iPhone 6 confirmed to me what Steve Jobs had said about the importance of screen size.
If I was using my phone mostly like a micro-iPad for gaming and watching movies, a big screen would be desirable. But for mostly one-handed use (phone, exercise assistant, etc) it's too big.
My next phone will be the 5s. Or maybe the rumors will be right that there'll be a mini-iPhone.
I upgraded to the iPhone 6 from the 4S. For the first time ever I got a case for it. The phone is so light and slick in my hands; when using it one-handed I often felt as though I were about to drop it. That said, after about 2 weeks I grew very comfortable with the larger screen. It also fits fine in my pocket even with a case. I'm very happy with it.
Z3 Compact? If there's a market for certain devices, companies will sell them. What do you expect companies to do here? I don't understand this discussion.
Screen size isn't phone size, particularly when it comes to iPhones, since they have very large bezels. Here http://j.mp/1uIZZ6f is a size comparison of the 5S, 6 and Z3C.
I think the issue is that a lot of people wish that Apple would've continued making a NEW iPhone 5-sized phone with upgraded internals along side the 6 and 6+.
When I first got the 6, I felt the same way immediately, and was going to return it the following weekend. But after that week was up, a strange thing happened ... I started looking at iphone 4's and 5's and thinking to myself
"gosh, that screen is kinda tiny"
I never did return my iphone 6. I noq love the big screen, that I hated so vehemently when I first got it.
Precisely. I do Android programming, which leads to a lot of exposure to different screen sizes. Spend a week on a Galaxy Note, which is initially shocking, and going back to something smaller has the same shock value that the Note did in the first instance.
I must admit I can't see how or why people bother with less than 5 inch devices now, but each to their own.
The other side effect of this is bigger phones make the idea of tablets seem ridiculous. Were I Apple I'd reintroduce the 4 inch iPhone and kill the iPad mini.
Same experience, but I use the reachabilily hack several times every day, and every time I picture Steve Jobs rotating in his grave. How is it that Apple just don't set their design guidelines to have controls at the bottom of the screen? A back button in the top left corner (without swipe option) should mean being booted from the App Store if you ask me...
When the reachability mode was first announced everyone seemed to laugh it off as a joke but I use it quite a lot. Sometimes it does cause a little bit more of a delay than I'd like but usually after pressing the intended button it will quickly jump back. I'm curious how many others use it?
Turned it off. Ratio of useful invocations to accidental ones was tiny, and it was never that useful. I'm typically reaching for something on the far side of my 6+, not the top.
When the rumors about enhancements for one handed operation started, my guess was a new standard control palette/keyboard radially extending from either bottom corner. Still think that would have been better.
I use it. I had trouble reaching the top of the 5S so the 6 is impossible for me. My issue though it that I don't think about using reachability until I have failed to reach a button up top and am already frustrated.
I have fairly large hands and long fingers, I've actually considered the iPhone 6 because of this. The normal iPhone always felt too small for me. I also have trouble finding gloves that fit right, the fingers are just too short.
I switched from the 6 to 6 plus. Reading is great. I'm 5'11" with hands average of that height. I think the only reason this has climbed so high on hacker news is because it has Apple's name on it. More choice is better. As people are consuming more content on their phones, like this website, bigger screens are helpful. Consider PDFs.
Yeah, I'd love to see this. I'd even consider holding out with my 5S until whatever comes in 2016 if I could have an equally performant device in a smaller package.
It's a rumor at this point [1] but if they completely kill small screen phones on the next release I'll eat my hat. Since the 6 came out, I've noticed that smaller people of either gender really prefer the smaller screen size. There's a gigantic market for the 4" screen, Apple already has support for it in their OS, and they're not the type to throw away billions that people are offering them for this size of device.
And thus the pendulum of fashion swings in the other direction. Maybe.
I never understood the obsession with large screens on phones until I was confronted with the idea of using a phone for literally everything. Using a computer 5+ days a week makes me want a reasonably sized mobile device that strikes a good balance. Were I only to have a mobile device I imagine I would want the largest screen I could get for watching video and handling my day to day miscellanea.
Those of lamenting the loss of smaller mobile devices will probably be forever outvoted by the average consumer.
I always thought the position of the back button in the top left corner is the worst part of iOS, even back before iPhone4s. I also can't reach the top left corner of my phone, but luckily I don't need to, on my Lumia (920).
