Larger iPhones could be in Apple's future (1 Viewer)

Seems like Apple is testing larger iPhones.

Would gladly go back to an iPhone if this is true.

Or maybe, just maybe, Apple actually tries different sizes and sees what works best instead of throwing 15 different sizes on the market and hoping someone comes up with a consensus vote. Maybe it will get bigger, maybe it won't, but personally I think it's the best way for them to operate and I love the fact that it drives self appointed power users mad when Apple doesn't give them what they want.

I don't want it any larger. I have a 4s and it's the perfect size for me. Anything larger than the 5 and it starts looking a bit pretentious. (You hear me, Samsung, with your rather large phones?)

Clinton,

The wonderful thing about Apple moving to larger phones, if that
turns out to be the case, is that there will be choices for everyone.

You can keep the size you like and allow those of us that want a
larger phone to have what we want.

I don't believe Apple is going to abandon their current phone size.

That's the thing tho. Choice is anathema to Apple, at least in mobile. That's really a force multiplier for them. It's different on the desktop for good reason. But on mobile having a single target is a huge advantage to them and that's what nobody else seems willing to try to replicate...

Ronald Epstein said:

The wonderful thing about Apple moving to larger phones, if that
turns out to be the case, is that there will be choices for everyone.

You can keep the size you like and allow those of us that want a
larger phone to have what we want.

I don't believe Apple is going to abandon their current phone size.

Click to expand...

I don't believe Apple would abandon their current phone sizes either. However, I will be very disappointed if Apple makes larger phones, not because I begrudge users their preferences, or enjoy seeing other customers disappointed with a product category that doesn't serve them.

The reason I will be disappointed is because Apple will be sacrificing their judgement for market share. They'll have said, we have done tons of research, put a lot of thought into design and usability and determined that the best product we can make is the one we have released to the market, but some people want a different product.

So rather than accepting this simply isn't the phone for every user, Apple will instead dilute the power of their design to appease popular opinion.

Watching Apple's Designed in California manifesto, for lack of a better word, I'm struck by the key points, which have long been Apple values: Focus and Simplicity.

Building a bunch of phones in lots of different sizes may give potential iPhone customers what they want, but it betrays the company's design principles.

I know some will be excited if Apple offer a slew of new choices, but for me it will be a disappointing statement that market share matters more than good design.

Tim,

I don't disagree with you....

....but why should Apple give that business away to Samsung?

Apple could essentially bury Samsung if they gave customers
who wanted larger phones -and- would rather stay with Apple
(like myself) what they crave.

I would have loved to have remained an Apple iPhone user
but I can't stand tiny phones anymore. I think a lot of people
went to Samsung when the iPhone 5 was announced. Perhaps
this is Apple's chance to regain that share of the market they lost.

....then perhaps, they don't care to do so.

Ronald Epstein said:

....but why should Apple give that business away to Samsung?

Click to expand...

Ron,

My own take is that Apple simply doesn't want the business. Market share isn't and has never been their focus.

In another of their recent ads Apple states, "we spend a lot of time on a few great things." I would personally argue that Apple understands this focus is simply incompatible with market share.

Now I will admit my own bias here. I am a long-time Apple user (in the neighborhood of 25 years). I've never used a PC nor Windows, even professionally. It is my own experience, when Apple was a niche brand, that colors a lot of my opinions.

While it's nice to be relevant, popular or even the default choice (as iDevices have become in a way that the Mac never was), I don't think Apple was chasing universal popularity. They concentrated as they always have in making "Insanely Great" products, that just happened to hit the market at the right moment of popularity to become hugely successful.

I still think of them as a luxury brand in a lot of ways. Not everyone drives a BMW or owns a Rolex, and those companies don't expect to get every driver or watch owner to buy their products.

While Apple products (thanks to a lot of efficiencies in production) are no longer priced like boutique brands in their market space, I very much believe that Apple still values their brand's focus over market share.

My own sense is that no, they don't care to regain the market they have lost to Samsung.

