Actually there is room for up to 4,7 inch display on curent iPhone 5 if Apple manages to make a bezelles display, and up to 4,5 inches if Apple will keep the chamfered edge.
But I still think a lot more people prefer one hand usability than bigger screen... I am still happy with 4 inch and I often take an iPad mini with me if I want a serious experience, that cannot be compared to any Phone or phablet.
So I don't care a lot about my phone, if it has 2,8 inch screen or 6,5 it's just too small. I just want that retina display on my mini...
But many people actually want small High End phones, so much that some android fans started a petition for a small high end phone.
And I fear that if Apple will make a bigger screen, they will later make an even bigger screen, and they will also fall into the trend of where bigger phone means better specs, longer battery life etc, and people who want a small high end phone will be left behind....
I want apple to really consider every posible screen size, all the aspects of it and pick just the right size for just about everyone. It will be a screen size that we didn't even know we like until Apple will show it to us. That is exactly what people are silently expecting from Apple a form factor perfection just like iPad mini.
Isn't that irrelevant? You said Apple would stop producing the premium 4" device?
The fact is there are millions and millions of costumers willing to pay more than current iphone prices for a big screen. And to simply put it, despite what some people might say, Samsung sony and HTC show that are no tradeoffs.
Apple made a bad decision, but they can and will do the best big-screen phone.
Steve Jobs saved Apple by streamlining the number of products they sold. He didn't bow to what people thought they wanted, instead showed people what they wanted. It seems that now the visionary has gone Apple are reverting back to just diversifying their products to try and make everyone happy.
Tech goes through phases, especially phones. They started off huge because of the technology constraints, then they got smaller and smaller. Some companies over did it to the point they affected usability. That's when they stared going the other way. Companies will always go too far and overstep the sensible to try and be the next big thing but ultimately, until technology shifts again, the size of things like phones will settle down to something sensible like 4.5".
Apple mainly plays the thickness game, each year the iPhone gets thinner but to what final conclusion? The iPhone 4 sat fine in the pocket so in 10 years with the release of the iPhone 10S do you want a paper thin phone flapping about?
Personally I hope Apple don't bow to the pressure of trying to please everyone.
I blame motion pictures. Stop watching Iron Man and Star Trek.
None of this kind of thing is possible today and none of it is even "just around the corner" despite over 40 years of people saying so.
Personally, I believe it's possible Apple will make a bigger phone and to those that argue about one hand operation, they will just say "Well, different sized people have different sized hands so we are now making two (or three) sizes." But all this stuff about magic phones that can understand your commands is just that … "magic" (i.e. - fantasy).
Interpretation requires intelligence/sentience. Not going to happen.
You do realize that if you think of poster you responded to as Ron Stark and imagine that Ron Howard would have him have a brother Howard Stark, who is the father of Tony Stark (Iron Man) then you can understand why he would think this. /s
On a serious note, I think next spring Apple could introduce a third iPhone line with iPhone5s technology but with slightly larger screen that has DPI similar to iPad but same number of total pixels as iPhone5s. So, maybe 4.5 to 4.7?
So, just a little easier to read for those of us with not as good of eye sight, just a little bit bigger targets, and just a little bit more battery as well. But, exact same apps as for regular iPhones so no fragmentation. And still retina. Since same specs as regular iPhone (processors, etc.) and introduced six months later the slight extra cost for battery and screen will mean same cost as regular iPhone. Presumably smaller market (but one they don't currently serve) they can afford to delay by six months.
Just my opinion.
a) a small person (that's fine)
<span style="line-height:1.4em;">b) or you do not know what a smartphone is for (your fault).</span>
<span style="line-height:1.4em;">Don't you browse the web, read and/or edit docs, watch videos andplay some games?</span>
Posting from beyond the land of the banned? Amazing, glad you're back.
I do all those things you mention (except play games) on my iPad. The 4S is the correct proportion for a phone that lives in your pocket, IMO.
Trade offs: the HTC is fat. Samsung uses OLED screens. Don't know about the Sony. Apple won't do larger screens until there is a higher efficiency display technology. You ahould know that.
