Interesting set of options Apple has to move the iPhone to a 4″ display, as detailed by Dan Provost. I don’t care how Apple does it, as long as they do it. The iPhone’s tiny screen is nearly unusable once I got used to the 4.3″ of my HD7 and SII. This is quite a personal choice, of course, and there’s no right or wrong, but it’s clear there is a demand for larger displays.
Apple releases a 4″ phone, everyone then complains that it should have been 4.3″ personally for me 3.5 is fine, keeps the phone small enough without sacrifices text/image quality. I don’t think I’ve ever looked at my iPhone and wished the screen bigger. I don’t know if this is because i also own an iPad and switch between them when i need to look at large amounts of content.
I consider the iPhone a mobile device, something thats small and easily carried the trade off for this is screen size. Ive tried 4″ and 4.3″ and a lot of them are simply too big. Adding a larger screen is really only going to affect the spec sheet, i don’t think it will add that much to a mobile device.
I have a 5.3″ mobile phone and I have never really seen a point in having a smaller phone. Movies are simply awesome (I actually prefer it compared to my shitty laptop screen), internet experience very good (no need to zoom in landscape mode), PDF reading perfect (again, no need to zoom in landscape), gaming very good, and all that without a slightest compromise in mobility or comfort.
Of course, YMMV, that’s why it’s always good to have a choice.
Edited 2012-04-16 18:22 UTC
Perfect PDF reading on 5.3″ display… Was it supposed to be funny?
I don’t think so. I used to have a Dell Streak, a 5 inch touchscreen, and on occasion I’d have need to read PDFs on it. No zooming or horizontal panning required, in landscape.
No. When you crop the empty margins on the sides (ezPdf can do it) it is perfectly comfortable to read PDFs in landscape.
Goes to show the preferences out there. I’ve tried the Note and it’s waaay too big. Even the Galaxy Nexus is too big for me. I think 4″ is about the max I would want to carry around in a pocket.
My favourite Android phone is the Nexus S for that reason. Screen is just the right size (although the resolution isn’t great).
I don’t understand this. The screen is still absolutely tiny compared to anything good. A phone is crappy for movies, no matter what. Yes I’ve watched movies on my phone and it’s fine in a pinch, but I don’t see how an extra inch would make any difference whatsoever. When I want to watch a movie, I watch it on the projector, which is about 150 times as big.
Well, some compromise in mobility since it’s quite a bit larger.
More importantly for me, massive compromise in battery life. Browsing battery life in both the big screen phones is absolutely atrocious. The iPhone lasts over twice as long.
http://st.gsmarena.com/pics/11/12/nexus-battery/gsmarena_002.gif
Edited 2012-04-17 01:58 UTC
Also I have a third option that I want to see for the iPhone 5.
Increase the screen size marginally (to 4″ or 4.3″) and double the resolution. That would give a nice even 1920×1280…
One can dream…
I’d say the most likely is for them to just bump the screen to 4″ and keep the same resolution. It would be a bit of egg on the face since they’re reducing the DPI, but I think it would be least pain in terms of apps and the resolution would still be very high compared to other phones of that size.
Edited 2012-04-17 02:06 UTC
Battery life is awesome now with ICS CM9. After a day of calling and browsing, my SII still sits at 80-90% – I could probably make it last 4 days. Pretty impressive.
You were lucky. I have a Galaxy S with CM7.1 stable and while before, with the official ROM, I got at least 2-3 days, now I barely get 1 day. Not to mention a crapload of bugs and hangs and random reboots.
No, without a slightest compromise in mobility (at least for me). It is as mobile as any my previous phones – wherever I go, I have with me in my pocket, as with my previous phones. So I don’t see any compromise.
Yes, and old black and white cellphones can last over twice as long as iPhone. But functionality is not the same.
Important is that Note lasts as long or longer than similar phones (like SII). Besides, I recharge every night so I don’t really mind.
I guess I have smaller pockets then.
Functionality is actually the same. I don’t lose any functionality with a smaller screen.
Yeah but coming from an iPhone that’s still a massive drop. Not something I’m willing to give up. I use my phone very heavily for work and personal use. Sometimes so heavily that it’s dead at the end of the day. With half the battery life it would be dead at 1PM. That doesn’t cut it.
