10 ms·

3.5 Inches

302 points by corywatilo 15y ago

bignoggins 15y ago
I have a 4.3 inch windows phone, have slightly below average hands and can reach all the way across just fine. Maybe the OP has really small hands.
billmcneale 15y ago
The Samsung Galaxy S II has sold more than ten million units these past few months, the screen size doesn't seem to bother anyone. Apple gets a lot of things right, but come on, let's not imagine that every single thing they do is perfectly thought out.
LogoBids 15y ago
Very presumptuous that your fingers are the size of everyone elses that uses the iPhone. The average length of an adult male hand is 189 mm, while the average length of an adult female hand is 172 mm. The Females had at AVERAGE is 17mm smaller than their male counterpart. With this in mind and simple mathematics, your theory is completely wrong.
ajtaylor 15y ago
I must have freakishly large hands, because my thumb has no problem covering any part of the screen on my Galaxy S II. My vote is with @ansy about keeping aspect ratios the same.
njharman 15y ago
Yeah, like everyone on the planet has the exact same hand size and thumb length of the author.
rb2k_ 15y ago
When starting to read the article, the first thing I noticed was the "iPhone 4′s". For some reason I really react annoyed at people using an accent instead of an apostrophe (4′s vs 4's). I'm not sure why, but this always gets me
- aes 15y ago
  To add a little nitpicking to your nitpicking, it should've been a right single quotation mark (’, U+2017). In fact it's not an accent (´, U+00B4), but a prime (′, U+2032). Since none of these characters can be easily produced on a standard US keyboard, I suspect that the blame belongs not on the author but on his publishing system that thought he meant "4 feet" (or perhaps "4 arcminutes").
parbo 15y ago
The ability to reach the whole screen with my thumb, while still having a high resolution was one of the main reasons i bought my Motorola Defy. It has a 3.7" screen with 858x480 resolution. The other main reason was that a waterproof phone is a good idea when you have a two-year old toddler.
matt_trentini 15y ago
Comfortable thumb reach? I don't think so. If anything, I'd say it was chosen because the size 'feels' about right. For me the SGS II is way too big; it doesn't fit in my pockets comfortably and it feels awkward when holding it to my ear. There's a balance - bigger is better in terms of a touch interface but smaller is better in terms of convenience. Somewhere around 3.5" seems about the best compromise for a smartphone. For me at least.
deleted 15y ago
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- deleted 15y ago
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steve8918 15y ago
Sorry but I disagree. I'm not sure how he holds his iPhone but I cradle it with my 4 fingers with my pinky supporting it from the bottom. This allows my thumb to extend well past the edge of the iPhone. I think he's reading too much into the design. Larger isn't necessarily better. The iPhone 4's screen is good enough for me, I've never had any issues except for trying to read pdfs, which is one reason why I keep considering getting an iPad. But for everything else, I find the screen more than good enough and it's still small enough to fit in my pocket.
- Derbasti 15y ago
  I own both an iPhone and an iPad and a Kindle. I'd tell you: for reading stuff, nothing beats the Kindle. PDFs though, not so much. You just can't comfortably put a letter page on a 7 inch screen. That said, I would not buy an iPad again. I would by a Kindle instead. Just some food for thought regarding your PDF reading needs.
  - forza 15y ago
    I can recommend the onyx boox m91s for reading pdfs, as long as it's books/papers and not magazines. http://www.onyx-boox.com/onyx-boox-m91s http://www.onyx-boox.com/onyx-boox-m91s
- dmpatierno 15y ago
  The author states that the iPhone screen is perfectly sized to allow your thumb to reach the opposite edge. You seem to be agreeing with him. I think you got his argument backwards.
  - steve8918 15y ago
    No, I'm saying that his argument is nonsensical. I can go well past the edges of the iPhone with my thumb, probably by another 33%. I'm sure most people can, my fingers are quite average length (much to the disappointment of my wife). I could probably extend well past the edges of the Android phone, as well. So I don't think that "average thumb length" had anything to do with the size of the iPhone screen.
codenerdz 15y ago
Different strokes for different folks. Ive had an iPhone 4 and I have Galaxy S2 with 4.5 screen now. Both are manageable. The one thing that android is missing out of course is the Appstore eco system, it has a long way to go to match software availability/quality of Apple appstore apps. Camera in Samsung GS2 is probably best among android phones, but i dont think its a match for iPhone 4 and definitely not a match for iPhone 4S.
- skeletonjelly 15y ago
  The app or the hardware?
deleted 15y ago
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varunsrin 15y ago
The diagrams drawn are highly misleading - my thumb goes well over the edge of a 3.7" device, and afaik I have pretty normal sized thumbs. The diagram there shows the thumb ending on a 3.5" device. I may even buy the 4.2" is too large argument since devices do get a bit unwieldy, but why not anything between 3.5" & 4"? I own a Nexus One (3.7") and I think its a perfect size - I can usually reach my thumb across with minimal effort on a 4" screen as well. tl:dr; Claims about perfect size of phone, without any data, except images of phones superimposed with one random sample of thumb size.
- aristus 15y ago
  There is no perfect size any more than there is a perfect sized glove, shirt, chair, etc. We programmers have gotten away with ignoring anthropometric variation till now.
  - rockarage 15y ago
    Agreed, I have large hands I typically wear xl gloves, and I wish the iphone was larger. Some people may not have large hands but long fingers, there are many variations.
- dextorious 15y ago
  "The diagrams drawn are highly misleading - my thumb goes well over the edge of a 3.7" device, and afaik I have pretty normal sized thumbs." For a man? For a woman? For an American? For an Asian? Ever considered those differences?
  - Someone 15y ago
    Here is some data to help someone answer such questions: http://dined.io.tudelft.nl/en,dined2003,102 http://dined.io.tudelft.nl/en,dined2003,102. It shows that, for Dutchmen, the difference in _average_ hand length between males and females is about 2cm. Looking at the standard deviation and across ages, one gets (at one sd) a variation between long male and short female hands of (I guesstimate) about 5cm. Thumb reach distance will be, say, about half that. I would guess elderly users not only have shorter hands, but also have less dexterity, and of course there are plenty of people outside of the +/- one stadard deviation range (37%, IIRC), so it would not surprise me at all to see difference in 'reach' of over an inch, even in small grouos of users.
laconian 15y ago
Post-facto rationalization: everything's so perfect!
- dmpatierno 15y ago
  He tried two devices and liked one more than the other. That's not rationalization; it's just reality.
  - orangecat 15y ago
    And then he says that the one he prefers is the one objectively correct way, which is silly. Personally, I find the minor inconvenience on the rare occasions I have to hit a corner of the 4" Nexus S one-handed is far outweighed by the increased reading comfort of the larger screen.
- Xuzz 15y ago
  Or, perhaps, they thought about it beforehand? Do you know that Apple did not, in fact, consider something like this when deciding on screen size?
  - artursapek 15y ago
    I have no doubt that they did. Attention to detail is the game.
- dextorious 15y ago
  Post facto? You reeeeally believe Apple hadn't build tons of prototypes in various sizes PRE FACTO (sic), and made extensive research in what is more comfortable for the largest majority of people?