On a serious note, I think next spring Apple could introduce a third iPhone line with iPhone5s technology but with slightly larger screen that has DPI similar to iPad but same number of total pixels as iPhone5s. So, maybe 4.5 to 4.7?
So, just a little easier to read for those of us with not as good of eye sight, just a little bit bigger targets, and just a little bit more battery as well. But, exact same apps as for regular iPhones so no fragmentation. And still retina.
Since same specs as regular iPhone (processors, etc.) and introduced six months later the slight extra cost for battery and screen will mean same cost as regular iPhone. Presumably smaller market (but one they don't currently serve) they can afford to delay by six months.
Just my opinion.
Also, this allows them to see better where the market is at this point in time. With now making XX million iPhones per quarter they can afford two models and maybe three models (note how with increasing markets they increased from one color to two and maybe now to three or more?).
Apple is all about trade offs. For original iPhone 3.5 inch was definitely the best size for its time. But technology has moved on and even with addition of 3G and retina and much more processor speed and now LTE they could move on to 4.0 inch currently, with no downside. With progression to thinner and lighter maybe a 4.5 to 4.7 won't offer much downside in 2014.
Dudley, dude, don't despair! I'm about to get another 4S after living with one for two years. I know a classic when I see one . . .
I run iOS7 on an iPhone 4. I'll pass on iPhone 5s if it's a faster iPhone 5... too big. I have an iPad Mini already, don't need an iPad Micro
Some of you love the idea of having multiple devices and giving away money be it by paying 700$ for a phone + 600$ for a tablet +1500$ for a Mac, etc.
But there are some of us that are much more careful and price sensitive. A big screen iPhone + my Macbook Air is not only a much more "clean" and efficient system, as it is also cheaper.
The iPad mini is less portable than any big screen phone. For most men, a big screen phone (One, MotoX, etc) is as portable as an iPhone. Lots of advantages, 0 disadvantages.
I have said it before and I will say it again: The faster Apple release a 5 inch iPhone the better. The advantages of a bigger screen size outnumber the disadvantages by a wide margin. C'mon Apple, give me what I want, and do it sooner rather than later!!!!
Total hogwash. If there was any compelling reason to make the iPhone bigger than 4", they would so it this year, not next year.
People need to wake up: Apple is preparing their biggest iPhone launch ever...sure to be the most successful ever...and it all centers around devices that are all 4" diagonal. This coming NOW, for 2013.
I'd love for one of you twits to explain why this is a mistake, seeing as you probably know better than the smartphone king of the world.
Total hogwash. If there was any compelling reason to make the iPhone bigger than 4", they would so it this year, not next year.
People need to wake up: Apple is preparing their biggest iPhone launch ever...sure to be the most successful ever...and it all centers around devices that are all 4" diagonal. This coming NOW, for 2013.
I'd love for one of you twits to explain why this is a mistake, seeing as you probably know better than the smartphone king of the world.
Yep, standing still sure works great for technology companies. If there were any compelling reason to make the iPhone bigger than 3.5", they would have done so originally, right? I guess we were twits then, too, when we disagreed with Apple.
You do realize that if you think of poster you responded to as Ron Stark and imagine that Ron Howard would have him have a brother Howard Stark, who is the father of Tony Stark (Iron Man) then you can understand why he would think this. /s
On a serious note, I think next spring Apple could introduce a third iPhone line with iPhone5s technology but with slightly larger screen that has DPI similar to iPad but same number of total pixels as iPhone5s. So, maybe 4.5 to 4.7?
So, just a little easier to read for those of us with not as good of eye sight, just a little bit bigger targets, and just a little bit more battery as well. But, exact same apps as for regular iPhones so no fragmentation. And still retina. Since same specs as regular iPhone (processors, etc.) and introduced six months later the slight extra cost for battery and screen will mean same cost as regular iPhone. Presumably smaller market (but one they don't currently serve) they can afford to delay by six months.
Just my opinion.
BTW keywords in the iOS 7 SDK revealed that the code name for the new iOS 7 interface is "Stark". Apps compiled for the new interface are called "Stark applications" while legacy apps are called "Classic applications".
As for simple dropping the DPI to make a bigger iPhone, I don't think Apple would want to do that as it would be seen as a step backward. Besides, a lot of people like the larger screens because "it shows more stuff" which would not be the case with your proposed solution.