You know how Steve Jobs always said "we don't know how to build a sub $500 PC that isn't a piece of junk". Well, history proved him right. All those el cheapo Netbooks? They are largely in landfills now and the companies that used to make are wishing they had never entered the business. Of course Apple figured out how to make a sub $500 *tablet* and it is killing the PC industry. The PC makers couldn't see past makingyet another PC, because the PC was king so how coud they go wrong. If Jobso were still with us, I bet he'd be saying: "We don't know how to make a 5.5 inch phone that doesn't look like a joke and make the person talking on it seem like they are part of a comedy skit". Meanwhile maybe Apple is actually working on a much smaller phone, like the Dick Tracy-esque iWatch that will cover the talking aspects while an iPad mini or even a full sized iPad takes care of the web/mail/apps/games/video aspects that make a large phone desirable.

You know, other than the fact that I think people would look like dopes talking into a watch you are on to something. The vast majority of people say that the phone part of the iPhone is the least used part of it. Make the iPhone into an iWatch that you always have with you, put a killer camera on it, and you could divorce the phone from the tablet form factor and push real tablets as the post PC device that complements it.

I don't see that as a strong possibility but it's not an impossibility.

You know, other than the fact that I think people would look like dopes talking into a watch you are on to something. The vast majority of people say that the phone part of the iPhone is the least used part of it. Make the iPhone into an iWatch that you always have with you, put a killer camera on it, and you could divorce the phone from the tablet form factor and push real tablets as the post PC device that complements it. I don't see that as a strong possibility but it's not an impossibility.

Click to expand...

If you go back to the original telephones, the two piece ones, you are naturally holding up one wrist towards the face when talking. But, seriously, it would be uncomfortable to talk Dick Tracy style for any length of time without an earpiece (the talking part itself is not such an issue as a mic in "speakerphone" mode would work just fine at arms length. )
Actually after writing the stuff below, a watch would work if you interlace your fingers behind your head. Comfortable, doesn't look silly. Arms crossed in front is alternative, though the phone-watch wouldn't be as close to your ear.Maybe an Apple logo pendant you wear around your neck (hidden under your shirt if you are a no-brands type of person.)* That would work better, it is closer to the Star Trek communicator badge. Call privacy mode would be either the white earbuds or holding it up to you ear. Would work fine as a camera, just hold it up, and it would be divorced from the constant pressure to make things thinner that is the enemy of decent camera lenses. Dialing out will work through Siri, gen. 7 which will have gotten really good at proper names in 197 languages. No need to worry about "chain snatching" or other theft because it would stop working once it no longer senses your bio-metric signs in immediate proximity, while providing a non-disableable GPS signal to "Find my Apple" - that would obviate the need for pass codes as well. Would come in white, black, blue (B&W PowerMac G3 shade), silver, gold or retro Apple rainbow.All screen related stuff will be done via your (roughly) 5", 8", 10" or 13" iPad (in this parlance the existing ones are 8 & 10 so there will be one bigger and one smaller). The 5" one will have a cheap version that only works with your pendant, insuring that there is no sticker shock for entering the ecosystem (your $199 with two year contract gets you both).Tim Cook, just PM me about hiring me as a product design person.

*Other modes of wear: black velvet ribbon chocker for ladies going to the opera or other formal events, men can wear it as a tie clip, under their ascot or Euro-arsocrat style on a national-flag ribbon "Legion of Honor" style.

The Apple logo shape will fix one other problem - copy-cats. What's Samsung going to do: come out with an Apple logo shaped Samsung Galaxy pendant? Meanwhile if they suddenly decide to be original, what is a Galaxy or a Samsung shaped like? And that S logo thing - Superman already claimed it - and DC Comics/Warner Bros. may have something to say about it..

If there's a larger phone, I'm still betting they keep the current density displays, and add more pixels. I think they'll add a new screen res before they reduce the current density. More pixels rather than bigger pixels.

WWDC on ios7 hinted at this, with improved tools for auto screen layout and so (presumably) a more resolution agnostic system.

Isn't it ironic that just a few years ago we mocked how tiny phones had been getting...now me mock the enlargened phones.

Hell...I remember "the Brick".

IPhone would need to be as large as a Note 2 for me to go back to iphone. I have the gs3 and it's been awhile since I even saw an iPhone 4(S). Saw one today and it was so tiny I wasn't sure it was a real phone device. Probably won't go back to an iPad either unless I buy a larger iPhone, also I just bought a galaxy Note 10.1, so that will hold me over for awhile. Bought a 64g micro card for it so for about $520 I have a 10' tablet with 96g of memory space.