I couldn't agree more. I have been very reluctant to upgrade my 5S to a 6. Admittedly, I tried once soon after the release, but the Apple store was out of AT&T phones. Since then, I've decided I might as well wait and see what happens. I've even caught myself wondering if there are any decent ~4 inch Android phones out there.
Then again, I'm the guy who was disappointed in the switch from the 4S screen to the 5. Even that screen increase was pointless for my purposes. I would still much rather have the internals, thinness, and lightness of the 5S with the screen size of the 4S. I anxiously await the day the industry returns to small phones. It's bound to happen some time.
If you're not too attached to iOS, I've just recently upgraded my old Samsung S3 to a Sony Xperia Z3 Compact. It's a ~4.5" phone with phenomenal battery life. It's got all the power of a flagship phone, but is the only flagship that is <5" that I could find. I've been using it for about 9 hours today so far (since charging) and it's still at 96% charge.
That's the Android phone that usually gets recommended in these discussions. It looks decent enough, especially for Android hardware, but it's basically the same size as the iPhone 6, and the "cost" to me of switching to Android isn't yet worth the benefit of upgrading from my still-excellent 5S. I think it will be another product cycle before I seriously consider any phone upgrade. If I really think about it, I'm probably using a phone less and less every year.
I've heard that durability is an issue on the Z3. I'd love a phone that small which is tough enough not to need a case. (Currently I have an LG G2, which I find too large, despite my large hands; I had to get a case for it after dropping it twice and smashing the screen).
I'm inclined to agree - I use a iPhone 6 daily, and while the bigger screen is nice in some ways, the loss of usability is aggravating.
"Reachability", to be blunt, is an admission of defeat - and I know this is a tired trope - that would not have happened under Jobs. Sure, Jobs may have surrendered to the trend of larger screen sizes, but he would've insisted on something that wasn't so plainly awful as Reachability.
The bigger screen is beautiful and I love looking at it, but I hate touching it. I also hate the fact that the top right corner of all apps is now no-mans land, covered with touch sensors as a matter of obligation than actual usefulness. Expect app developers to start treating the top right corner of the screen as non-user-interactive space only useful for displays.
It's too bad that Apple evidently doesn't have any intention of continuing the 4" form factor. I'd like to have seen multiple screen sizes given priority.
> "Using both hands is a minor convenience at best."
For some lifestyles sure, for others it's a dealbreaker - I'm not using this phone in the back seat of a car, or with my groceries in the trunk - I'm using this while holding onto a subway pole, or carrying my groceries in my other hand.
One-handed operation is absolutely a requirement for a mobile device in urban settings.
> Sure, Jobs may have surrendered to the trend of larger screen sizes, but he would've insisted on something that wasn't so plainly awful as Reachability.
Like what? A different way of shrinking the screen, or are you thinking there's a way to enable one-handed use without shrinking?
The cool thing about Apple's approach is that it doesn't actually shrink any tap target sizes. Also it seems easier to enable (2 light taps vs. swiping from the bezel edge). Having said that, I never use it, I just shift the phone in my hand, like a ninja.
The samsung one is pretty much perfect, since it solves the issue of screen height AND width. I wish i had that available for my Sony Xperia Z1 Compact, since even for that medium sized phone my thumb is too short to even reach across.
> "Like what? A different way of shrinking the screen, or are you thinking there's a way to enable one-handed use without shrinking?"
This is a hard problem - one that I would've preferred avoiding altogether by keeping screen sizes sane ;) But alas, that ship has sailed.
I wasn't aware of the Samsung or LG way of doing it - IMO both of them are pretty shitty also and an admission of defeat. This is the vendor saying "totally unusable one-handed without throwing away half the pixels". Apple's way seems marginally slicker, but still sucks.
Unfortunately the best idea I have is probably not particularly tenable - we have to abandon the top of the screen for interactive elements. Google has already in some ways done this with material design - back, home, and switcher are all lined up along the bottom, and all primary actions confined to the Floating Button, also at the bottom.
But getting third party apps to buy into abandoning the top third of the screen is probably not going to happen.
