“Whilst Android devices from most manufacturers follow the rationale that bigger is better in terms of form factor and screen size, Apple has defiantly stuck with the 3.5 inch display for nearly five years,” Ben Reid reports for Redmond Pie. “But why?”
“Daring Fireball’s John Gruber seems to reckon Android’s willful leap into the futuristic vortex of LTE could be a key factor in the overt differences between Apple and the Androids,” Reid reports. “The fruit company’s cautious instincts have meant no early adoption of fourth-generation connectivity, whilst the likes of HTC and Samsung continue to bulk up their devices to entice consumers favoring the significantly faster technology of tomorrow.”
Reid reports, “As it happens, we’re inclined to agree with Gruber. He goes on to suggest that once LTE hardware can be squeezed into an iPhone-sized shell (possibly within the next year or so), the trend of larger devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Nexus will be a thing of the past – another point which makes rational sense.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Our AT&T iPhone 4S units are as fast or faster than any super sized pretend iPhone and they fit in our pockets and can be operated in one hand, too. Without over-speccing their fake iPhones, makers of Android phones would have even more trouble competing against the U.S.’s top 3 best-selling smartphones: iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, and iPhone 3GS.
Uh-oh Balmer’s Left Nut. will be here any minute, now. 3…2…1…
Oh, you’ve got that right.
or Left . . . .
or what’s Left of it…Right?
He died
Gangrene set in and he died
Is BLN the same poster as what’s his name that used to do the parody & sarcasm posts regularly here. His name eludes me this morning. Or is BLN actually serious?
Why can’t I think of that name…too early no coffee yet.
Ah, I found my answer below—ZuneTang! I didn’t read far enough before posting.
However, I don’t think Android devices will downsize their screens even when the LTE chips become smaller. The larger screens are too much a part of their marketing now, plus more room inside the phone body would leave more space for a battery (more if it wasn’t removable, but that’s another argument).
It would be a pretty tough sell for Samsung/HTC to hype 4″+ screen sizes for a couple of years, and then try to convince their customers that 3.5″ screen size, like the iPhone, is actually better.
Bigger screens>Bigger drain on battery or bigger battery>more weight.
… or the number of pixels on the screen? Or some combination? I suspect the number of pixels, given similar technology, is the more telling.
Wait ’til they start bragging “it’s bigger, easier to find in your purse!”. 😉
Large Screen means Larger Phone and that means more space
to hide a larger batter in the hope to get a full day of use on
phones running the hot rod hardware needed to run the slow
and inefficient Android OS. ¿no?
Question: What do you call a cheaply made pretend iPhone, that is meant to be replaced rather than updated? Answer:Toy phones! Which would you rather have iPhone? or Toy phone? 🙂
The thing is that the 3.5 in. size, especially without a bulky cover, can slip into your pocket and be there unnoticed. A Smaller size would be too hard to use, and a larger size won’t vanish in your pocket, and that, IMHO, is the reason for its size.
The real reason is Apple can’t innovate fast enough to get away from old outdated 3.5″ screen tech and have been sitting on their asses for 16 months twiddling their thumbs while other faster, nimbler & more agile manufacturers are moving ahead with bigger screens.
Apple today with the old hat rehashed iPhone 4S is where BlackBerry & Palm were at in 2007 waiting to be swallowed by the tsunami of modern phones, like Nero fiddling away on the lyre when Rome burned to the ground.
That’s why Apple has been launching lawsuits like mad to try to stop the Android onslaught rather than moving tech development forward by actually innovating. Sad but true.
“Whilst Android devices from most manufacturers follow the rationale that bigger is better in terms of form factor and screen size, Apple has defiantly stuck with the 3.5 inch display for nearly five years,” Ben Reid reports for Redmond Pie. “But why?”
Insiders believe the reason is that many Apple engineers are fans of the Apple news site “MacDailyNews”, and particularly hate one poster by the name of “Ballmer’s Left Nut”.
“We just decided collectively that this guy was a complete waste of human skin, a worthless a**hole who deserved to die,” said one Apple engineer who wished to remain anonymous. “Then it hit us — If we keep the screen of the iPhone at 3.5″, we can probably give this jerk a stroke!”
The engineer related how they laugh their asses off each time BLN whines about the screen size, and said they may even consider shrinking the size of the iPhone, if it helps get rid of him faster.
“Sure, we’ll lose a little bit of money,” said the engineer. “But the Internet will have one less annoying asshat sh*tting in it every day, and isn’t that more important?”
——RM
1000000
Best MDN-related laugh in a long time, LR!
I am trying to avoid responding to the negative stuff and stay focused on productive Apple-related discussions on this forum. But I have to admit that your post made my day. Looking forward to more!
Lordy oh lordy you made my day. If BLN would just dry up and blow away I would be so happy. Everytime I see one of his stupid posts I try to just pass by it. Why oh why is there not a way to select ignore like there is on MacRumors. Surely MDN could find someone that knows how to program. Thanks for the wonderful post today, I am sure everyone thanks you.
LordRobin just bested Batman!
LOL, that was sarcasm right?
Unfortunately, no.
3.5″ is a size and not a technology BLN. Apple has been launching lawsuits against Android providers because Android should have never been created in the first place. Google stole Apple’s intellectual property. You know it’s true.
Keep posting your bullshit.. but keep in mind, you’ll never be ZuneTang. He was at least an entertaining troll. You are a hack without promise and your defective dead parents are where they belonged before giving birth and raising you.
