14 ms·

Hi Eric, I'm a hardware startup guy myself (our paths have crossed) with the distinction that my own "very specific set of skills" has been honed at smartphone

by davee5 4y ago

Hi Eric, I'm a hardware startup guy myself (our paths have crossed) with the distinction that my own "very specific set of skills" has been honed at smartphone megacompanies and smartphone startups. OSOM, Essential, HTC, Samsung, Apple. I've designed and built a lot of phones. I'm building one now. I think this is a noble effort, I personally prefer pocketable phones too, but I think there are nigh-insurmountable hurdles in your paths forward. - 1. Supply chain / component R&D - You will be very, very hard pressed to source a pre-existing, high quality, non-exclusive 5.4" display with a hole punch. If you end up doing this as your own startup then you're going to start by trying to buy off the shelf parts to keep costs down. But that display you want is simply not on any of the development roadmaps for the major component manufacturers. The industry has its own momentum, and the component suppliers have also been looking at the trendlines so they are building bigger and bigger. If you can't find the screen you want in a catalogue then you have to pay someone to build it. Convincing BOE et. al that your phone will sell enough to pay off R&D costs is unlikely, so be prepared to pay several million bucks in NRE to make it worth their time (it might still not be) and the wait a year for them to spin up the fabs. So ~$5M and 9-18 months later you have a display. - 2. Big players are uninterested, not uninformed - Big companies are drowning in market data. They know some people really, really want small phones. But it's a long-tail opportunity they're willfully ignoring, and people who need phones will still buy something even if reluctantly. I've been in the meetings, small phone advocacy goes nowhere. Also I'm a little surprised you're hoping an online petition will work after your prior experience trying to influence your acquirers. I presume you saw the inside of Fitbit / Google and how decisions are made...