I'm repeating myself but a lot of people don't seem to know or understand that iOS was not initially built with multiple screen sizes in mind. But the fact that there was only one screen size to target helped accelerate growth of the App Store. Still, Apple reached a point where apps do need to have more flexibility in their layouts, so they can support new iDevice sizes (phablets? 13" iPad?) and possibly split-screen multi-tasking.
It was not until iOS 6 that Apple added real auto-layout APIs. While some devs used it to deal with the iPhone 5 new taller screen, many also used cheap hacks to deal with the different heights. With the new rewritten UI engine in iOS 7, Apple has been heavily pressuring devs to adopt those APIs. Also the textureless design will make it much easier to make flexible layouts without having to deal with multiple bitmap title/navigation bars. Why do you think Android and WP8 have a mostly textureless interface? Because it was best for supporting multiple screen sizes.
So I think Apple has decided a while ago to make a larger iPhone (1-2 years ago?) but are waiting for the iOS 7 transition to happen. They will try this year to milk whatever they can from the 4" iPhones (and I predict the 5C will sell a lot), but next year as developers will have recently re-worked their UI code and still ready to tweak it, they will introduce a larger iPhone with a bigger resolution (but same DPI as the retina iPhones).
Backward compatibility with non optimized apps would be achieved through OpenGL scaling, which is worse than what you've proposed, but as iOS 7 apps would quickly move to support the new screen natively, only legacy iOS 6 would end up having this blurry scaling, which wouldn't be as bad as they will clearly look like applications "from the old world" anyway. If anything this would entice more devs to make the transition to iOS 7 and auto-layout APIs.
You do realize that if you think of poster you responded to as Ron Stark and imagine that Ron Howard would have him have a brother Howard Stark, who is the father of Tony Stark (Iron Man) then you can understand why he would think this. /s
On a serious note, I think next spring Apple could introduce a third iPhone line with iPhone5s technology but with slightly larger screen that has DPI similar to iPad but same number of total pixels as iPhone5s. So, maybe 4.5 to 4.7?
So, just a little easier to read for those of us with not as good of eye sight, just a little bit bigger targets, and just a little bit more battery as well. But, exact same apps as for regular iPhones so no fragmentation. And still retina. Since same specs as regular iPhone (processors, etc.) and introduced six months later the slight extra cost for battery and screen will mean same cost as regular iPhone. Presumably smaller market (but one they don't currently serve) they can afford to delay by six months.
Just my opinion.
I don't think Apple will use a half assed attempt such as stretching the iPhones 1136x640 screen to 4.7 inches and dropping the DPI.
Apple will likely start from the ground up to make something spectacular.
Obviously this year would have been too soon to introduce a new screen size because its only been a year since they increased the screen for the 5. Apple seems to like giving developers 2 years to adjust to new paradigms. First the App Store with iPhone 3G/3GS, then Retina with the iPhone 4/4S, and now 16:9 screen ratio 4 inch display iPhone 5/5S/5C.
Apple seems to be speeding up the transition process by discontinuing the iPhone 4/4S form factor this year which will make it easier for developers to adjust to something new next year.
As VL-Tone posted above iOS 7 is going to make it easier for a larger screen iPhone to come next year as well.
My guess for what we'll see next year is similar to what we've seen in subsequent years. Apple will unveil an all new larger screen iPhone that will wow the press, but in order to ease the transition for developers Apple will keep their legacy iPhone 5S and 5C models available at discounted prices until all the developers get on line with the new screen size. For the NEW larger iPhone older apps that hadn't been updated will simply be letter-boxed and centered on the screen
Then in 2015, we'll see an iPhone "6C" that will take advantage of the new screen size and all legacy 4 inch models will likely be discontinued.
Some of you love the idea of having multiple devices and giving away money be it by paying 700$ for a phone + 600$ for a tablet +1500$ for a Mac, etc.
But there are some of us that are much more careful and price sensitive. A big screen iPhone + my Macbook Air is not only a much more "clean" and efficient system, as it is also cheaper.
The iPad mini is less portable than any big screen phone. For most men, a big screen phone (One, MotoX, etc) is as portable as an iPhone. Lots of advantages, 0 disadvantages.