  - phillmv 15y ago
    ... yes, actually, that sounds like they would think about. "Median hand comfort" vs "maximum screen real estate" is probably something they at least toyed with.
mkopinsky 15y ago
Looks like the site is down. HN effect?
- coyled 15y ago
  Coral Cache has it: http://dcurt.is.nyud.net/2011/10/03/3-point-5-inches/ http://dcurt.is.nyud.net/2011/10/03/3-point-5-inches/
dextorious 15y ago
Also check this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HandAnthropometry.JPG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HandAnthropometry.JPG Statistical hand breadth is around 3.8-3.5 inches (men, women).
beredon 15y ago
You know what they say about a man with small hands.
- lachyg 15y ago
  Small gloves?
noonespecial 15y ago
Sadly, I've got below average sized hands. I can't even reach all the way across my Palm Pre. Even holding a iphone is just a touch uncomfortable. One of the things that's kept me off the device. You can't please everyone.
hashbo 15y ago
Somewhat amusingly the site is down and we’re left to guess what exactly is 3.5 inches in length ...?
- groovy2shoes 15y ago
  I had assumed it was some nostalgia about floppy disks. Turns out this guy just holds his phone wrong.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  Not to mention the minutes spent marveling after reading comments that say the article claims 3.5 inches is the perfect length
nicksergeant 15y ago
Most of the arguments here are that "well my thumbs can reach far past the iPhone screen". That's not what he's arguing. I can reach the pedals of my car with the seat all the way back, too, but I'll probably plow into someone as a result. He's arguing that it's not comfortable to do so, and I agree. Stretching my thumb across the iPhone screen (top-left / top right) is as close to uncomfortable as I'd like to be. When my thumb is over there, the phone arches forward because of the position of my index finger, almost moving the phone out of my hand. Any larger of a screen and it'll go flying. Whether or not Apple decided on the original screen size because of this, it was a good decision to not increase the size of the screen with the 4S.
- forza 15y ago
  I would suspect it has a lot to do with being early in the market segment.
- nchlswu 15y ago
  To add to this point, it's not comfortable for the majority of users. If you look at a normal distribution of users, they want to cover some sort of number and I'd wager that this screen size is hitting that number. EDIT: Spelling. I don't know why I mentioned "normal" either.Apple simply wants to cover a majority of users.
  - sid0 15y ago
    Evidence? Citation? Or are you saying that on blind faith simply because it's Apple?
    - nicksergeant 15y ago
      Because Apple generally tries to create products that appeal to a large percentage of the population, not "blind faith". It's an observation based on common sense.
      - sid0 15y ago
nextparadigms 15y ago
3.5" I consider too small. Even for my little 12 year old sister I plan on buying a 3.7" Motorola Defy+ soon. I wouldn't get anything less than 4" for myself, and my next device is probably going to be a 4.3" one unless the Nexus Prime is just too awesome to pass up.
- vacri 15y ago
  I have a defy. It has some poor points (though it is a cheaper smartphone anyway), but what sold me on it was that the screen size was 'big enough' while the form factor barely bigger than the screen. Easy to pocket, light, and tough. Compare to the iphone 4, which while being a nicer phone, has huge great lumps off the top and bottom of the screen - which means less pocketability / ease of management - not to mention that most iPhone 4s are even larger (and less attractive) due to the plastic bumper. The form factor is what sold me on the defy over the first-class range of android phones, despite it being a bit underpowered and having one or two other issues, some of which were due to Motorola bloatware that went away when CM7 went on. I find that in portable devices, getting the right size for you is a much underrated question when people look to buy tech.
  - dagw 15y ago
    I'm getting a defy+ for exactly that reason (that and the fact that it might actually not break on me). I've got several friends with with Galaxy S phones and I simply find them to damn big. Uncomfortable to hold when making calls and uncomfortable to shove into my front jeans pocket. While I'm obviously not begrudging people the right to buy huge phones, I just hope someone will stay off that bandwagon and keep making reasonable sized phones. If I need a big screen I've got my 7" tablet.
  - morsch 15y ago
    Plus, it runs underwater. :D Didn't get a Defy in the end, went for the still-cheaper ZTE Blade, but the new Defy+ is very tempting.
- 2muchcoffeeman 15y ago
  Rumor is that the Prime will have a 4.65 inch screen. Why stop there? The Galaxy Note is 5.3 inches. Android handsets are becoming ridiculous. We spent all this time trying to make things small, but in an effort to differentiate themselves, manufacturers started making things huge again. Most of the high end phones would not even fit comfortably in my jeans pockets.
micheljansen 15y ago
Ironically, this is something that is really bad about the iPad, while 7 inch Android tablets are much better. I recently wrote something about this, should you care: http://micheljansen.org/blog/entry/1111 http://micheljansen.org/blog/entry/1111
- rufo 15y ago
  FWIW, Apple has added a movable split keyboard to the iPad in iOS 5.
- easp 15y ago
  Oh the other hand. I can touch type at a pretty good clip on the iPad keyboard in landscape mode something I've never been able to do on a netbook or a 7" tablet. For what it is worth, iOS 5 helps with thumb typing on the iPad.
mahcode 15y ago
server down?
dbbo 15y ago
I'm getting a 500 error. Could it be the HN effect? Cached: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jXZtssYpUHkJ:next.dustincurtis.com/2011/10/03/3-point-5-inches/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jXZtssY...
cheald 15y ago
My Sensation has a 4.3" screen and I have no issues navigating it. I had a Nexus One prior to that, and its 3.7" screen likewise felt fine. I'd be willing to bet that the iPhone's original screen size was dictated more by battery concerns than the average mobile thumb length of tea drinkers in the midwest or whatever crazy metric people want to use. Bigger screens use exponentially more energy. Once that size was decided, Apple's basically stuck with it, since iPhone apps use absolute layouts and are designed for a 3:2 screen. You can't just scale the app to the new aspect ratio without stretching assets (squares become rectangles, circles become ellipses), and iPhone apps are designed against a specific aspect ratio. Increasing a 3:2 screen to 4.3" would make the screen 2.4" wide; the iPhone's screen is currently 1.9" wide, and the Sensation/SGS II have 2.1" wide screens, by comparison. If you think the SGS is hard to use, a 3:2 screen of the same size would be downright intolerable.
- Retric 15y ago
  Phone weight is fairly meaningless limitation in these size ranges, so battery size is mostly limited by form factor - internal components so a larger screen should give you better battery to surface area ratio and thus longer life.
cppsnob 15y ago
Given your 3.5" measurement, a 7" screen for the iPad would have been much better, would it have not? Apple's not shipping a bigger phone yet because it's something they can hold back on until they need to do it. The iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5XL iPhone 6... one of these will eventually do it so as to sell you something new.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- potatolicious 15y ago
  > "a 7" screen for the iPad would have been much better, would it have not?" There's a reason iOS5 features a "splittable" keyboard that brings all keys within thumb reach of both edges of the screen.