mgkimsal 4y ago
> and the component suppliers have also been looking at the trendlines so they are building bigger and bigger but... aren't they influencing the trendlines by doing this? if the only things manufacturers make are bigger and bigger, they then get to use the sale of those bigger items as justification to continue to make bigger items? Also seems a bit weird with more eco-awareness going on that some manufacturers wouldn't explore/embrace 'smaller' in some sense. At scale, it would mean less materials, less shipping, less warehouse space, etc. Apple made a huge stink about getting rid of a wall plug in their packaging, and... over hundreds of millions of units, that little bit doesn't hurt. Wouldn't more 5" screens (vs 6"+) require less power, less weight/shipping, and less input materials?
- achow 4y ago
  iPhone mini is 3% of sale. That's the trend.
  - kringo 4y ago
    When did you see they promote mini? It's always the PRO since high margin is only there.
    - MichaelZuo 4y ago
      What about against the regular iphone 13? I think sales for that are something like 5x to 10x higher.
  - unethical_ban 4y ago
    Good point, with caveats: What is the comparison of 13-non pro vs. 13 mini? When I almost bought an iPhone recently, the thing that made me hesitate to consider for so long was that the mini is not pro - I want 90/120 hz, and they made a substandard flagship and blame poor sales on size. However, if the non-pro-fat 13 has great sales, you have a point. Second, it's only iphone. I hesitated for so long to consider it at all because it requires switching environments.
    - kalleboo 4y ago
      Is it even physically possible to fit all the high-end features in a mini? The 12 mini was panned for poor battery life and they just about got that fixed in the 13, but now you want 120 Hz (which will eat away battery life), someone else in here demanded all the cameras (which will take away internal space from battery), not to mention the difficulty of heat dissipation
      - unethical_ban 4y ago
        And here's the rub. I personally don't need the telephoto lens on the mini. But I tell you, after experiencing high refresh rate on a phone, it is terribly difficult to go back. Apple touts their variable refresh rate for better use of battery than competitors - surely they could put it on the mini and still get it through a day of use.
cehrlich 4y ago
I wonder if there isn't a third factor: 3. Android OEMs can't make a good small phone, even if there was the demand to produce it at scale Because of how efficient Apple's SoCs are compared to Snapdragons, Android phones typically have much larger batteries than iPhones while getting about the same battery life. Big battery requires a big phone. The occasional somewhat small Android phone (for example Galaxy S10e) tends to have awful battery life.
- nicpottier 4y ago
  Pixel 5 has great battery life. Note that none of the requirements are that it is some game machine or anything. Even less than top-tier chipsets are just fine for me. I just want a good camera in a pocketable form factor.
  - Closi 4y ago
    I think OP means that Android Phones with comparable battery life to an iOS device tend to have a larger battery to support that (when compared to the iPhone), which is more difficult with smaller enclosures (i.e. in a large phone it's easier to hide a large battery, and they don't scale entirely proportionally to screen size). i.e. the Pixel 5 will last about 10% longer than an iPhone 12 on a single charge, but it achieves this with a battery that is about 45% bigger (2,800 mAh vs 4,080mAh). Both have the same size screen (in fact, the iPhone is slightly larger).
  - nmstoker 4y ago
    The camera is often the reason i end up with a phone that's way bigger than I'd otherwise like. The Pixel 6XL has the better camera but otherwise I'd have been all over the 6 (or smaller if it had they done anything in that space). My Pixel 4 still feels way better sized when i go back to it periodically.
  - skavi 4y ago
    The Pixel 5 is closer in size to an iPhone 13 than a 13 Mini. IIRC it’s nearly the exact same size as an iPhone 11 Pro.
- 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nousermane 4y ago
Talking about notch/hole-punch displays. As somebody who never ever uses front-facing camera, can I have a phone/display without such defects, please?
- Saint_Genet 4y ago
  If you sum together the stuff people in this thread has suggested, you have the Homers Car of phones on your hands
  - mjevans 4y ago
    It's this or a Youtube clip that's maybe monetized by Disney at best... https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Homer https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Homer The Homer was a car that Home Simpson built to exactly what they wanted without any tradeoffs for off the shelf components, trends, or sensibility of what currently was common. It's also somewhat design by committee, with features like a more luxurious bubble for the adults, and a micro-bubble for the kids; presumably so you can ignore anything but the screams or silence. I also suspect this fictional car might have been an ingredient in the market shifting from minivans to SUVs. Those don't have such great audio isolation but were even taller than the minivans (which were taller than station wagons). Or it could be the 'backup camera' finally reaching a tolerable price level.
    - 7speter 4y ago
      I also suspect this fictional car might have been an ingredient in the market shifting from minivans to SUVs The simpsons also did the canyonero: https://youtu.be/PI_Jl5WFQkA https://youtu.be/PI_Jl5WFQkA
      - lowercased 4y ago
        Didn't Homer buy the women's model? Was it the F-series?
        4y ago