I see what you're saying. The best case for a large-screened phone is that you can save yourself one device and several hundred €, but you can't blame Apple for not making one.
The technology doesn't exist yet that will allow them to produce one up to their standards in high quantity. That means thinner and lighter than the HTC One and in many more millions than HTC can make. It means no Samsung OLED, but some new technologies underneath and on top of the LCD that we haven't seen yet, despite their having spent billions on Sharp for something or other, according to sketchy reports.You are not dealing with these realities. None of you phabletophiles are. It's all I want this and I want it now.
VL-Tone has some interesting software-based reasoning for you above.
Comments
As someone who didn't buy the 5 and probably won't buy a 5s because they're too big I'm starting to feel somewhat isolated...
Clearly you are either:
a) a small person (that's fine)
b) or you do not know what a smartphone is for (your fault).
Don't you browse the web, read and/or edit docs, watch videos andplay some games?
Actually there is room for up to 4,7 inch display on curent iPhone 5 if Apple manages to make a bezelles display, and up to 4,5 inches if Apple will keep the chamfered edge.
But I still think a lot more people prefer one hand usability than bigger screen... I am still happy with 4 inch and I often take an iPad mini with me if I want a serious experience, that cannot be compared to any Phone or phablet.
So I don't care a lot about my phone, if it has 2,8 inch screen or 6,5 it's just too small. I just want that retina display on my mini...
But many people actually want small High End phones, so much that some android fans started a petition for a small high end phone.
And I fear that if Apple will make a bigger screen, they will later make an even bigger screen, and they will also fall into the trend of where bigger phone means better specs, longer battery life etc, and people who want a small high end phone will be left behind....
I want apple to really consider every posible screen size, all the aspects of it and pick just the right size for just about everyone. It will be a screen size that we didn't even know we like until Apple will show it to us. That is exactly what people are silently expecting from Apple a form factor perfection just like iPad mini.
Isn't that irrelevant? You said Apple would stop producing the premium 4" device?
The fact is there are millions and millions of costumers willing to pay more than current iphone prices for a big screen. And to simply put it, despite what some people might say, Samsung sony and HTC show that are no tradeoffs.
Apple made a bad decision, but they can and will do the best big-screen phone.
Tech goes through phases, especially phones. They started off huge because of the technology constraints, then they got smaller and smaller. Some companies over did it to the point they affected usability. That's when they stared going the other way. Companies will always go too far and overstep the sensible to try and be the next big thing but ultimately, until technology shifts again, the size of things like phones will settle down to something sensible like 4.5".
Apple mainly plays the thickness game, each year the iPhone gets thinner but to what final conclusion? The iPhone 4 sat fine in the pocket so in 10 years with the release of the iPhone 10S do you want a paper thin phone flapping about?
Personally I hope Apple don't bow to the pressure of trying to please everyone.
Dudley, dude, don't despair! I'm about to get another 4S after living with one for two years. I know a classic when I see one . . .
You do realize that if you think of poster you responded to as Ron Stark and imagine that Ron Howard would have him have a brother Howard Stark, who is the father of Tony Stark (Iron Man) then you can understand why he would think this. /s
On a serious note, I think next spring Apple could introduce a third iPhone line with iPhone5s technology but with slightly larger screen that has DPI similar to iPad but same number of total pixels as iPhone5s. So, maybe 4.5 to 4.7?
So, just a little easier to read for those of us with not as good of eye sight, just a little bit bigger targets, and just a little bit more battery as well. But, exact same apps as for regular iPhones so no fragmentation. And still retina. Since same specs as regular iPhone (processors, etc.) and introduced six months later the slight extra cost for battery and screen will mean same cost as regular iPhone. Presumably smaller market (but one they don't currently serve) they can afford to delay by six months.
Just my opinion.
Posting from beyond the land of the banned? Amazing, glad you're back.
I do all those things you mention (except play games) on my iPad. The 4S is the correct proportion for a phone that lives in your pocket, IMO.
Trade offs: the HTC is fat. Samsung uses OLED screens. Don't know about the Sony. Apple won't do larger screens until there is a higher efficiency display technology. You ahould know that.