Alternatively this is a chance for more gestures to come and play. On iOS the top of the screen is predominantly taken up by the Back and Confirm actions (top left and right, respectively). We already have the edge swipe for back, which works so well that I practically never use the actual back button anymore. Perhaps what we need is an equivalent gesture for "Confirm". That way the two most common uses of the top corners won't require touching the button at all.
Honestly, the LG / Samsung method seems vastly preferable. Swiping from the bezel edge is a much easier motion than the double tap on the home button (which is sort of awkwardly placed for easy access given where you hand needs to be to balance a larger phone). Tap targets shrink, but they're not any smaller than they would have been on a smaller form-factor phone.
> Tap targets shrink, but they're not any smaller than they would have been on a smaller form-factor phone.
That's only true if the screen was a "magnified" version of a smaller screen to begin with. That may be the case with many Android phones but the iPhone 6 has the same PPI as the 5, meaning the 6 maintains the same tap target sizes and actually fits more information on the screen.
In other words, if you can comfortably shrink a screen's tap targets then it wasn't an optimal screen to begin with.
I actively looked for larger screens when I recently bought a new smartphone. I have really large hands / long fingers. For that reason, I looked again at the iPhone. It's nice for me to have choice in a phone that I can actually hang on to.
Isn't there something you want to see and not touch, or touch less often you can put in the top? The top of almost all my screens is usually occupied by a weather/calendar/email/news/etc. widget up top
> It's too bad that Apple evidently doesn't have any intention of continuing the 4" form factor.
It is in Apple's interest to keep the product marketing of the iPhone 6 focused on "it is bigger" and leverage the iPhone 5s manufacturing process as much as possible. My guess is that for the iPhone 6s they will release a iPhone 6s mini.
I'd appreciate it, but the problem is that these "mini" devices most likely will have other shortcomings like inferior internal hardware, missing features, etc. - basically the budget device. If the screen size remains the only difference I'm in, no doubt.
Out of curiosity, which had are you using? Is this solved by simply using the other hand or both hands? I have fairly small hands and can't ever think of a time I've had trouble using large screens (I have a Note 3, but the 6+ feels fine when I use it). But using two hands to me isn't a big deal, and I'm comfortable switching hands when doing one handed things.
I do think Apple needs to fix the UI guidelines so that "stuff you need to touch" sits at the bottom half, while "stuff you see and interact with rarely" should be in the top half.
Perhaps this is why it was so easy for Android phones to move to large screen sizes - the back button is always at the bottom of the screen; whereas, the iOS equivalent is usually in the farthest corner.
Reaching to top right corner is NOT going to be an issue soon. In the next iPhone version, Apple is going to duplicate the top right and left buttons on the bottom around the centered HOME button.
This is not a leak. It's what I would do if I were a designer at Apple.
The worst part is that ios always has the most pressed button, back, in the top left corner - the most unreachable position. What apple has to do is just put a physical back button on the side of the phone for your thumb and 50% of all reachability issues are solved.
I think the size of the phone is just a small problem. In my opinion it's the software the needs work. Right now, iOS is just scaled up and that's just not ideal.
For example, take how the Home screen icons stick to the top. You can in theory have 5 rows of icons with a blank one on the bottom. This may have worked well on previous iPhone's but with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus it makes it even harder to reach.
These are things I hope Apple addresses in iOS 9. Right now it's just scaled up for big phones. It's now time to optimize it.
I would like to hear female users chime in. I don't think one-handed operation has been feasible for a large portion of female population even on iphone 5. Once you get used to using two hands, I don't think it matters if something is 4.7" or 5.5". You just have to use two hands.
After directly comparing my coworkers' 6 and 6+ this week, I remarked that I might opt for the 6+, since one-handed use is effectively out for me even with the 6.
It's a built-in feature called Reachability. I've tried it and it feels like a bandage at best. I imagine getting accustomed to it would probably help, but it slows things down quite a bit.
(And the phone is still quite wide, which may be a less bemoaned issue than the distance of upper corners, but is still an issue for me.)
I just asked my wife. She could reach the entire screen with the iPhone 5, but unlike many of us on HN (including myself), she thinks the Reachability feature is good for her. She currently uses both the iPhone 5 and 6, one for work and one for personal, and she uses them both all the time, and she says she has no preference.
