“While mobile app developers have been abuzz about the launch of Apple’s smallest screen, the Apple Watch, Flurry Analytics has seen increasing interest in one of its largest screens – the iPhone 6 Plus,” Jarah Euston reports for Flurry. “Once upon a time, Steve Jobs said ‘no one is going to buy’ a big phone, and we theorized that phablets were just a fad. Six months since the iPhone 6 Plus debut, we see the new iOS form factor has had significant impact on the global market.”
“To better understand the impact of the iPhone 6 Plus, Flurry from Yahoo examined the 1.6 billion devices it tracks every month to explore usage by screen size,” Euston reports. “It seems consumers worldwide are smitten with the combination of a large screen size and good old fashioned cellular telephony.”
“According to Flurry Analytics, 36 percent of active Android devices in the month of March 2015 were phablets, compared with only 4 percent on iOS. This is due to the fact that there is only one phablet by Apple, and it was just launched in September of last year,” Euston reports. “It might take some time for iOS enthusiasts to hop on the phablet bandwagon. To control for the replacement rate of devices (i.e., consumers may wait for their carrier plan to provide a device subsidy), we looked at the number of daily active users for the iPhone and the iPhone 6 Plus. Since the launch of these two devices, there have been approximately 2.75 times the number of iPhone 6s as Pluses.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Of course, Apple’s flagship iPhone 6 Plus is more expensive, carrying a $100 premium (A 50% increase at entry level) over iPhone 6.
The only problem I am having with the 6 Plus, is that my wife says she does’t want it, when it’s time to get the iPhone 7. If I had gotten the 6, 4.7 inch, I might not have the bump down issue.
This is exasperated by the AT&T subsidy and the locked phone for the first two years. I depend on owning the phone for 2 years before I can sell it, or hand it off to my son who can only use unlocked phones, on his T-Mobile plan.
So, my wife doesn’t want it. My son can’t use it, and certainly I am not going to let it sit on the shelf for a year. I may have to sell it to an AT&T customer, maybe take a bigger loss than I had planned.
If Apple were to release the difference sizes in parity, IE: Optical stabilization on the 6, then I think I wouldn’t have these issues.
Don’t get me wrong I like the phone, but other than me or my son, I have no one else who does.
You could have just purchased the phone outright and had more flexibility about what to do later.
That is not really an option for me. I can lay down $500 for a subsidized phone, but not $900 or more. Before you think that my reasoning is flawed, I am paying less for my AT&T family plan, which includes subsidy, than any other plan available, specifically on AT&T.
The cheapest plan out there, my son has on T-Mobile, $25/mo everything, but no LTE. On AT&T have theoretically 5GB/mo of LTE on the Unlimited plan, however I have gone over, without incident. I have never been cut off. Not saying they will or won’t do it, but if I switch to anything else, NEXT, Family Share, etc, it will cost about $100/mo more.
So, what I am saying, the size of the phone is having an impact on my traditional annual upgrade. I buy a new phone, one year old phone goes to my wife, and the two year old phone gets unlocked, and my son takes it, and we sell the oldest phone. The whole conveyor is up in the air now.
It’s not Apple’s fault. It’s my fault, because I wanted both the larger phone and OS on the camera.
Oh yeah, that extra $100 is what did it. Lmao.
The iPhone 6 is the best phone on the market. Perfect screen size that feels roomy but never unwieldy like its larger sibling. I couldn’t be happier with my decision.
The Macalope nailed it:
With a recent move to larger and larger screens for users, it might be a risky move for Apple to shift its focus to a user interface the size of a watch face.
[Blank, 10,000-year stare into the empty, soulless void of the universe. No solace is found. Somewhere a wolf howls. A child grows old and dies. The stars move in an uncaring dance of infinite callous disregard.]
Two years from now the Macalope fully expects we’ll be hearing about phabwatches. Or watchlets. Whatever they’re called, Apple will be doomed for not making a watch the takes up your whole forearm.
I’ve gotten as comfortable with my 6 Plus as I ever was with my previous iPhones. It never crosses my mind how big it is in my daily use, I just thoroughly enjoy using it. The only times I’m reminded of its size is when someone hands me their 4 or 5 to show me a pic or something, and my reaction every time is… how did I ever get by with such a small phone?!? 😊
At the time I had them, each one was the best phone I’d ever owned. That continues with my 6 Plus… nice trend!
Anybody know what the hell is going on with AAPL? It’s down about three times more than the rest of the market. Even the “magical” watch doesn’t convince Wall Street that Tim Cook knows how to lead the great company.
Sucks but it is a great opportunity for Apple to buy back shares. I’m sure they’re piling into it, taking tons of shares off the market. Market will settle once the focus is off AAPL and their analyst-concocted challenges. Then back on the gravy train.
The market as a whole seems to be down today.. Good time to buy AAPL..
So, who bought .75 of an iPhone? That seems really silly to me 🙂
I hope Apple has a great supply of the next plus at introduction whether it’s 6S+ or 7+. That 2.75 ratio is about to get much tighter!