Also, this allows them to see better where the market is at this point in time. With now making XX million iPhones per quarter they can afford two models and maybe three models (note how with increasing markets they increased from one color to two and maybe now to three or more?).
Apple is all about trade offs. For original iPhone 3.5 inch was definitely the best size for its time. But technology has moved on and even with addition of 3G and retina and much more processor speed and now LTE they could move on to 4.0 inch currently, with no downside. With progression to thinner and lighter maybe a 4.5 to 4.7 won't offer much downside in 2014.
Again, just my opinion.
That move will definitely come out along with iWatch in order to create perfectly comfortable one-handed calls with big sized cell phones.
That move will definitely come out along with iWatch in order to create perfectly comfortable one-handed calls with big sized cell phones.
Yeah, right.
Dudley, dude, don't despair! I'm about to get another 4S after living with one for two years. I know a classic when I see one . . .
I run iOS7 on an iPhone 4. I'll pass on iPhone 5s if it's a faster iPhone 5... too big. I have an iPad Mini already, don't need an iPad Micro
Dudley, dude, don't despair! I'm about to get another 4S after living with one for two years. I know a classic when I see one . . .
I run iOS7 on an iPhone 4. I'll pass on iPhone 5s if it's a faster iPhone 5... too big. I have an iPad Mini already, don't need an iPad Micro
Some of you love the idea of having multiple devices and giving away money be it by paying 700$ for a phone + 600$ for a tablet +1500$ for a Mac, etc.
But there are some of us that are much more careful and price sensitive. A big screen iPhone + my Macbook Air is not only a much more "clean" and efficient system, as it is also cheaper.
The iPad mini is less portable than any big screen phone. For most men, a big screen phone (One, MotoX, etc) is as portable as an iPhone. Lots of advantages, 0 disadvantages.
Didn't know Apple was on your timetable.
People need to wake up: Apple is preparing their biggest iPhone launch ever...sure to be the most successful ever...and it all centers around devices that are all 4" diagonal. This coming NOW, for 2013.
I'd love for one of you twits to explain why this is a mistake, seeing as you probably know better than the smartphone king of the world.
And how well is HTC doing as a result?
I call them "conditional Apple fans."
Total hogwash. If there was any compelling reason to make the iPhone bigger than 4", they would so it this year, not next year.
People need to wake up: Apple is preparing their biggest iPhone launch ever...sure to be the most successful ever...and it all centers around devices that are all 4" diagonal. This coming NOW, for 2013.
I'd love for one of you twits to explain why this is a mistake, seeing as you probably know better than the smartphone king of the world.
Yep, standing still sure works great for technology companies. If there were any compelling reason to make the iPhone bigger than 3.5", they would have done so originally, right? I guess we were twits then, too, when we disagreed with Apple.
You do realize that if you think of poster you responded to as Ron Stark and imagine that Ron Howard would have him have a brother Howard Stark, who is the father of Tony Stark (Iron Man) then you can understand why he would think this. /s
On a serious note, I think next spring Apple could introduce a third iPhone line with iPhone5s technology but with slightly larger screen that has DPI similar to iPad but same number of total pixels as iPhone5s. So, maybe 4.5 to 4.7?
So, just a little easier to read for those of us with not as good of eye sight, just a little bit bigger targets, and just a little bit more battery as well. But, exact same apps as for regular iPhones so no fragmentation. And still retina. Since same specs as regular iPhone (processors, etc.) and introduced six months later the slight extra cost for battery and screen will mean same cost as regular iPhone. Presumably smaller market (but one they don't currently serve) they can afford to delay by six months.
Just my opinion.
BTW keywords in the iOS 7 SDK revealed that the code name for the new iOS 7 interface is "Stark". Apps compiled for the new interface are called "Stark applications" while legacy apps are called "Classic applications".
As for simple dropping the DPI to make a bigger iPhone, I don't think Apple would want to do that as it would be seen as a step backward. Besides, a lot of people like the larger screens because "it shows more stuff" which would not be the case with your proposed solution.