Asking my partner, I asked her to go back to the message list without swiping the conversation view, forcing her to touch the "< Messages" menu item. Do you know what she did? She released the grip on the phone so it slid down a bit, caught it and then pressed it, having to then awkwardly move the phone up again.
Not pretty.
Regarding myself, I've found I hold the phone differently, resting the back on the tops of my fingertips, giving me much more flexibility.
I'd speculate that pocket size is actually a bigger concern for women than one handed use. With skinny jeans it has been extremely common to store a phone in the back pocket. I can't see that happening with the iPhone 6. And I can't see young women giving up skinny jeans anytime soon.
So that means one of two things:
1. Young women start putting their phones in purses again.
2. Stick with the iPhone 5s or switch to one of the few small Android phones. (doubt it)
I wonder if either of these has borne out yet or if it's too early in the upgrade cycle?
Women don't use pockets, they use purses. Even most pockets in tight jeans are fake.
That's why the first Note was a big hit with older women. Big screen was easier to read and it didn't make a difference to their purse.
I'm a woman and I hate fake pockets. Loathe them to the extreme. I want my wallet and phone in pockets. Purse is for extras you don't need ON you every second, but are useful to have nearby, like eye drops or advil. My purse goes to meta-locations, like to the office, or in my car, but I don't take it everywhere with me (I don't take it inside stores, for example).
My opinion is not unique, but women are not given many choices about fashion and pockets or lack thereof. You can say to vote with your wallet, but it's hard enough to find clothes that fit properly (I am both overweight and have a very small waist in comparison to my hips, finding jeans that fit over my butt without having like 3 extra inches in the waistband is near impossible), without having to exclude jeans that only have back pockets.
Every woman loves an outfit that manages to be cute and still have pockets. It's like the holy grail of womanhood.
Bullshit. You carry your purse around the office with you, into every meeting? You schlep your purse onto the dance floor? No. Just no.
It's really nice to be able to leave the house without a goddam purse. Tuck a credit card, a $20, a metrocard, a phone, and keys into your pockets and go for a walk in the park with your hands and shoulders completely free and unweighted.
Oh, and a phone in a purse? Harder to hear ring or beep, and you sure as hell won't feel it buzz.
And that's before even mentioning one-handed use, which as someone else pointed out above, is crucial when you have to hold a subway pole or carry groceries.
Women carry purses? Men carry backpacks and messenger bags. They still put their phones in their pockets and get annoyed when they can't. Or would you say it's ok for a phone to bend when you leave it in your pocket because you could just carry it in your backpack instead?
Not a woman. But I keep my phone in my front pocket because I used to keep it in the back and one time sat down and broke the screen. I had been able to sit on it before...just this one time I must have shifted on it a certain way.
The iPhone 5S is the most comfortable phone I've ever had. It's not perfect and the battery could last a bit longer, but it's sufficient and it charges up quickly enough that I don't really have any hassle with it. iOS is nimble and I have no complaints about it.
Ages ago I had a Lumia 800 and I liked it. It was a good one-handed size, and Windows Phone was also quite minimalistic and smooth to use, but when it became clear that the phone was basically deprecated and would never receive Windows Phone 8, I abandoned it and switched to an iPhone 5S.
Last year I received a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 as a gift and ended up returning it after a month because it was simply ridiculous. Couldn't safely keep it in my pocket, couldn't even dream of using it with one hand and in all it was just a horrible experience--though some part of the crappy experience I chalk down to Android. Even if I had rooted it and removed all the junk that comes preinstalled, the lag is simply not something I could tolerate after iOS and Windows Phone.
So I stuck with my iPhone 5S and haven't really looked back. It does everything I need it to do. If I couldn't use it as a portable hotspot or if it lacked apps I might consider a Lumia 635 or something--not that I've tried one out, mind you.
I tried an iPhone 6 when it was released and I could tell quite quickly that it would be frustrating as hell, so I didn't upgrade. There was simply no need to increase the size of the phone other than to pander to Samsung people and appeal to the masses. I personally don't think that was what Apple was ever about, and I think the iPhone's small size was a good design decision much like the avoidance of touchscreens on MacBooks.
Now all the Windows Phones are pretty big as well, and my dislike of Android rules out quite a few smaller smartphones available, it looks like I'll be stuck on the iPhone 5S for the foreseeable future.