  - cppsnob 15y ago
    Ok... that fixes the keyboard, not the entire reach, which is what OP is discussing.
    - potatolicious 15y ago
      If we want a device that would be comfortably operable two-handed you still wouldn't have a 7" tablet - the 7" tablet would still have a huge swathe of dead zones where no finger can reach. You'd have basically two iPhone screens next to each other, portrait - that gives us 4.9" diagonal, maybe a smidge wider would still work, but nowhere close to 7". That's the only way to guarantee a comfortable reach for all screen locations. A 7" tablet is still way too large if the goal is complete two-hand operability. That's not a design goal of a table though, in its normal use case. In any case, I have no problems against the 7" tablet form factor, so I'm not sure what the issue is.
- jan_g 15y ago
  Yup, I wonder what the author will say, if the next iPhone has larger screen.
jeswin 15y ago
Maybe, just maybe, they factored in supply chains, costs and re-engineering effort and decided that it can happen later. Sometimes you wonder why such speculative (not to mention defensive) articles get on the front page on HN. Aren't we supposed to be more rational and balanced?
- adgar 15y ago
  > Aren't we supposed to be more rational and balanced? Reddit has the same misconception. In reality, voting-based aggregators are at the whims of the user's personal feelings and preconceived beliefs, no matter the community guidelines. HN has one nice benefit in that misleading titles can be changed, which I greatly appreciate.
brudgers 15y ago
Circular reasoning: The iPhone is well designed. Therefore they used a 3.5" screen. Therefore the iPhone is well designed.
lclaude01 15y ago
Designing for Humans: Design Research - Ergonomics - Human Factors - Usability http://www.designingforhumans.com/idsa/anthropometric_data/ http://www.designingforhumans.com/idsa/anthropometric_data/
alexwolfe 15y ago
Wow, nice observation, very interesting. I've never seen that other phone before, amazing how much it looks like the iPhone.
- alexwolfe 15y ago
  Its interesting how much energy people are putting into shutting his observation down. It might make sense to ask someone at Apple how they decide on product dimensions for mobile devices. I'm pretty sure some thought goes into the size of their products.
zobzu 15y ago
My actually quite small hand, compared to a Logitech G7 and the SGSII. I'm guessing.. the guy made a guess compared to his iPhone4, without really using a SGS2, only seeing some. Before getting it, I too though it might be too big. But nope. Using it since 6 month. As long as the body is thin like the SGS2 its perfect. There's only a small region at the top right I can't reach and which I don't need to. Also note that his graphic is wrong, as the SGSII is much higher, but not much wider than the iPhone (and thats probably why it works so well despite the size) 'nuff said, here's the pic: http://i.imgur.com/LFoIR.jpg http://i.imgur.com/LFoIR.jpg
- cnu 15y ago
  I don't think you read the article fully. The author has a SGS2 and while using it he realised that it was not as comfortable to reach the edges and corners as it was on an iPhone.
- dgtljunglist 15y ago
  No, he used the SGS2.[1] 1. http://twitter.com/#!/dcurtis/status/121653781241921537 http://twitter.com/#!/dcurtis/status/121653781241921537
ansy 15y ago
The reason the iPhone 4's screen is 3.5 inches is because the iPhone 3GS was 3.5 inches is because the iPhone 3G was 3.5 inches is because the original iPhone was 3.5 inches. A consistent platform is a huge deal. The whole point of the iPhone is that it's touch friendly. Part of the iOS user interface guidelines is making sure touch areas are the size of a finger tip. This is heavily emphasized. If there were different sized iPhone screens with incompatible aspect ratios this guideline would be meaningless. An app that has finger sized touch zones on a 4.3 inch widescreen phone would not on a 3.5 inch standard screen phone. Apple's designers know this. It's on purpose. And Apple's designers decide what its devices look like. That's why the iPhone 4 has a 3.5 inch screen. If you want to wonder why the original iPhone had a 3.5 screen, you've got to go back to 2007 when everyone else was still trying to copy the Blackberry. A 3.5 inch screen at that time was already unprecedented. I don't doubt Apple prototypes iPhones with different screen sizes and there is pressure to upgrade. But the fact Apple has not just shows how reluctant it is to break with consistency. If Apple moves to a new screen size, I think it will have to be larger for backward compatibility with old apps. I highly doubt it will go smaller, ever. All old apps would suck on a smaller screen, and Apple doesn't deliver sucky user experiences. And if it does go larger, it will be a big deal. I wouldn't expect a new screen size for a long time after that.
- cheald 15y ago
  Retina was Apple's "screen size upgrade" for the forseeable future. The devices like the Sensation and SGS II have screen resolutions of 800x480; 480x320 just wasn't going to look good next to them. Apple's stuck at 3.5" like you mentioned, so to compete with the new high-resolution (and larger screen, as a result) devices, they doubled the iPhone 4's resolution, which is a pretty decent compromise. One of the benefits of increasing resolution without increasing the display size is that your DPI skyrockets, and they jumped on that and marketed the crap out of it. The display looks "better", even if it's not larger. I would be genuinely surprised if Apple released an iPhone variant at >3.5". They might release an iPod Touch around ~3.75", but that's as high as they can really go before the 3:2 aspect ratio starts to make the device width prohibitive.
  - w33ble 15y ago
dlss 15y ago
he's holding it wrong
plessthanpoint5 15y ago
i dunno, very skeptical about the conclusion here. w/ the nexus prime (purportedly) at 4.65", that seems pretty ideal -- decently big enough to read a pdf, but still small enough for portability (pocket transport, unlike a tablet needing to be tossed into a backpack/bag of some sort). nice merging/compromise of smartphone & tablet (which i suppose is the point w/ this new ics os).
mapster 15y ago
3.5" is very practical. Any larger it will surely fall out of your jeans pocket. And the screen is enough to complete all tasks since it is a productivity and communications device.
- danbee 15y ago
  This. It's all very well talking about how suitable the screen size is for thumb reach, but I bet being a decent size to fit in a pocket was also very much part of the decision too.
  - mapster 15y ago
    that's wild conjecture unless you helped design the iphone.
marknutter 15y ago
I do not doubt that Apple not only did a lot of research on the perfect screen size, but they probably went overboard with it. They are nuts about these kinds of things. When I worked for Apple, I would always hear stories like how they created hundreds of different colored casings for the iPod mini and spent an entire week just to figure out which 5 to pick. Any other company would make that kind of decision in a matter of hours.
- potatolicious 15y ago
  I'd argue it's that attention to detail that has made Apple great - Apple doesn't settle for merely competent decision-making, and this is plainly visible in the end product. I now work for a company that has some of the highest-rated and most perennially popular apps on the app store, and the focus on details is insane. We will go in and fix a tiny animation inconsistency that would last barely half a second on screen - but people perceive this polish, whether they are conscious of it or not, and it crosses that gap between merely functional and actually pleasurable to use.
powertower 15y ago
Some men's thumbs are bigger than others.
- jinushaun 15y ago
