“The suspense is building. After Samsung and HTC upped the game with their recent Android phones, the Galaxy S4 and the One respectively, the focus is shifting to what comes next from Apple,” Dan Farber reports for CNET. “Various analysts who track Apple and mine information from its supply chain are predicting an early summer debut for a new flagship iPhone. Brian White of Topeka Capital Markets is expecting more. He is predicting that Apple will offer the new iPhone in at least two and possibly three screen sizes.”
Farber reports, “Its move to a 4-inch display with the iPhone 5 last year — the first time it changed its display size — was a step in the right direction. But it may need to get more radical if its to keep pace with the ever-increasing screen sizes churned out by the likes of Samsung and HTC… Apple is not just going to slap a larger screen on an iPhone body. It has to be better than what came before, smaller (at least in thickness), and lighter. At this juncture, how much thinner, smaller, and lighter can Apple’s engineers go on the iPhone? How much longer can Apple wait to give users the option of an even larger screen? … If White’s prediction is correct, Apple finally will match its competitors with an iPhone sporting a sharp, 5-inch, 1080p high-definition screen.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: And they’d say that a 5-inch display isn’t large enough as Apple continues to pile up quarter after quarter of record-breaking, yet somehow “disappointing,” iPhone sales.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Related article:
Analyst back from China with tales of Apple iWatches, iTVs, fingerprint IDs and iPhones in three sizes – April 9, 2013
Since when did “keeping pace” mean having a bigger screen?
agreed… Apple “keep[s] pace” with what Jony and his team has going on…
Apple’s design team starts with a concept… engineers try to build to fit THAT concept…
In any case… Apple is not concerned with “keeping pace” as much as identifying a relative market to enter… i.e. iPad mini.
A wider iPhone would definitely fill their coffers… and the consumers will decide for Apple the exact ratio of users who prefer one hand operation to two…
“Farber reports”
Should read, “Farber opines”. Journalistic writing has gone to crap. Opinions are fine. Just don’t call it “reporting”.
All journalists suffer from hemoreuters.
There definitely COULD be bigger iPhone (http://d-rs.livejournal.com/983.html), but it is not going to be “better”, it is different device: two-hand-use comparing to normal-sized iPhone, which will continue to be the only one-hand use flagship smartphone among all competitors.
Sure, why not. Wider too. Not just longer. Don’t want to have a Subway sandwich in my pocket.
pfft, but a double whopper burger in you pocket would be just fine? OK, whatever.
An iPad of either flavor together with a side order of iPhone 4 or 4s form factor phone fills all my needs. YMMV, but my iPhone 5 just doesn’t feel right like 4 series.
Maybe having a bigger iPhone in your pocket will make you seem a little more like a real man.
LOL Fat chance … Eh Fatboy?
It would be great if it had two, even three screens! 😎
Since when did a larger phone become “better”? I thought the goal was to make a small, very light and very powerful device that could be carried in a pocket. I saw a women on CNBC say she liked the Samsung because it was heavier and felt more substantial. In that case get an iPad mini.
Smaller phones are preferred by some people. Larger phones are preferred by other people, but in both cases lighter is better.
Remember “better” is a customer dependent question, and so varies. Aside from customers “better” has no meaning.
Apple is no longer a niche computing company, and smartphones might be one of the biggest markets of all time. Apple should stick to its guns with respect to only making great products, but it needs to move past its one-size-fits-all mentality. If even 5% of its target market (people willing to pay for quality) wants a larger phone that is a market segment is several times larger than Apple was not so long ago.
If they don’t create larger phones, not only will they not be serving customers who fit Apple’s desired customer profile, but they will be unnecessarily helping their competitors.
Another way of looking at it, is that screen sizes are the most basic choice (after OS) for touch screen computing where the computer is basically just a screen. Such a basic choice will inevitably benefit from being a continuum.
Apple will eventually sell iPhone/iPad products from 3.5″, 4″, 5″, 6″, 7″, 9″, 12″, 15″, 20″ 25″, 30″,…, up to 100″. The huge screens would not replace regular computer screens any more than iPads replaced computer screens. They both define new use cases for screens. The super large screens would be very useful for collaboration and demonstrations. Eventually when they become cheap they will be used in classrooms.