The lag isn't due to Android, it's due to Samsung's Android Skin called Touchwiz. My HTC One M8 doesnt lag at all, and it runs Android too. I've also used a Galaxy S4 and it was annoying.
Somebody gave my mom a free 5 when they upgraded to a 6. She had previously seen how my Note 3 works, pen, etc. and asked me to come over to compare. She decided she liked the bigger screen better, and in her purse it wasn't a huge difference, but she can type better on the larger screen and old eyes can see better.
I have average size hands and I got the 6 Plus - I find it fine to use with one hand. The most common thing I do is just scroll through web pages, twitter, email etc
Yes, I agree. I've also had the iPhone 6 since launch. One the second day I accidentally dropped it and the screen shattered. I was told by an Apple Genius to get AppleCare over the phone, which I did, and then I replaced my phone using that. That night, I bent it because I accidentally sat on it in my back pocket. I subsequently got this replaced under the free warranty, so frankly I'm satisfied with the level of care I've gotten from Apple regarding these problems.
In the past few months, I've gotten used to it, but I prefer my iPhone 5. I still have my iPhone 4 and 5 lying around, and the iPhone 5 is still nice to hold.
I always feel like the iphone6 is going to slip from my grasp. I never felt that with my iPhone 5. As well, the larger screen just doesn't do it for me. Too many buttons or links for "Next", etc are in the upper right or left hand corners, and I never can reach them with one hand. The overall usability of the iPhone 5 is much better.
I do like using ApplePay, and it is much easier to read websites with the iPhone6, especially when in landscape mode. In the end, I'll just adapt, but it's not like the iPhone 6 is a clear home run vs the iPhone 5, and that is probably meaningful in terms of how the pace of their innovation is slowing down.
> That night, I bent it because I accidentally sat on it in my back pocket.
Do people really keep phones in their back pockets?
For that matter, do people really still keep anything in their back pockets, except as an ephemeral thing that you take out after a few seconds? Sitting with things in your back pockets is known to create spinal problems.
When I'm up and walking about, sticking my phone in my back pocket is pretty convenient - I try to remember to remove it before I sit down, but not always
I put my phone in my back pocket often, when I need to stick it somewhere briefly. I think in that particular case, I was picking up one of my kids, and I slid it into my back pocket, and then subsequently forgetting it was there. I never had a problem with sitting on my iPhone 5.
Part of the problem are the iOS design guidelines, which place the “back” button in the top-left corner (or did so in the past). A larger screen avoids the feeling of crowdedness, at the expense of reachability. If you rarely need to access the top part of your screen, the trade-off is usually at least acceptable if not worthwhile – less so with many iOS applications.
I mostly use my smart phone to browse the web, and I think one of the things Windows Phone got right was to place the navigation bar on the bottom (although I don't use Windows Phone, my phone does the same). Thus, unless there are controls at the absolute top of the page, I don't have a problem reaching anything (most native apps on my phone support gestures, which rely less on absolute finger placement).
Presumably the 5S is also going to have a nice long iOS support lifetime given it's the first of the 64bitters and that's the type of line Apple has been known to draw.
I completely agree. I used my iPhone 6 for a month or so before I gave up and switched back to my iPhone 5s. There are things I miss about the 6, but I like the size of the 5s way more. I really hope Apple makes a top-end 4" iPhone again.
I got a Nexus 6, which is a 6 inch phone (I don't recommended it to people because the screen is poorly calibrated). And I love the size.
For me my phone is a an Internet-enabled general purpose device, which includes email, Skype, Facebook, Hangouts, YouTube, browsing websites and reading technical documentation. For me this device works less as a phone and for my use cases the large screen is great. And it has other benefits as well, like much better battery life.
I recently bought an Xperia Z3 which is the first phone I've had that has a glass back along with a glass front. As a result, the phone is extremely "slippery". I have always had a habit of setting my phone down on top of my wallet. With the Z3, I was noticing that within a minute or two the phone would slowly but surely slide off the wallet and onto the desk. I even noticed this a couple of times on surfaces that were quite flat, including if I set it on top of the cardboard box it came in!
Anyway, this all came to a head about 3 weeks after I purchased the phone. It slid off my wallet and onto the floor and the front screen shattered. The screen was $275 to replace, but I have found the replacement screen to be of lesser quality and am now having minor audio issues as well. Disappointing so early into the ownership cycle for a device.