  True, but if you're designing a product, you want to target the 80% and the average thumb length. As I see it, that's how the iPhone penetrated enterprise. Everyone is a consumer, but not everyone is a business consumer. Regular people go to work and turn into business people. If regular people love the iPhone at home, why wouldn't they want to take it to work? Why were companies in 2006 designing smartphones only for business people instead of for everyone?
senthilnayagam 15y ago
I have both, but I very often end up holding SGSII on left Hand and use right hand for navigation and keyboard input
scottjad 15y ago
When using their thumb to press, how often are right handed people using their right hand versus their left hand to hold the phone? I'm right handed and almost always am using my right hand, but the image in the article looks like the left hand is the common case. Anyway, if the right hand is the common case then the Galaxy is actually the ergonomically superior format because you have to ask yourself, what is most commonly in the furthest position that you would be pressing with your thumb? The back button. Yet on the Galaxy, with it's dedicated button, it's well within reach.
rayiner 15y ago
It's weird that everyone here is assuming that the user is a man. Lot's of 13 y/o girls have iPhones. Heck, I just did an experiment with my girlfriend. She's got pretty long fingers for a girl, and the iPhone is just about the right size for her to reach most of the screen with her thumb without stretching.
- alperakgun 15y ago
  This type of stories of a perfect size when small handed children use smartphones remind me of dogma created in the name of religion, which were easily falsified by science.
  - rayiner 15y ago
    What on earth are you talking about? If you were designing a phone for the mass market, wouldn't you consider one-handed operability? Apparently, this is why Apple makes so much money. Because some people design phones without considering that 13 y/o girls texting and posting on Facebook are a core demographic.
    - lukeschlather 15y ago
      The (somewhat clumsy) point alperakgun was trying to make is that there's no such thing as one-size-fits-all, and it would be somewhat silly to only release a phone in a single size if your goal is to let everyone comfortably operate their phone with one hand. There's too much variation in hand sizes to properly achieve that goal. For some it will be too small, for others too large, and for some just right.
      - rayiner 15y ago
        I took his point to be that the hand-size explanation is something made up after the fact to justify the iPhone's 3.5 inch screen. I don't think that's a sensible critique. Apple undoubtedly considered the hand-size issue when choosing the iPhone's screen size. Clearly Apple's only goal wasn't to release a phone that everyone could comfortably operate. But consideration of hand sizes was undoubtedly a spec, to be balanced against other specs. The engineers probably got some ultimatum along the lines of: "we're only going to have one basic model, to maximize our margin, so figure out the screen size that hits the greatest number of target customers." The iPhone is a reasonable size for people ranging from teenage girls to guys with pretty large hands. Probably too big for people with child-like hands, and too small for the big guys with massive paws, but very likely hits 90% of the potential market. I don't think the 4.3" Android phones hit the same sweet spot. My girlfriend probably couldn't operate one comfortably with one hand. That's okay for Samsung, which has a segmented product line, but not for Apple.
mlmilleratmit 15y ago
It ain't all about hand size. My beat-up 3G definitely spends more time in my left front pocket than in my hand, so that's a personal priority.
Tichy 15y ago
Why do you have to touch the upper right corner with your thumb while walking and looking at Google maps? Some "problems" are overblown...
jsmcgd 15y ago
Am I the only person who holds their phone such that the base of their thumb is over the bottom corner of their phone and with the end of the thumb hovering over the middle of the screen? In this diagram the base of thumb seems to be halfway up one side of the phone which seems restrictive to me.
tallanvor 15y ago
Trying to guess why decisions are made, while an interesting exercise, is somewhat pointless. The author has decided, based on his own opinion, that the iPhone has a 3.5" screen because that is a size comfortable for many users. You can come up with equally possible reasons such as: Apple wants to maintain a consistent environment for users, and a larger screen may cause problems for some apps. Apple was unable to secure a sufficient number of larger screens and chose to keep the current size due to availability. Alternative to the last possibility, Apple may have committed to buying a larger number of screens than they needed and do not want to take the financial hit of writing them off. A larger device may have required more testing time, pushing the release date past the holiday season. *etc. Apple isn't likely to confirm or deny reasons they chose not to increase the screen size, so no matter how sure you are of your reasoning, it's still speculation.
gghootch 15y ago
When I hold my iPhone horizontally, these arches make a lot more sense.
PedroCandeias 15y ago
In my opinion, a phone needs to be extremely portable and easy to use with a single hand. I'm a tall man and the thumbs on my large hands have no trouble reaching anywhere in a 3.5" screen. I'm also rather athletic in build, so a device the size and weight of an iphone is just within the bounds of what I consider acceptable to carry all day in a front trouser pocket. I've experimented with phones that came in other sizes. The smaller ones sacrificed too much screen real estate, the larger ones were a bit unwieldy to touch / carry. This is only my opinion and YMMV, of course. But for me at least, it's so wonderful that there are products out there that take ergonomics into account instead of just dashing for the biggest possible spec.
Hov 15y ago
I'm wary of reading too much into this sort of thing. The author is going to have to do some serious back tracking the day Apple decides to increase the screen size.
RyanKearney 15y ago
This will hold true until the iPhone 5 comes with a 4"+ screen. Then it will become magical and revolutionary. Mark my words...
jinushaun 15y ago
Reminds me of why a 27" screen is perfect, but a 30" screen is too big. Sure, 3" may not sound like a big difference, but when 27" is already the absolute max, any more is a waste of space and provides negative return (e.g., parallax issues). Bigger is not always better.
covati 15y ago
This is probably also based on user study data. I actually took part in a user study where we had to play with about 10 different phone and tablet sized lucite rectangles. They all had numbered grids and you had to hold it different ways and say how far up/down/over you could reach. You also had to note your thoughts on holding, storing in pockets, etc. Afterwards we had an open discussion period and most people seemed to agree that the iphone size was close to best, but that perhaps the screen should take up more of the real-estate, like how it does on the droid.
jneal 15y ago
I have no problem holding my 4" HTC HD7 in one hand and reaching the entire screen with my thumb. Maybe the blogger has small hands?
sp4rki 15y ago
I could easily mean that Apple actually did some research to find out what the average user felt was a confortable horizontal stretch of their thumbs when using a touch based phone with one hand. Even if that was not the case, companies making phone's these days are forgetting that regardless of the myriad of features that smart phones might have these days, they're still mobile phones... and not small tablets. Mobile phone's should be confortable to use and confortable to keep in your jeans pocket in my opinion.
thehelix112 15y ago
You have small hands. :)
mycodebreaks 15y ago
This is the dumbest analysis about design.