Personally, my big problem with the iPhone is that it does not use as much of the device size as it can. Even with the same physical dimensions the screen could be bigger and a bigger screen would be very welcome. I think that the “retina” resolution is even high enough to support the larger size without a noticeable loss of quality.
Of course, they have kind of painted themselves into a corner with the way they handle resolution. As it stands now, they need to expand the number of pixels by some even multiplier in order to support increasing the screen size without distortion.
Edited 2012-04-17 01:35 UTC
Is this related?
http://www.w3.org/QA/2012/03/openweb-weekly-30.html
Not related.
This is a problem that affects existing devices just as much as it’d affect a new iPhone.
Original iOS devices have a pixel ratio of 1, but HD iOS devices have a ratio of 2. There’s also a bunch of Android devices that sit somewhere inbetween 1 and 2.
4″ at any ratio other than square is too small for this progressive screen sizer. once you go big you never go back
Ha! My first Smartphone (It was called PDA with a Phone function back then) was a HTC Himalaya and i must admit… i pitied every device with a smaller screen.
So i used it until the S2 which was for me the first true replacement.
Yeah i tried other phones but in the end i was always thinking “Not worth the money” (I found the HTC in the scrap lol).
I dunno, i had the impression from other smartphones that they were just toys. The S2 looks like a toy but is actually usable. Big screens help a lot navigating and doing almost everything else where you usually deploy your laptop (Yay! RDP sessions for support are actually doable or checking /var/log).
Anyway.. yeah Apple makes a 4″ display. Apple has to make a lot more than that to make me buy an i($PRODUCT).
Apple will have to break their (for now, perfect) situation where they have one form factor and only two possible resolutions.
Good side is that display has enough density to make that barely noticed by most people.
Google has the upper hand here. they designed UI to fit myriad fo devices, make it also easy for developers to put in their apps. Now they are more ready for bigger screens. For Apple, 3.5” made sense in earlier, but logically everyone is betting on shiny and glossy large screens to trump them. And it works.
*looks at iphone sales*
trump?
The suggested 16:9 change would simply give them a bit more vertical real estate. Great, but how does that help them compete with the now common 4.3″ screens available on Android? It would still seem diminutive compared to most Androids… I also agree with the reservations the writer had – deviating from 3:2 is a mistake. As for competing with “phablets” like the Galaxy Note? There is still no comparison even at 4″ – Apple would have nothing to answer this with…
They should do a new model with an in-between size for those looking for a “phablet” with a big beautiful screen so that they could actually take advantage of the increased resolution. Then need a bigger screen for sure, but with a HIGHER software resolution as well.
The original iphone was 320X480. The retina display essentially doubled resoltion AND the DPI – it did not increase usable screen area at all. What they need is to go one more step up in screen size, keep the DPI the same, but introduce a new size for software to target. If you do that, you get this:
Screen Size: 5.3″
HW Resolution: 960X1440
DPI: 326 (stays exactly the same)
This would be about the same dimensions as a Galaxy Note, just not quite as tall. Yes, it would be too big for people wanting a pocket phone – that is why I think it should be a separate model.
From a software perspective, instead of doubling the devices native resolution you are increasing it by 50%, But you maintain the same DPI, so you essentially have 50% more real estate at the same pitch.
Of course the downside is they would have to introduce yet another software resolution for apps to target… But my point is that going to a bigger screen without increasing usable screen real-estate is nearly pointless with the iPhone…
At 5.3″ with a 960X1440 resolution you would have the size AND dpi to do tablet style apps like on the ipad (with side panels and the like) and things would still be big enough to work with comfortably.
Anyway… I don’t know. This is what I would want in a perfect world. I realize it might be very hard to pull off. Scaling up existing apps by 50% might be less than ideal, and adding yet another target for software would suck – but you almost have to if you want something that would allow this kind of “in-between” form factor. But I’m just saying – I just got a Galaxy Note 2 days ago and I’m running it at 240 DPI… All I can say is that relative to my experience with this phone, the news of Apple going to a 4″ screen absolutely bores me to tears.
Edited 2012-04-17 00:49 UTC
This trend of massive screens always makes me think of this skit – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyUrGfHt2qM
I’m sticking with sub 4″ screens. I have good eyesight and my Arrives 3.6″ display is perfect for me