Bigger does not mean better, but there are a lot of people who believe it. Maybe Apple should bring out two new iPhones; a new larger one which beats the functionality and looks of the Android phones but make it cheaper than the standard iPhone. Also launch an improved standard sized iPhone with the normal premium price tag. That might just turn public perception on it’s head as people realise that the smaller micro engineered iPhone is the premium product. Just a thought!
Have you seen those big phones strapped to peoples belts – It looks like they have a cutting board attached to them.. Way too freaking big – clearly it is the try to cram everything into one device..
Think what you want. But the iPhone 5 for me was nothing
special against the iPhone 4s. So, I still prefer my 4, and so
many others. The real “quality phone” was the 4. Alone the
stainless steel case and doublesided glass was HQ.
If Apple keeps goinig with 4″ display size, I imagine, they will lose much marked share.
Machining a iPhone 5 similar aluminium or titanium case for a
bigger display is the easiest thing. No special developement.
Something like a 4,4″ or 4,8″ Display would be great.
And please a metallish colour.
I think 4.75″ is the sweet spot – that’s pretty much what the HTC One has (4.7″), which I checked out the other day and the hardware is REALLY REALLY nice, the display is the perfect balance between physical size and more screen real-estate. If Apple went with that same panel, they could just scale the interface to fit (until devs adjusted their graphics for the insane-res, ultra-retina display anyway) and it would look just fine – at 468ppi it would be so sharp that any ‘bluriness’ from scaling the raster graphics would be imperceptible, kinda like the MacBook Pro Retina Displays (scaling to a different ‘virtual’ resolution still looks better than that resolution would look natively).
I just want a larger screen iPhone so I can read/view it easier, and type more accurately without mishitting keys. I want a large screen, but small enough to fit in a pocket. You might interpret that as keeping pace. I just need it to make my daily tasks more efficient. Forget about corporate-speak about keeping pace with Samsung. Focus, focus, focus on the customers who need these to get stuff done.
Samsung wouldn’t grow this big if people don’t like bigger screen,
all those iPhone breaking records sales includes 4 and 4S, the 5’s
sales isn’t as good as Apple had hoped for, look at how early the
iPhone 5 had a discount , once in late December to early January.
Now Tmobile is selling less than Apple. I have nephew and nieces
who had iPhone 4 or 4S but didn’t upgrade to 5 because if screen size. those are lost sale to some young kids because of size.Apple
better take notes.
The iPhone 5 outsells Samsung’s larger-screen phone. So does the 4S.
The 5in+ iPhone should actually be an iPad Nano, with an iPad display ratio and a phone function option.
there is definitely a large market for bigger-screen phone
Why not just offer a “phone chip” option as a choice for any iOS device: iPhone, iPad Mini, iPad ? Take the phone screen size issue off the table. Let customers choose. I have no problem with the existing screen. But I can understand how some people might prefer a larger screen. Who cares?
In some years time everything will be over the Internet, so I guess what your saying is already true, as long as the device has 3G (or any kind of G?).
Why not use your iPhone as a Hot Spot. That works very well with my iPad mini, plus it’s cheaper.
by not offering a bigger screen option apple is leaving money on the table and helps its competitors. simple as that.
Absolutely. And if the iPhone 4 and 4S are the perfect size phone then why did Apple make the iPhone 5????
Hey MDN, I’m getting seasick reading your articles lately with all the moving ads on every surface… FYI
What is this fascination with bigger screen size as a plus?
If it is a FAD (don’t know), how long does it last?
For me it is a negative as it is harder to store and carry around if the screen size goes up. That is the exact opposite of what I want.
I’d like to see a an iPhone with the same height as the 5 but a bit more width. I have a Galaxy S3 and while it’s not great at one handed control, I rarely find that a problem.
I do find the 4s a bit of a sqeeze now but I really can’t go past it’s smoothness and UI. It’s just having to handle all multimedia through iTunes that kills me. If AirDroid was available for the iPhone/iPad I’d be back in a flash!