Have a good day 🙂
I think it is ZuneTang. It s just with the Zune doing so well he needed another name and with the change came a slight change in attitude. I think they post now with more umph and less wink, wink on purpose to get people going.
After a while people were looking forward to ZuneTang and I think they just switched up a bit.
I knew ZuneTang, and BLN is no ZuneTang. He is a complete idiot. Zune is a humorist, BLN is a POS.
Of all the body parts he could have chosen, his choice of organ is testament to his aspirations.
Anyone with a Balmer attached to his name is a shifty piece of shit. And to add a sexual organ to the mix shows that this person is a nihilistic masturbator reveling in the sorry state of his sick mind.
Zune Tang was a humorously gifted satirist. I liked his posts as they pointed out the lunacy of the PC user’s rationale under the guise of skewing Apple. BLN is no Zune. He’s a boring wannabe who doesn’t know the difference between clever satire and boring unoriginal trolling. He writes like a bratty kid who entertains himself by acting stupidly annoying to anyone around.
if you dont have a tattoo of android on you, you shouldnt be defending them with like this.
you sound like a fucking parrot, all you can do is keep repeating the same tired, boring, turgid rubbish over and over and over and over again.
Don’t you realise just How. Fucking. Bored. We. Are. Getting. Of. You?
I guess that because a larger screen is so helpful on the desktop that it seems that the same should hold true for a smart phone. But then I can operate an iPhone pretty much one-handed when I need to and the pocket argument is legitimate. Bottom line, I conclude as Apple has.
At the moment, you’ve got iPad, and the two iPhone resolutions that are multiples of the same factor, so no biggie. If you add in a 4″ screen, you either have to dump DPI a bit to keep the same resolution (never going to happen), or keep retina display with a slightly larger resolution. But Apple doesn’t want developers to have to deal with even more resolutions. Personally, I would LOVE a 4″ + screen, but I have big pockets and it wouldn’t cause me any problem at all, and I am actually jealous of all those big screen android phones I see… not that I’d actually give up my iPhone…
As you said, the logical approach for a 4″ iPhone display would be to keep the same number of pixels as the iPhone 4S, so the ppi would decrease a bit from 326 ppi to around 288 ppi, or something along those lines. I believe that a 4″ display would fit within the current iPhone 4S form factor or, at least, very close to it – perhaps a wee bit wider. So I am in favor of a 4″ display for the iPhone 5 and the next generation iPod touch. I don’t see a growth path beyond 4″ for the iPhone based on current technology for the reasons enumerated by others. Larger devices will be part of the iPad family, IMO.
The real main reason is penis envy.
i miss Zunetang…. 🙁
I was watching a show where Jobs was explaining the size of the screen. The average thumb as an arch the width of the screen. One can accomplish most tasks with your thumb. When the screens get bigger you lose some usability.
I am quite happy with my iphone.
People who use android think everything is a pissing contest, don’t they?
Hmm! Never thought of it like this. I always thought android phone manufacturers make bigger phones because they say bigger is better. Guess I was wrong.
Look, Android devices need a 4″, even a 4.5″ to 5″ screen because the finger touch part of the Android OS needs a bigger target to work half-assidly decent.
Android OS also needs a bigger phone to hold a bigger battery just to get close to iPhone’s battery life.
The idiots who think that bigger is better have fallen for the Android propaganda. Android has fatal flaws that a bigger screen with less pixels covers up. You big phone idiots have fallen for this bullshit hook, line and sinker.
Idiots.
DAR! DAR! DAR! HELLO MORON!
Many androids released with less than 4 inch screen. I have had a few and last one had 3.5″ screen.
multi touch worked great on that phone.
Battery life seems to vary heavily between models sadly. Its more hardware than software.
some people want bigger phones. some do not.
I like smaller than 4 inches myself.
The makers are bringing bigger screens to market because they are still playing the old PC game of just packing specs into a package. some like HTC spend a good deal of time on UI and produce a very nice product.
really you know nothing beyond what you are spoon fed. your reasons hold as much insight as this bln fella. You are just as believable as him.
What do you do eat them? I’ve had the same phone for 5 years and it still works fine.
I’d venture to guess that most people that visit this site (regularly) upgrade their phone every 1.5 – 2 years AT THE LEAST.
My daughter has had a few Androids too. Her carrier has to keep replacing them due to one failure or another. She gets about four or five months to a phone. No exterior damage just failure in the innards! I still have my first generation Iphone. If i swapped in my Sim card today it would be perfectly functional. Albeit a bit slower than my 4S. When I upgrade it is to get the new features. If you like the experience of a new phone every few weeks, I guess the Iphone is not a good choice.
“Android devices need a 4″, even a 4.5″ to 5″ screen because the finger touch part of the Android OS needs a bigger target to work half-assidly decent.”
This is the correct answer.
Android screens are bigger than iPhone screens for the same reason that Dairy Queen “ice cream” cones are larger than real ice cream cones. They’re basically advertising that the best they can do is to tempt buyers with “bigger is better”. Pitiful. Customers who are taken in by such obvious tomfoolery deserve Android phones and should buy nothing but Android phones.
Android developers are over-compensating.
This dredges up that old quote: “It’s not the size it’s what you can do with it.”
I can drop an Iphone in my shirt pocket. I can put it in any pocket and it is perfectly comfortable. Larger phones are a little awkward and actualy can drop out of a pocket during normal activity. The IPhone is a phone after all not a tablet. Apple did a lot of research before producing the IPhone it is no accident the IPhone is the size it is If you crave a large screen for browsing perhaps you need an IPad.