oceanplexian 4y ago
> Big companies are drowning in market data. They know some people really, really want small phones. But it's a long-tail opportunity they're willfully ignoring I would argue that they don’t know what people want at all, since market data just reinforces previously held assumptions. For example if you surveyed people in 2006 what kind of phone they wanted, most consumers would probably ask for a better flip phone. It wasn’t until Apple came along and defined a new market that Smartphones even became a thing in the mainstream consciousness.
- toqy 4y ago
  Smaller screened smartphones aren't a new market that needs to be defined though. Most people know what they are by virtue of having lived through the era that they were the only choice. And as OP pointed out, Apple makes a smaller screened smartphone, so they exist. In some comment on this post someone said that it accounts for 3% of Apple's phone sales. How big is the group of people that want a smaller smart phone but aren't willing or able to switch to Apple? Who knows. My intuition says not many, but maybe we'll find out through OP's efforts. I'm an iPhone user and the only reason I haven't switched to something like the iPhone Mini is because I want the better camera on the pro's.
  - GekkePrutser 4y ago
    Apple's limited success is not only a factor of the screen size but also market positioning. The mini is inferior in some specs to other iPhones but at the same time really high end as far as mobiles in general go. That makes it a niche product even if screen size was not a factor at all. It targets people that have plenty of cash for a flagship but are willing to forego the top tier specs for a smaller size. Apple prefers you just buy the pro. And if you don't have much cash you can get the reheated 2017 iphone 8 with SE slapped on it :) I bet if they made a mini T the price of an SE with a more limited camera and screen spec than the current mini it would take 50% of SE sales away. You can't judge the market viability of one aspect based on a single model.
    - hedgehog 4y ago
ufmace 4y ago
I suspect that part of the problem is that, as measured by actual purchases, people don't really prioritize small size and displays that much. Look at how long all of the requirement lists posted around these threads are. Some people really want a nice camera, some a headphone jack, some a SD card or big battery etc. I would expect that it's a fact of life in a small phone that you can't fit everything anyone might want, but everyone has a different list of must-haves, making it much harder to make one device that all of the small-phone-wanter market will actually buy. And price. If you really want some one-off thing, you've gotta pay more for it. Would you pay $2k, $3k, more for a great small phone? Seems likely that such prices would help a lot at getting them made. But in reality, people seem to refuse to pay more than a modest markup over the mainstream model with tens of millions produced. Sorry folks, I don't think it works like that.
- tazjin 4y ago
  > Some people really want a nice camera, some a headphone jack, some a SD card or big battery etc We used to have these things in small form factors. Those of us annoyed by where the big companies forced the direction of development are mostly very aware that things have regressed hard.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- kalleboo 4y ago
  > But in reality, people seem to refuse to pay more than a modest markup over the mainstream model with tens of millions produced Worse, they expect it to be cheaper since "it has less screen and battery it must be cheaper to make!"
bscphil 4y ago
> people who need phones will still buy something even if reluctantly I'll be blunt: no I won't. I reluctantly bought the phone I still use (a moto X4) back in 2019, at which point it was already getting old. It was one of the smaller Android phones available at the time; I measured it diagonally corner to corner (including bezel) at 159 mm (6.26 inches). The screen size is 130 mm (5.2 in) according to Wikipedia. This phone is in fact much too big for me, and I'm not happy with it. But I will be sticking with this phone into the indefinite future: until it breaks, becomes unusable, or a worthy replacement arises (a phone the size of the Nexus 5X or preferably smaller, with my must-have features). In the event I can't get this I will switch to a cheap feature phone since I need something for emergency use. I'll look into the mp3 player market to see if there's something I can use for playing music and audio books, maybe if I'm lucky there's something with a nice screen and an e-reader. I'm sure you're right and some people are more willing to compromise than me. However, what also seems likely is that many people are somewhere in between and will wait until their current phone is unusable before reluctantly downgrading to whatever the latest model is. Surely plenty of sales are lost due to this.
- thih9 4y ago
  > In the event I can't get this I will switch to a cheap feature phone since I need something for emergency use. I tried switching to a feature phone and was surprised how often I use a smartphone; and how many people, banks, government organizations, restaurants, etc, assume that you have one.
  - depereo 4y ago
    Yes. COVID contact tracing in New Zealand nearly completely relied on QR-code sign-ins with an ios or android app, for example. My company has an app to manage my sick/annual leave in. Sure, there are fallbacks, but they're inconvenient and time or energy intensive in a way a phone isn't. There are vanishingly small numbers of people who will insist on a perfect-or-nothing approach to smartphones. This market segment is unserviceable. Sure, the size will be right, but it won't have the right battery size, or the battery has to be swappable on-the-go, or it didn't have quite the right sd card option, or maybe the software isn't 'polished' enough, or it had to have two headphone jacks. There will be something 'not good enough' and therefore it's passed over even though they want a 'small' phone.