302 points by corywatilo 15y ago

I have a 4.3 inch windows phone, have slightly below average hands and can reach all the way across just fine. Maybe the OP has really small hands.

billmcneale 15y ago

The Samsung Galaxy S II has sold more than ten million units these past few months, the screen size doesn't seem to bother anyone. Apple gets a lot of things right, but come on, let's not imagine that every single thing they do is perfectly thought out.

LogoBids 15y ago

Very presumptuous that your fingers are the size of everyone elses that uses the iPhone. The average length of an adult male hand is 189 mm, while the average length of an adult female hand is 172 mm. The Females had at AVERAGE is 17mm smaller than their male counterpart. With this in mind and simple mathematics, your theory is completely wrong.

ajtaylor 15y ago

I must have freakishly large hands, because my thumb has no problem covering any part of the screen on my Galaxy S II. My vote is with @ansy about keeping aspect ratios the same.

njharman 15y ago

Yeah, like everyone on the planet has the exact same hand size and thumb length of the author.

rb2k_ 15y ago

When starting to read the article, the first thing I noticed was the "iPhone 4′s". For some reason I really react annoyed at people using an accent instead of an apostrophe (4′s vs 4's). I'm not sure why, but this always gets me

aes 15y ago
To add a little nitpicking to your nitpicking, it should've been a right single quotation mark (’, U+2017). In fact it's not an accent (´, U+00B4), but a prime (′, U+2032). Since none of these characters can be easily produced on a standard US keyboard, I suspect that the blame belongs not on the author but on his publishing system that thought he meant "4 feet" (or perhaps "4 arcminutes").

parbo 15y ago

The ability to reach the whole screen with my thumb, while still having a high resolution was one of the main reasons i bought my Motorola Defy. It has a 3.7" screen with 858x480 resolution. The other main reason was that a waterproof phone is a good idea when you have a two-year old toddler.

matt_trentini 15y ago

Comfortable thumb reach? I don't think so. If anything, I'd say it was chosen because the size 'feels' about right. For me the SGS II is way too big; it doesn't fit in my pockets comfortably and it feels awkward when holding it to my ear. There's a balance - bigger is better in terms of a touch interface but smaller is better in terms of convenience. Somewhere around 3.5" seems about the best compromise for a smartphone. For me at least.

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steve8918 15y ago

Sorry but I disagree. I'm not sure how he holds his iPhone but I cradle it with my 4 fingers with my pinky supporting it from the bottom. This allows my thumb to extend well past the edge of the iPhone. I think he's reading too much into the design. Larger isn't necessarily better. The iPhone 4's screen is good enough for me, I've never had any issues except for trying to read pdfs, which is one reason why I keep considering getting an iPad. But for everything else, I find the screen more than good enough and it's still small enough to fit in my pocket.

Derbasti 15y ago
I own both an iPhone and an iPad and a Kindle. I'd tell you: for reading stuff, nothing beats the Kindle. PDFs though, not so much. You just can't comfortably put a letter page on a 7 inch screen. That said, I would not buy an iPad again. I would by a Kindle instead. Just some food for thought regarding your PDF reading needs.
- forza 15y ago
  I can recommend the onyx boox m91s for reading pdfs, as long as it's books/papers and not magazines. http://www.onyx-boox.com/onyx-boox-m91s http://www.onyx-boox.com/onyx-boox-m91s
dmpatierno 15y ago
The author states that the iPhone screen is perfectly sized to allow your thumb to reach the opposite edge. You seem to be agreeing with him. I think you got his argument backwards.
- steve8918 15y ago
  No, I'm saying that his argument is nonsensical. I can go well past the edges of the iPhone with my thumb, probably by another 33%. I'm sure most people can, my fingers are quite average length (much to the disappointment of my wife). I could probably extend well past the edges of the Android phone, as well. So I don't think that "average thumb length" had anything to do with the size of the iPhone screen.

codenerdz 15y ago

Different strokes for different folks. Ive had an iPhone 4 and I have Galaxy S2 with 4.5 screen now. Both are manageable. The one thing that android is missing out of course is the Appstore eco system, it has a long way to go to match software availability/quality of Apple appstore apps. Camera in Samsung GS2 is probably best among android phones, but i dont think its a match for iPhone 4 and definitely not a match for iPhone 4S.

skeletonjelly 15y ago
The app or the hardware?

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varunsrin 15y ago

The diagrams drawn are highly misleading - my thumb goes well over the edge of a 3.7" device, and afaik I have pretty normal sized thumbs. The diagram there shows the thumb ending on a 3.5" device. I may even buy the 4.2" is too large argument since devices do get a bit unwieldy, but why not anything between 3.5" & 4"? I own a Nexus One (3.7") and I think its a perfect size - I can usually reach my thumb across with minimal effort on a 4" screen as well. tl:dr; Claims about perfect size of phone, without any data, except images of phones superimposed with one random sample of thumb size.

aristus 15y ago
There is no perfect size any more than there is a perfect sized glove, shirt, chair, etc. We programmers have gotten away with ignoring anthropometric variation till now.
- rockarage 15y ago
  Agreed, I have large hands I typically wear xl gloves, and I wish the iphone was larger. Some people may not have large hands but long fingers, there are many variations.
dextorious 15y ago
"The diagrams drawn are highly misleading - my thumb goes well over the edge of a 3.7" device, and afaik I have pretty normal sized thumbs." For a man? For a woman? For an American? For an Asian? Ever considered those differences?
- Someone 15y ago
  Here is some data to help someone answer such questions: http://dined.io.tudelft.nl/en,dined2003,102 http://dined.io.tudelft.nl/en,dined2003,102. It shows that, for Dutchmen, the difference in _average_ hand length between males and females is about 2cm. Looking at the standard deviation and across ages, one gets (at one sd) a variation between long male and short female hands of (I guesstimate) about 5cm. Thumb reach distance will be, say, about half that. I would guess elderly users not only have shorter hands, but also have less dexterity, and of course there are plenty of people outside of the +/- one stadard deviation range (37%, IIRC), so it would not surprise me at all to see difference in 'reach' of over an inch, even in small grouos of users.

laconian 15y ago

Post-facto rationalization: everything's so perfect!

dmpatierno 15y ago
He tried two devices and liked one more than the other. That's not rationalization; it's just reality.
- orangecat 15y ago
  And then he says that the one he prefers is the one objectively correct way, which is silly. Personally, I find the minor inconvenience on the rare occasions I have to hit a corner of the 4" Nexus S one-handed is far outweighed by the increased reading comfort of the larger screen.
Xuzz 15y ago
Or, perhaps, they thought about it beforehand? Do you know that Apple did not, in fact, consider something like this when deciding on screen size?
- artursapek 15y ago
  I have no doubt that they did. Attention to detail is the game.
dextorious 15y ago
Post facto? You reeeeally believe Apple hadn't build tons of prototypes in various sizes PRE FACTO (sic), and made extensive research in what is more comfortable for the largest majority of people?
- phillmv 15y ago
  ... yes, actually, that sounds like they would think about. "Median hand comfort" vs "maximum screen real estate" is probably something they at least toyed with.