I'm repeating myself but a lot of people don't seem to know or understand that iOS was not initially built with multiple screen sizes in mind. But the fact that there was only one screen size to target helped accelerate growth of the App Store. Still, Apple reached a point where apps do need to have more flexibility in their layouts, so they can support new iDevice sizes (phablets? 13" iPad?) and possibly split-screen multi-tasking.
It was not until iOS 6 that Apple added real auto-layout APIs. While some devs used it to deal with the iPhone 5 new taller screen, many also used cheap hacks to deal with the different heights. With the new rewritten UI engine in iOS 7, Apple has been heavily pressuring devs to adopt those APIs. Also the textureless design will make it much easier to make flexible layouts without having to deal with multiple bitmap title/navigation bars. Why do you think Android and WP8 have a mostly textureless interface? Because it was best for supporting multiple screen sizes.
So I think Apple has decided a while ago to make a larger iPhone (1-2 years ago?) but are waiting for the iOS 7 transition to happen. They will try this year to milk whatever they can from the 4" iPhones (and I predict the 5C will sell a lot), but next year as developers will have recently re-worked their UI code and still ready to tweak it, they will introduce a larger iPhone with a bigger resolution (but same DPI as the retina iPhones).
Backward compatibility with non optimized apps would be achieved through OpenGL scaling, which is worse than what you've proposed, but as iOS 7 apps would quickly move to support the new screen natively, only legacy iOS 6 would end up having this blurry scaling, which wouldn't be as bad as they will clearly look like applications "from the old world" anyway. If anything this would entice more devs to make the transition to iOS 7 and auto-layout APIs.
You do realize that if you think of poster you responded to as Ron Stark and imagine that Ron Howard would have him have a brother Howard Stark, who is the father of Tony Stark (Iron Man) then you can understand why he would think this. /s
On a serious note, I think next spring Apple could introduce a third iPhone line with iPhone5s technology but with slightly larger screen that has DPI similar to iPad but same number of total pixels as iPhone5s. So, maybe 4.5 to 4.7?
So, just a little easier to read for those of us with not as good of eye sight, just a little bit bigger targets, and just a little bit more battery as well. But, exact same apps as for regular iPhones so no fragmentation. And still retina. Since same specs as regular iPhone (processors, etc.) and introduced six months later the slight extra cost for battery and screen will mean same cost as regular iPhone. Presumably smaller market (but one they don't currently serve) they can afford to delay by six months.
Just my opinion.
I don't think Apple will use a half assed attempt such as stretching the iPhones 1136x640 screen to 4.7 inches and dropping the DPI.
Apple will likely start from the ground up to make something spectacular.
Obviously this year would have been too soon to introduce a new screen size because its only been a year since they increased the screen for the 5. Apple seems to like giving developers 2 years to adjust to new paradigms. First the App Store with iPhone 3G/3GS, then Retina with the iPhone 4/4S, and now 16:9 screen ratio 4 inch display iPhone 5/5S/5C.
Apple seems to be speeding up the transition process by discontinuing the iPhone 4/4S form factor this year which will make it easier for developers to adjust to something new next year.
As VL-Tone posted above iOS 7 is going to make it easier for a larger screen iPhone to come next year as well.
My guess for what we'll see next year is similar to what we've seen in subsequent years. Apple will unveil an all new larger screen iPhone that will wow the press, but in order to ease the transition for developers Apple will keep their legacy iPhone 5S and 5C models available at discounted prices until all the developers get on line with the new screen size. For the NEW larger iPhone older apps that hadn't been updated will simply be letter-boxed and centered on the screen
Then in 2015, we'll see an iPhone "6C" that will take advantage of the new screen size and all legacy 4 inch models will likely be discontinued.
I see what you're saying. The best case for a large-screened phone is that you can save yourself one device and several hundred €, but you can't blame Apple for not making one.
The technology doesn't exist yet that will allow them to produce one up to their standards in high quantity. That means thinner and lighter than the HTC One and in many more millions than HTC can make. It means no Samsung OLED, but some new technologies underneath and on top of the LCD that we haven't seen yet, despite their having spent billions on Sharp for something or other, according to sketchy reports.You are not dealing with these realities. None of you phabletophiles are. It's all I want this and I want it now.
VL-Tone has some interesting software-based reasoning for you above.
The iPad mini is not 7 inches.