In any event, I am now using a case for the phone, which seems to be an absolute necessity for this device if you want it to not slide off of anything you put it on. The choice of the rear glass cover seems like it offers a large practical disadvantage for an aesthetic advantage that most people wouldn't care about.
I have no idea why they don't just move the control buttons to the bottom of the screen. The real estate is great - they just need to break the paradigm of sticking the most importance tap targets at the unreachable top of the screen.
You know what phone did that? Windows Phone. And it was amazing. And no one could figure out where the menus had gone to, because everyone was so used to iPhone and Android. So then all the developers, including even Microsoft, got enamored with the hamburger menu as the new action bar, and that was the end of that experiment.
I really agree with you, to be very clear; this is one of many things where I think that Windows Phone had the benefit of hindsight and actually delivered a superior experience to the competition. But Windows Phone is repeatedly finding that there's too much inertia behind iPhone and Android's existing UI metaphors, so Microsoft has steadily been turning Windows Phone into more of an Android-with-fewer-apps than a real alternative.
If Microsoft, with a need to distinguish itself, and a fresh user base, could not move the control buttons to the bottom, I do not have high hopes for Apple at this point.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 210 ms ] threadIf I was using my phone mostly like a micro-iPad for gaming and watching movies, a big screen would be desirable. But for mostly one-handed use (phone, exercise assistant, etc) it's too big.
My next phone will be the 5s. Or maybe the rumors will be right that there'll be a mini-iPhone.
Though I might even go so far as to say I miss the old 3.5" screen.
"gosh, that screen is kinda tiny"
I never did return my iphone 6. I noq love the big screen, that I hated so vehemently when I first got it.
I must admit I can't see how or why people bother with less than 5 inch devices now, but each to their own.
The other side effect of this is bigger phones make the idea of tablets seem ridiculous. Were I Apple I'd reintroduce the 4 inch iPhone and kill the iPad mini.
When the rumors about enhancements for one handed operation started, my guess was a new standard control palette/keyboard radially extending from either bottom corner. Still think that would have been better.
[1] http://www.techtimes.com/articles/21559/20141205/apple-iphon...
I never understood the obsession with large screens on phones until I was confronted with the idea of using a phone for literally everything. Using a computer 5+ days a week makes me want a reasonably sized mobile device that strikes a good balance. Were I only to have a mobile device I imagine I would want the largest screen I could get for watching video and handling my day to day miscellanea.
Those of lamenting the loss of smaller mobile devices will probably be forever outvoted by the average consumer.
Then again, I'm the guy who was disappointed in the switch from the 4S screen to the 5. Even that screen increase was pointless for my purposes. I would still much rather have the internals, thinness, and lightness of the 5S with the screen size of the 4S. I anxiously await the day the industry returns to small phones. It's bound to happen some time.
"Reachability", to be blunt, is an admission of defeat - and I know this is a tired trope - that would not have happened under Jobs. Sure, Jobs may have surrendered to the trend of larger screen sizes, but he would've insisted on something that wasn't so plainly awful as Reachability.
The bigger screen is beautiful and I love looking at it, but I hate touching it. I also hate the fact that the top right corner of all apps is now no-mans land, covered with touch sensors as a matter of obligation than actual usefulness. Expect app developers to start treating the top right corner of the screen as non-user-interactive space only useful for displays.
It's too bad that Apple evidently doesn't have any intention of continuing the 4" form factor. I'd like to have seen multiple screen sizes given priority.
For some lifestyles sure, for others it's a dealbreaker - I'm not using this phone in the back seat of a car, or with my groceries in the trunk - I'm using this while holding onto a subway pole, or carrying my groceries in my other hand.
One-handed operation is absolutely a requirement for a mobile device in urban settings.
Like what? A different way of shrinking the screen, or are you thinking there's a way to enable one-handed use without shrinking?
Here's a comparison of the existing shrinking techniques.. you be the judge: http://www.phonearena.com/news/Whose-one-handed-mode-do-you-...
The cool thing about Apple's approach is that it doesn't actually shrink any tap target sizes. Also it seems easier to enable (2 light taps vs. swiping from the bezel edge). Having said that, I never use it, I just shift the phone in my hand, like a ninja.
This is a hard problem - one that I would've preferred avoiding altogether by keeping screen sizes sane ;) But alas, that ship has sailed.