mkopinsky 15y ago

Looks like the site is down. HN effect?

coyled 15y ago
Coral Cache has it: http://dcurt.is.nyud.net/2011/10/03/3-point-5-inches/ http://dcurt.is.nyud.net/2011/10/03/3-point-5-inches/

dextorious 15y ago

Also check this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HandAnthropometry.JPG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HandAnthropometry.JPG Statistical hand breadth is around 3.8-3.5 inches (men, women).

beredon 15y ago

You know what they say about a man with small hands.

lachyg 15y ago
Small gloves?

noonespecial 15y ago

Sadly, I've got below average sized hands. I can't even reach all the way across my Palm Pre. Even holding a iphone is just a touch uncomfortable. One of the things that's kept me off the device. You can't please everyone.

hashbo 15y ago

Somewhat amusingly the site is down and we’re left to guess what exactly is 3.5 inches in length ...?

groovy2shoes 15y ago
I had assumed it was some nostalgia about floppy disks. Turns out this guy just holds his phone wrong.
sliverstorm 15y ago
Not to mention the minutes spent marveling after reading comments that say the article claims 3.5 inches is the perfect length

nicksergeant 15y ago

Most of the arguments here are that "well my thumbs can reach far past the iPhone screen". That's not what he's arguing. I can reach the pedals of my car with the seat all the way back, too, but I'll probably plow into someone as a result. He's arguing that it's not comfortable to do so, and I agree. Stretching my thumb across the iPhone screen (top-left / top right) is as close to uncomfortable as I'd like to be. When my thumb is over there, the phone arches forward because of the position of my index finger, almost moving the phone out of my hand. Any larger of a screen and it'll go flying. Whether or not Apple decided on the original screen size because of this, it was a good decision to not increase the size of the screen with the 4S.

forza 15y ago
I would suspect it has a lot to do with being early in the market segment.
nchlswu 15y ago
To add to this point, it's not comfortable for the majority of users. If you look at a normal distribution of users, they want to cover some sort of number and I'd wager that this screen size is hitting that number. EDIT: Spelling. I don't know why I mentioned "normal" either.Apple simply wants to cover a majority of users.
- sid0 15y ago
  Evidence? Citation? Or are you saying that on blind faith simply because it's Apple?
  - nicksergeant 15y ago
    Because Apple generally tries to create products that appeal to a large percentage of the population, not "blind faith". It's an observation based on common sense.
    - sid0 15y ago

nextparadigms 15y ago

3.5" I consider too small. Even for my little 12 year old sister I plan on buying a 3.7" Motorola Defy+ soon. I wouldn't get anything less than 4" for myself, and my next device is probably going to be a 4.3" one unless the Nexus Prime is just too awesome to pass up.

vacri 15y ago
I have a defy. It has some poor points (though it is a cheaper smartphone anyway), but what sold me on it was that the screen size was 'big enough' while the form factor barely bigger than the screen. Easy to pocket, light, and tough. Compare to the iphone 4, which while being a nicer phone, has huge great lumps off the top and bottom of the screen - which means less pocketability / ease of management - not to mention that most iPhone 4s are even larger (and less attractive) due to the plastic bumper. The form factor is what sold me on the defy over the first-class range of android phones, despite it being a bit underpowered and having one or two other issues, some of which were due to Motorola bloatware that went away when CM7 went on. I find that in portable devices, getting the right size for you is a much underrated question when people look to buy tech.
- dagw 15y ago
  I'm getting a defy+ for exactly that reason (that and the fact that it might actually not break on me). I've got several friends with with Galaxy S phones and I simply find them to damn big. Uncomfortable to hold when making calls and uncomfortable to shove into my front jeans pocket. While I'm obviously not begrudging people the right to buy huge phones, I just hope someone will stay off that bandwagon and keep making reasonable sized phones. If I need a big screen I've got my 7" tablet.
- morsch 15y ago
  Plus, it runs underwater. :D Didn't get a Defy in the end, went for the still-cheaper ZTE Blade, but the new Defy+ is very tempting.
2muchcoffeeman 15y ago
Rumor is that the Prime will have a 4.65 inch screen. Why stop there? The Galaxy Note is 5.3 inches. Android handsets are becoming ridiculous. We spent all this time trying to make things small, but in an effort to differentiate themselves, manufacturers started making things huge again. Most of the high end phones would not even fit comfortably in my jeans pockets.

micheljansen 15y ago

Ironically, this is something that is really bad about the iPad, while 7 inch Android tablets are much better. I recently wrote something about this, should you care: http://micheljansen.org/blog/entry/1111 http://micheljansen.org/blog/entry/1111

rufo 15y ago
FWIW, Apple has added a movable split keyboard to the iPad in iOS 5.
easp 15y ago
Oh the other hand. I can touch type at a pretty good clip on the iPad keyboard in landscape mode something I've never been able to do on a netbook or a 7" tablet. For what it is worth, iOS 5 helps with thumb typing on the iPad.

mahcode 15y ago

server down?

dbbo 15y ago

I'm getting a 500 error. Could it be the HN effect? Cached: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jXZtssYpUHkJ:next.dustincurtis.com/2011/10/03/3-point-5-inches/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jXZtssY...

cheald 15y ago

My Sensation has a 4.3" screen and I have no issues navigating it. I had a Nexus One prior to that, and its 3.7" screen likewise felt fine. I'd be willing to bet that the iPhone's original screen size was dictated more by battery concerns than the average mobile thumb length of tea drinkers in the midwest or whatever crazy metric people want to use. Bigger screens use exponentially more energy. Once that size was decided, Apple's basically stuck with it, since iPhone apps use absolute layouts and are designed for a 3:2 screen. You can't just scale the app to the new aspect ratio without stretching assets (squares become rectangles, circles become ellipses), and iPhone apps are designed against a specific aspect ratio. Increasing a 3:2 screen to 4.3" would make the screen 2.4" wide; the iPhone's screen is currently 1.9" wide, and the Sensation/SGS II have 2.1" wide screens, by comparison. If you think the SGS is hard to use, a 3:2 screen of the same size would be downright intolerable.

