Comment by wodenokoto 2 days ago
In all fairness, Apple didn't expect the market to want giant phones, and were very late with big screens.
Releatedly: It's fun to look at old Futurama episodes, where they joke about phones becoming so small you accidentally inhale them while talking.
We all really thought size was going one way and that was down.
Being a 6'2" tall guitar player doesn't actually say big hands. There is some correlation between hand size and height, but plenty of variation. I'm a 6'1" tall guitar player and I have small hands.
Here's an interesting paper on hand size and height: Guerra, R., Fonseca, I., Pichel, F. et al. Hand length as an alternative measurement of height. Eur J Clin Nutr 68, 229–233 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2013.220.
Here's what they did:
> A cross-sectional study was conducted using a consecutive sample of 465 inpatients (19–91 years), from a university hospital. Participants were randomly divided into a development sample of 311 individuals and a cross-validation one. A linear regression model was used to formulate the equation. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) for single measures and differences between measured height (MH) and PH and between BMI calculated with MH (BMIMH) and with PH (BMIPH) were determined.
and here were the results:
> The regression equation for PH is: PH (cm)=80.400+5.122 × hand length (cm)—0.195 × age (years)+6.383 × gender (gender: women 0, men 1) (R=0.87, s.e. of the estimate=4.98 cm). MH and PH were strongly correlated, ICCs: 0.67-0.74 (P<0.001). Differences were small, mean difference±s.d., ⩽−0.6±4.4 cm (P⩾0.24). BMIMH and BMIPH were strongly correlated, ICCs: 0.94-0.96 (P<0.001). Differences were small, ⩽0.3±1.7 kg/m2 (P⩾0.10).
Here's that regression equation in easy to read form, where H is the predicted height in cm, H is hand length in cm, G is 0 for women and 6.383 for men, and A is age in years:
H = 80.400 + 5.122 L - 0.195 A + G
Going the other way, from my hand size, age, and gender my predicted height is 5'8".
Perhaps Apple didn't want to cannibalize iPad or Mac sales? I don't know the timeline on this.
Small phones certainly make sense early on when phones were an additional computer for most people. Fast forward to now and for many people they are their only computer and have a greater need of the versatility that a larger screen can provide.
iOS and the apps were all written for a single dude screens. It wasn’t until around iOS 5/ios 6 that iOS could handle multiple screen sizes
Well it is annoying as a 6ft 2 guitar player(I'm saying I have big flexible hands) I still need both hands to do most phone things, like type this.
My Galaxy 5 and 6 were the last the worked well one handed. The "small" phones available are still larger than those most of the time! Guess the demand just isn't there, tho I wish some were still available. Can't imagine how tiny ladies with small hands deal.