I wasn't aware of the Samsung or LG way of doing it - IMO both of them are pretty shitty also and an admission of defeat. This is the vendor saying "totally unusable one-handed without throwing away half the pixels". Apple's way seems marginally slicker, but still sucks.
Unfortunately the best idea I have is probably not particularly tenable - we have to abandon the top of the screen for interactive elements. Google has already in some ways done this with material design - back, home, and switcher are all lined up along the bottom, and all primary actions confined to the Floating Button, also at the bottom.
But getting third party apps to buy into abandoning the top third of the screen is probably not going to happen.
Alternatively this is a chance for more gestures to come and play. On iOS the top of the screen is predominantly taken up by the Back and Confirm actions (top left and right, respectively). We already have the edge swipe for back, which works so well that I practically never use the actual back button anymore. Perhaps what we need is an equivalent gesture for "Confirm". That way the two most common uses of the top corners won't require touching the button at all.
That's only true if the screen was a "magnified" version of a smaller screen to begin with. That may be the case with many Android phones but the iPhone 6 has the same PPI as the 5, meaning the 6 maintains the same tap target sizes and actually fits more information on the screen.
In other words, if you can comfortably shrink a screen's tap targets then it wasn't an optimal screen to begin with.
It is in Apple's interest to keep the product marketing of the iPhone 6 focused on "it is bigger" and leverage the iPhone 5s manufacturing process as much as possible. My guess is that for the iPhone 6s they will release a iPhone 6s mini.
I do think Apple needs to fix the UI guidelines so that "stuff you need to touch" sits at the bottom half, while "stuff you see and interact with rarely" should be in the top half.
This is not a leak. It's what I would do if I were a designer at Apple.
For example, take how the Home screen icons stick to the top. You can in theory have 5 rows of icons with a blank one on the bottom. This may have worked well on previous iPhone's but with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus it makes it even harder to reach.
These are things I hope Apple addresses in iOS 9. Right now it's just scaled up for big phones. It's now time to optimize it.
But apps that don't support "swipe to go back" are really pretty annoying now (Twitter for instance). Scrolling to top and back are just way harder.
Also, I still constantly shut the phone off when trying to take a picture in landscape mode. Power switch is just in the wrong spot.
After directly comparing my coworkers' 6 and 6+ this week, I remarked that I might opt for the 6+, since one-handed use is effectively out for me even with the 6.
Relatively small hands be damned...
(And the phone is still quite wide, which may be a less bemoaned issue than the distance of upper corners, but is still an issue for me.)
Not pretty.
Regarding myself, I've found I hold the phone differently, resting the back on the tops of my fingertips, giving me much more flexibility.
So that means one of two things:
1. Young women start putting their phones in purses again.
2. Stick with the iPhone 5s or switch to one of the few small Android phones. (doubt it)
I wonder if either of these has borne out yet or if it's too early in the upgrade cycle?
Are we nearing the end of the back pocket era?
My opinion is not unique, but women are not given many choices about fashion and pockets or lack thereof. You can say to vote with your wallet, but it's hard enough to find clothes that fit properly (I am both overweight and have a very small waist in comparison to my hips, finding jeans that fit over my butt without having like 3 extra inches in the waistband is near impossible), without having to exclude jeans that only have back pockets.
Every woman loves an outfit that manages to be cute and still have pockets. It's like the holy grail of womanhood.
It's really nice to be able to leave the house without a goddam purse. Tuck a credit card, a $20, a metrocard, a phone, and keys into your pockets and go for a walk in the park with your hands and shoulders completely free and unweighted.
Oh, and a phone in a purse? Harder to hear ring or beep, and you sure as hell won't feel it buzz.
And that's before even mentioning one-handed use, which as someone else pointed out above, is crucial when you have to hold a subway pole or carry groceries.
Women carry purses? Men carry backpacks and messenger bags. They still put their phones in their pockets and get annoyed when they can't. Or would you say it's ok for a phone to bend when you leave it in your pocket because you could just carry it in your backpack instead?
Ages ago I had a Lumia 800 and I liked it. It was a good one-handed size, and Windows Phone was also quite minimalistic and smooth to use, but when it became clear that the phone was basically deprecated and would never receive Windows Phone 8, I abandoned it and switched to an iPhone 5S.