Retric 15y ago
Phone weight is fairly meaningless limitation in these size ranges, so battery size is mostly limited by form factor - internal components so a larger screen should give you better battery to surface area ratio and thus longer life.

cppsnob 15y ago

Given your 3.5" measurement, a 7" screen for the iPad would have been much better, would it have not? Apple's not shipping a bigger phone yet because it's something they can hold back on until they need to do it. The iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5XL iPhone 6... one of these will eventually do it so as to sell you something new.

deleted 15y ago
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potatolicious 15y ago
> "a 7" screen for the iPad would have been much better, would it have not?" There's a reason iOS5 features a "splittable" keyboard that brings all keys within thumb reach of both edges of the screen.
- cppsnob 15y ago
  Ok... that fixes the keyboard, not the entire reach, which is what OP is discussing.
  - potatolicious 15y ago
    If we want a device that would be comfortably operable two-handed you still wouldn't have a 7" tablet - the 7" tablet would still have a huge swathe of dead zones where no finger can reach. You'd have basically two iPhone screens next to each other, portrait - that gives us 4.9" diagonal, maybe a smidge wider would still work, but nowhere close to 7". That's the only way to guarantee a comfortable reach for all screen locations. A 7" tablet is still way too large if the goal is complete two-hand operability. That's not a design goal of a table though, in its normal use case. In any case, I have no problems against the 7" tablet form factor, so I'm not sure what the issue is.
jan_g 15y ago
Yup, I wonder what the author will say, if the next iPhone has larger screen.

jeswin 15y ago

Maybe, just maybe, they factored in supply chains, costs and re-engineering effort and decided that it can happen later. Sometimes you wonder why such speculative (not to mention defensive) articles get on the front page on HN. Aren't we supposed to be more rational and balanced?

adgar 15y ago
> Aren't we supposed to be more rational and balanced? Reddit has the same misconception. In reality, voting-based aggregators are at the whims of the user's personal feelings and preconceived beliefs, no matter the community guidelines. HN has one nice benefit in that misleading titles can be changed, which I greatly appreciate.

brudgers 15y ago

Circular reasoning: The iPhone is well designed. Therefore they used a 3.5" screen. Therefore the iPhone is well designed.

lclaude01 15y ago

Designing for Humans: Design Research - Ergonomics - Human Factors - Usability http://www.designingforhumans.com/idsa/anthropometric_data/ http://www.designingforhumans.com/idsa/anthropometric_data/

alexwolfe 15y ago

Wow, nice observation, very interesting. I've never seen that other phone before, amazing how much it looks like the iPhone.

alexwolfe 15y ago
Its interesting how much energy people are putting into shutting his observation down. It might make sense to ask someone at Apple how they decide on product dimensions for mobile devices. I'm pretty sure some thought goes into the size of their products.

zobzu 15y ago

My actually quite small hand, compared to a Logitech G7 and the SGSII. I'm guessing.. the guy made a guess compared to his iPhone4, without really using a SGS2, only seeing some. Before getting it, I too though it might be too big. But nope. Using it since 6 month. As long as the body is thin like the SGS2 its perfect. There's only a small region at the top right I can't reach and which I don't need to. Also note that his graphic is wrong, as the SGSII is much higher, but not much wider than the iPhone (and thats probably why it works so well despite the size) 'nuff said, here's the pic: http://i.imgur.com/LFoIR.jpg http://i.imgur.com/LFoIR.jpg

cnu 15y ago
I don't think you read the article fully. The author has a SGS2 and while using it he realised that it was not as comfortable to reach the edges and corners as it was on an iPhone.
dgtljunglist 15y ago
No, he used the SGS2.[1] 1. http://twitter.com/#!/dcurtis/status/121653781241921537 http://twitter.com/#!/dcurtis/status/121653781241921537

ansy 15y ago

The reason the iPhone 4's screen is 3.5 inches is because the iPhone 3GS was 3.5 inches is because the iPhone 3G was 3.5 inches is because the original iPhone was 3.5 inches. A consistent platform is a huge deal. The whole point of the iPhone is that it's touch friendly. Part of the iOS user interface guidelines is making sure touch areas are the size of a finger tip. This is heavily emphasized. If there were different sized iPhone screens with incompatible aspect ratios this guideline would be meaningless. An app that has finger sized touch zones on a 4.3 inch widescreen phone would not on a 3.5 inch standard screen phone. Apple's designers know this. It's on purpose. And Apple's designers decide what its devices look like. That's why the iPhone 4 has a 3.5 inch screen. If you want to wonder why the original iPhone had a 3.5 screen, you've got to go back to 2007 when everyone else was still trying to copy the Blackberry. A 3.5 inch screen at that time was already unprecedented. I don't doubt Apple prototypes iPhones with different screen sizes and there is pressure to upgrade. But the fact Apple has not just shows how reluctant it is to break with consistency. If Apple moves to a new screen size, I think it will have to be larger for backward compatibility with old apps. I highly doubt it will go smaller, ever. All old apps would suck on a smaller screen, and Apple doesn't deliver sucky user experiences. And if it does go larger, it will be a big deal. I wouldn't expect a new screen size for a long time after that.

cheald 15y ago
Retina was Apple's "screen size upgrade" for the forseeable future. The devices like the Sensation and SGS II have screen resolutions of 800x480; 480x320 just wasn't going to look good next to them. Apple's stuck at 3.5" like you mentioned, so to compete with the new high-resolution (and larger screen, as a result) devices, they doubled the iPhone 4's resolution, which is a pretty decent compromise. One of the benefits of increasing resolution without increasing the display size is that your DPI skyrockets, and they jumped on that and marketed the crap out of it. The display looks "better", even if it's not larger. I would be genuinely surprised if Apple released an iPhone variant at >3.5". They might release an iPod Touch around ~3.75", but that's as high as they can really go before the 3:2 aspect ratio starts to make the device width prohibitive.
- w33ble 15y ago

dlss 15y ago

he's holding it wrong

plessthanpoint5 15y ago

i dunno, very skeptical about the conclusion here. w/ the nexus prime (purportedly) at 4.65", that seems pretty ideal -- decently big enough to read a pdf, but still small enough for portability (pocket transport, unlike a tablet needing to be tossed into a backpack/bag of some sort). nice merging/compromise of smartphone & tablet (which i suppose is the point w/ this new ics os).

mapster 15y ago

3.5" is very practical. Any larger it will surely fall out of your jeans pocket. And the screen is enough to complete all tasks since it is a productivity and communications device.

danbee 15y ago
This. It's all very well talking about how suitable the screen size is for thumb reach, but I bet being a decent size to fit in a pocket was also very much part of the decision too.
- mapster 15y ago
  that's wild conjecture unless you helped design the iphone.

marknutter 15y ago

I do not doubt that Apple not only did a lot of research on the perfect screen size, but they probably went overboard with it. They are nuts about these kinds of things. When I worked for Apple, I would always hear stories like how they created hundreds of different colored casings for the iPod mini and spent an entire week just to figure out which 5 to pick. Any other company would make that kind of decision in a matter of hours.

potatolicious 15y ago
I'd argue it's that attention to detail that has made Apple great - Apple doesn't settle for merely competent decision-making, and this is plainly visible in the end product. I now work for a company that has some of the highest-rated and most perennially popular apps on the app store, and the focus on details is insane. We will go in and fix a tiny animation inconsistency that would last barely half a second on screen - but people perceive this polish, whether they are conscious of it or not, and it crosses that gap between merely functional and actually pleasurable to use.

