buy it pay as you go for 350 and pay 10 a month for a sim only contract. Total cost for 2 years is 590. Or I get it free on a 2 year contract at about 25 a month. Total cost for 2 years is 600. So swings and roundabouts really. But the contract is better if you dont have the lump sum to put down. And buying outright is better if you want to trade your handset in every 6 months.

For us here in the USA, the 2-year total is much higher if we don't go for the 2-year lockdown since the monthly rate doesn't change either way -- even still, a newly available smartphone (or the iPhone) isn't exactly super cheap at say $200-300 (before relatively moderate taxes) w/ the 2-year lockdown.  And our monthly rate for a smartphone is something like $35-40/month for the phone service + ~$30/month for the required smartphone data plan (unless you only use it for minimal email type use and go for a cheaper data plan) -- and then, there are various taxes+fees added on top that probably adds another ~$15/month.

 

Not sure, but maybe cell phones here are always somewhat subsidized (even when not on extended contract) since our monthly service rates seem substantially higher while the subsidized devices are cheaper.  Then again, we do have far more territory to cover on our (nationwide) phone plans here in the USA since we're not comparing to some sort of unified Europe-wide service coverage and rates, so I guess that needs to be factored into the service costs.

 

Current exchange rate is ~$1.65 for 1 GBP.

 

_Man_

 

Edited by ManW_TheUncool - 4/11/11 at 6:25am

Well for us data, calls and texts are all bundled together into your one off monthly contract fee, you dont have 2 seperate charges. I guess the size of the US does make a difference, but then again there are 5 times more potential customers too. When I visit europe I get charged a little more than in the UK, and a contract doesnt include European usage, but text messages still tend to only be 10p like they are on pay as you go.

 

 

iPhone market share was stable. (Or if you're a moron blogger, "dead in the water".) So everyone else in the made up "3.5-in and lower" category must have been doing really horrible. Conflating the two is link bait.

 

An edge-to-edge screen on iPhone can be slightly larger without making the handset bigger.

I think also you could argue that whether a screen is 3.5inch or 4.3inch, the consumer doesnt really mind. As long as it is bright, sharp and functional. Manufacturers have gone for larger screens recently, but I dont think you could prove that this follows from a consumer demand.

 

 

Honestly, it's not rocket science that most people would probably want a larger screen, especially if they actually want to use apps on it, not just make phone calls -- that's of course assuming that screen quality is not noticeably degraded.  However, what would work against that desire would be the size/bulkiness (and maybe reduced ergonomics) of the overall phone -- potentially reduced battery life might have an impact as well although not everyone will think/know to link larger screen to reduced battery life.

 

As usual, there are compromises involved.  And everyone will need to figure out what set of compromises work best for him/herself although there may be some particular set of compromises that work very well for a large majority of smartphone users.  OR maybe the market really should be split between the two ends of that range (between 3.5" and 4.3")...

 

_Man_