[majormajor]

So a while back the benefits didn't outweigh the "huge downside" that he found the screen size of the Galaxy SII, but now that Apple increases their screen size "the software benefits that come from that extra half an inch hugely improve the experience of using the phone."

The continually disappointing thing about the iPhone coverage has been people who dismiss things as not needed until Apple gets around to implementing them.

Personally, I guess my hands are bigger than Curtis's, since I've been using 4.3" phones since 2010, and it's really not a big downside at all -- but rather, the iPhone's screen size is, honestly, still too small for me to consider. Thinner/lighter/smaller isn't always better for everyone. One size fits all doesn't.

EDIT: the other oft-overlooked part of this discussion is te frequency of one-handed use. For me, at least, I'm usually already using both hands if I'm doing something more than passively reading/watching something. I'd be interested to know if this is different for others, so that any inconvenience to one-handed use is actually a major inconvenience to your primary use of the phone.

Additionally, Apple recognizes the need for different form factors with pretty much every other portable device they make, from the iPod to the MacBook lines and, reportedly, soon even the iPad. So why not the iPhone?

[ceejayoz]

Did you read the post? He says it's only "barely acceptable" at 4 inches - hardly glowing praise, and the S3 has a 4.8 inch screen.

[dpark]

Did you? He also said "the software benefits that come from that extra half an inch hugely improve the experience of using the phone." That's certainly praise, possibly even glowing.

The criticism here seems reasonable. He went from discussing a "huge downside of larger screens" to saying that a bigger screen "hugely" improves the experience. Oh, and previously the smaller screen was "one of the things that makes Apple products Apple products." Manufacturers with larger screens were "doing it wrong."

The entire post is just Dustin Curtis trying to rationalize his jump from claiming that bigger screens are too big to claiming that they are a huge improvement (now that Apple does them).

[ceejayoz]

That he thinks slightly larger is potentially a good thing doesn't make it an inconsistent belief that hugely larger is not a good thing.

[dpark]

It's pretty inconsistent when 4 inches is "slightly larger" for Apple but 4 inches is "hugely larger" for anyone else.

[projct]

Except the the difference is 0.5 inches between 4S and 5, vs 1.3" difference between 4S and S3.

[dpark]

Curtis didn't say that manufacturers with 4.8+ inch screens were wrong. He said manufacturers with 4+ inch screens were wrong. i.e. Apple today

Also the phone screen he was comparing against (S II) was only 0.8 inches larger, at 4.3 inches.

[esolyt]

He says:

"Every area of the screen is reachable, after all (unlike many Android phones with 4-inch+ screens)"

[ceejayoz]

And?

He said "many", not "all", and "4-inch+", not "4-inch".

Most of the high-end Android phones on the market are larger than 4 inches (in many cases, significantly so), and he says the iPhone 5 - at 4.0 - is barely acceptable.

[MatthewPhillips]

The problem people had with the original article was the smugness with which he made the argument. Here's the worst part (from the 3.5 article):

> This is an example of one of those design decisions that you don't usually notice until you see someone doing it wrong. It's one of the things that makes Apple products Apple products.

It's one thing to lay out an argument for a design, it's another to claim that anyone arriving at another conclusion (as Apple eventually did), is "doing it wrong".

[siglesias]

the other oft-overlooked part of this discussion is te frequency of one-handed use.

I've been observing people using phones in the wild and anecdotally a frequent one handed use case is while eating, which, if you're eating alone or on the go, is a really good time to use it. I've seen a lot of big phone users forced to get their lunchtime emailing, checking, texting, etc, out of the way before eating, while lots of iPhone users can get their things done while they eat. Why hobble yourself for .3 inches?

Being an iPhone user myself, it's kind of strange to think that almost any time I want to do something with my phone that I basically need to be handcuffed to it: brushing my teeth, holding onto a rail in the metro, drinking a cup of tea, referencing something while cooking, holding a bag, writing something down, etc. Is the extra real estate worth the forced modality?

[thechut]

Clearly the Apple koolaid causes your hands to shrink. That is the only conclusion I can make from this blog post.

[esolyt]

I almost never use my 4-inch phone with single hand, except when I am texting while driving, which I shouldn't be doing anyway.

In fact, larger phones make it much more difficult to text while driving and that might be a good thing.

[scott_s]

If I hold my iPhone in portrait, it's exclusively one hand. Landscape is two hands. Portrait is by far the most frequent, though.