powertower 15y ago

Some men's thumbs are bigger than others.

jinushaun 15y ago
True, but if you're designing a product, you want to target the 80% and the average thumb length. As I see it, that's how the iPhone penetrated enterprise. Everyone is a consumer, but not everyone is a business consumer. Regular people go to work and turn into business people. If regular people love the iPhone at home, why wouldn't they want to take it to work? Why were companies in 2006 designing smartphones only for business people instead of for everyone?

senthilnayagam 15y ago

I have both, but I very often end up holding SGSII on left Hand and use right hand for navigation and keyboard input

scottjad 15y ago

When using their thumb to press, how often are right handed people using their right hand versus their left hand to hold the phone? I'm right handed and almost always am using my right hand, but the image in the article looks like the left hand is the common case. Anyway, if the right hand is the common case then the Galaxy is actually the ergonomically superior format because you have to ask yourself, what is most commonly in the furthest position that you would be pressing with your thumb? The back button. Yet on the Galaxy, with it's dedicated button, it's well within reach.

rayiner 15y ago

It's weird that everyone here is assuming that the user is a man. Lot's of 13 y/o girls have iPhones. Heck, I just did an experiment with my girlfriend. She's got pretty long fingers for a girl, and the iPhone is just about the right size for her to reach most of the screen with her thumb without stretching.

alperakgun 15y ago
This type of stories of a perfect size when small handed children use smartphones remind me of dogma created in the name of religion, which were easily falsified by science.
- rayiner 15y ago
  What on earth are you talking about? If you were designing a phone for the mass market, wouldn't you consider one-handed operability? Apparently, this is why Apple makes so much money. Because some people design phones without considering that 13 y/o girls texting and posting on Facebook are a core demographic.
  - lukeschlather 15y ago
    The (somewhat clumsy) point alperakgun was trying to make is that there's no such thing as one-size-fits-all, and it would be somewhat silly to only release a phone in a single size if your goal is to let everyone comfortably operate their phone with one hand. There's too much variation in hand sizes to properly achieve that goal. For some it will be too small, for others too large, and for some just right.
    - rayiner 15y ago
      I took his point to be that the hand-size explanation is something made up after the fact to justify the iPhone's 3.5 inch screen. I don't think that's a sensible critique. Apple undoubtedly considered the hand-size issue when choosing the iPhone's screen size. Clearly Apple's only goal wasn't to release a phone that everyone could comfortably operate. But consideration of hand sizes was undoubtedly a spec, to be balanced against other specs. The engineers probably got some ultimatum along the lines of: "we're only going to have one basic model, to maximize our margin, so figure out the screen size that hits the greatest number of target customers." The iPhone is a reasonable size for people ranging from teenage girls to guys with pretty large hands. Probably too big for people with child-like hands, and too small for the big guys with massive paws, but very likely hits 90% of the potential market. I don't think the 4.3" Android phones hit the same sweet spot. My girlfriend probably couldn't operate one comfortably with one hand. That's okay for Samsung, which has a segmented product line, but not for Apple.

mlmilleratmit 15y ago

It ain't all about hand size. My beat-up 3G definitely spends more time in my left front pocket than in my hand, so that's a personal priority.

Tichy 15y ago

Why do you have to touch the upper right corner with your thumb while walking and looking at Google maps? Some "problems" are overblown...

jsmcgd 15y ago

Am I the only person who holds their phone such that the base of their thumb is over the bottom corner of their phone and with the end of the thumb hovering over the middle of the screen? In this diagram the base of thumb seems to be halfway up one side of the phone which seems restrictive to me.

tallanvor 15y ago

Trying to guess why decisions are made, while an interesting exercise, is somewhat pointless. The author has decided, based on his own opinion, that the iPhone has a 3.5" screen because that is a size comfortable for many users. You can come up with equally possible reasons such as: Apple wants to maintain a consistent environment for users, and a larger screen may cause problems for some apps. Apple was unable to secure a sufficient number of larger screens and chose to keep the current size due to availability. Alternative to the last possibility, Apple may have committed to buying a larger number of screens than they needed and do not want to take the financial hit of writing them off. A larger device may have required more testing time, pushing the release date past the holiday season. *etc. Apple isn't likely to confirm or deny reasons they chose not to increase the screen size, so no matter how sure you are of your reasoning, it's still speculation.

gghootch 15y ago

When I hold my iPhone horizontally, these arches make a lot more sense.

PedroCandeias 15y ago

In my opinion, a phone needs to be extremely portable and easy to use with a single hand. I'm a tall man and the thumbs on my large hands have no trouble reaching anywhere in a 3.5" screen. I'm also rather athletic in build, so a device the size and weight of an iphone is just within the bounds of what I consider acceptable to carry all day in a front trouser pocket. I've experimented with phones that came in other sizes. The smaller ones sacrificed too much screen real estate, the larger ones were a bit unwieldy to touch / carry. This is only my opinion and YMMV, of course. But for me at least, it's so wonderful that there are products out there that take ergonomics into account instead of just dashing for the biggest possible spec.

Hov 15y ago

I'm wary of reading too much into this sort of thing. The author is going to have to do some serious back tracking the day Apple decides to increase the screen size.

RyanKearney 15y ago

This will hold true until the iPhone 5 comes with a 4"+ screen. Then it will become magical and revolutionary. Mark my words...

jinushaun 15y ago

Reminds me of why a 27" screen is perfect, but a 30" screen is too big. Sure, 3" may not sound like a big difference, but when 27" is already the absolute max, any more is a waste of space and provides negative return (e.g., parallax issues). Bigger is not always better.

covati 15y ago

This is probably also based on user study data. I actually took part in a user study where we had to play with about 10 different phone and tablet sized lucite rectangles. They all had numbered grids and you had to hold it different ways and say how far up/down/over you could reach. You also had to note your thoughts on holding, storing in pockets, etc. Afterwards we had an open discussion period and most people seemed to agree that the iphone size was close to best, but that perhaps the screen should take up more of the real-estate, like how it does on the droid.

jneal 15y ago

I have no problem holding my 4" HTC HD7 in one hand and reaching the entire screen with my thumb. Maybe the blogger has small hands?

sp4rki 15y ago

I could easily mean that Apple actually did some research to find out what the average user felt was a confortable horizontal stretch of their thumbs when using a touch based phone with one hand. Even if that was not the case, companies making phone's these days are forgetting that regardless of the myriad of features that smart phones might have these days, they're still mobile phones... and not small tablets. Mobile phone's should be confortable to use and confortable to keep in your jeans pocket in my opinion.

thehelix112 15y ago

You have small hands. :)

mycodebreaks 15y ago

This is the dumbest analysis about design.