Last year I received a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 as a gift and ended up returning it after a month because it was simply ridiculous. Couldn't safely keep it in my pocket, couldn't even dream of using it with one hand and in all it was just a horrible experience--though some part of the crappy experience I chalk down to Android. Even if I had rooted it and removed all the junk that comes preinstalled, the lag is simply not something I could tolerate after iOS and Windows Phone.
So I stuck with my iPhone 5S and haven't really looked back. It does everything I need it to do. If I couldn't use it as a portable hotspot or if it lacked apps I might consider a Lumia 635 or something--not that I've tried one out, mind you.
I tried an iPhone 6 when it was released and I could tell quite quickly that it would be frustrating as hell, so I didn't upgrade. There was simply no need to increase the size of the phone other than to pander to Samsung people and appeal to the masses. I personally don't think that was what Apple was ever about, and I think the iPhone's small size was a good design decision much like the avoidance of touchscreens on MacBooks.
Now all the Windows Phones are pretty big as well, and my dislike of Android rules out quite a few smaller smartphones available, it looks like I'll be stuck on the iPhone 5S for the foreseeable future.
I have average size hands and I got the 6 Plus - I find it fine to use with one hand. The most common thing I do is just scroll through web pages, twitter, email etc
In the past few months, I've gotten used to it, but I prefer my iPhone 5. I still have my iPhone 4 and 5 lying around, and the iPhone 5 is still nice to hold.
I always feel like the iphone6 is going to slip from my grasp. I never felt that with my iPhone 5. As well, the larger screen just doesn't do it for me. Too many buttons or links for "Next", etc are in the upper right or left hand corners, and I never can reach them with one hand. The overall usability of the iPhone 5 is much better.
I do like using ApplePay, and it is much easier to read websites with the iPhone6, especially when in landscape mode. In the end, I'll just adapt, but it's not like the iPhone 6 is a clear home run vs the iPhone 5, and that is probably meaningful in terms of how the pace of their innovation is slowing down.
Do people really keep phones in their back pockets?
For that matter, do people really still keep anything in their back pockets, except as an ephemeral thing that you take out after a few seconds? Sitting with things in your back pockets is known to create spinal problems.
But I wouldn't sit down with a phone in my back pocket, it's uncomfortable as hell.
I mostly use my smart phone to browse the web, and I think one of the things Windows Phone got right was to place the navigation bar on the bottom (although I don't use Windows Phone, my phone does the same). Thus, unless there are controls at the absolute top of the page, I don't have a problem reaching anything (most native apps on my phone support gestures, which rely less on absolute finger placement).
For me my phone is a an Internet-enabled general purpose device, which includes email, Skype, Facebook, Hangouts, YouTube, browsing websites and reading technical documentation. For me this device works less as a phone and for my use cases the large screen is great. And it has other benefits as well, like much better battery life.
I recently bought an Xperia Z3 which is the first phone I've had that has a glass back along with a glass front. As a result, the phone is extremely "slippery". I have always had a habit of setting my phone down on top of my wallet. With the Z3, I was noticing that within a minute or two the phone would slowly but surely slide off the wallet and onto the desk. I even noticed this a couple of times on surfaces that were quite flat, including if I set it on top of the cardboard box it came in!
Anyway, this all came to a head about 3 weeks after I purchased the phone. It slid off my wallet and onto the floor and the front screen shattered. The screen was $275 to replace, but I have found the replacement screen to be of lesser quality and am now having minor audio issues as well. Disappointing so early into the ownership cycle for a device.
In any event, I am now using a case for the phone, which seems to be an absolute necessity for this device if you want it to not slide off of anything you put it on. The choice of the rear glass cover seems like it offers a large practical disadvantage for an aesthetic advantage that most people wouldn't care about.
I really agree with you, to be very clear; this is one of many things where I think that Windows Phone had the benefit of hindsight and actually delivered a superior experience to the competition. But Windows Phone is repeatedly finding that there's too much inertia behind iPhone and Android's existing UI metaphors, so Microsoft has steadily been turning Windows Phone into more of an Android-with-fewer-apps than a real alternative.
If Microsoft, with a need to distinguish itself, and a fresh user base, could not move the control buttons to the bottom, I do not have high hopes for Apple at this point.