Spooky23 4y ago
> Big companies are drowning in market data. They know some people really, really want small phones. But it's a long-tail opportunity they're willfully ignoring, and people who need phones will still buy something even if reluctantly. I've been in the meetings, small phone advocacy goes nowhere. I love my iPhone 12 mini and prefer the form factor, but will go bigger, because of battery life.
- skavi 4y ago
  The iPhone 13 Mini improved battery life significantly. The A15 series is significantly more efficient and they managed to increase the battery capacity. It should last somewhere in the range of 30% longer than the 12 Mini.
usrusr 4y ago
“and people who need phones will still buy something even if reluctantly“ So true... And my anecdotal observation suggest another detail that makes small unattractive to brands: the way my social circles happen to be, I crossed path with plenty of owners of various incarnations of the Xperia Compact (r.i.p.). If my observations where representative, the Compacts would come close to outnumbering iPhones. They all wanted a small phone, somewhat waterproof and with a reasonably good camera. Almost all of them identifying strongly with some outdoor hobby like cycling or rock climbing, but wouldn't want a dedicated "outdoor" or "sports" phone. So far so good, looks like a pattern. But they have another thing in common: none of them would ever consider buying a high end phone (the Compacts were, or reasonably close) at or near release price.
derefr 4y ago
> You will be very, very hard pressed to source a pre-existing, high quality, non-exclusive 5.4" display with a hole punch How about getting one of those foldable screens in the larger standard size, and then just... tucking away the excess inside the phone body? Y'know, like the marketing material for the iPhone X claimed it was doing: https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-0fd6daf2b9b742bf5dbf10080283beb2 https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-0fd6daf2b9b742bf5dbf10... (though it actually wasn't.)
Pasorrijer 4y ago
You helped design the HTC EVO 3D!! I loved that phone what a great design.
- davee5 4y ago
  Thanks for the kind words! I love the "helped" preface because it's exactly right, design is a team sport and I strongly believe in giving credit where due. Ben Chen (https://www.benchendesign.com/ https://www.benchendesign.com/) was the creative lead on EVO 3D. I lead the technical side of the design for that one but he set the vision and the aesthetic. Great dude to work with too.
JMiao 4y ago
Also I'm a little surprised you're hoping an online petition will work after your prior experience trying to influence your acquirers. I presume you saw the inside of Fitbit / Google and how decisions are made... probably because eric has a history of pd from a customer frustration pov whereas your well articulated explanation mainly represents manufacturers' pov. btw, such kind of math-checks-out logic is what keeps someone from developing the iphone in 2004. everything about mobile then made sense...to carriers and manufacturers.
nine_k 4y ago
I go to aliexpress, and I see a number of 4" screens. Some even come with capacitive touch sensors mounted on top. Yes, they are low-resolution by today's standards, something like 800x480. Still, they are available for those who might be considering to produce a really compact phone. Instead, they go to high-end coffee machines and the like, and to RPi tinkerers. My hunch that the limiting factor would mostly be the battery. Modern radios and modern CPUs and GPUs consume more, and you don't want to market a very slow phone, or a phone that has 6 hours of daily usage worth of battery. And you can't hide as much battery behind a small screen.
Wowfunhappy 4y ago
> You will be very, very hard pressed to source a pre-existing, high quality, non-exclusive 5.4" display with a hole punch. I think GP probably needs to be more flexible about their "must-have"'s. If you could get a nice phone with a small screen, would a small bezel on top for a camera be such a disaster?
zanderz 4y ago
All the comments about how it will be too expensive and difficult to source unusually sized parts make me wonder how they make something like the Hammerhead Karoo for $400 - an android device with a 3.2" sunlight readable reflective screen (supposedly even more expensive), custom software. etc. Is the market for a bike computer so much larger than that for a smaller phone? I don't think they're burning VC, it was crowdfunded IIRC.

by davee5 4y ago

mgkimsal 4y ago

> and the component suppliers have also been looking at the trendlines so they are building bigger and bigger but... aren't they influencing the trendlines by doing this? if the only things manufacturers make are bigger and bigger, they then get to use the sale of those bigger items as justification to continue to make bigger items? Also seems a bit weird with more eco-awareness going on that some manufacturers wouldn't explore/embrace 'smaller' in some sense. At scale, it would mean less materials, less shipping, less warehouse space, etc. Apple made a huge stink about getting rid of a wall plug in their packaging, and... over hundreds of millions of units, that little bit doesn't hurt. Wouldn't more 5" screens (vs 6"+) require less power, less weight/shipping, and less input materials?

achow 4y ago
iPhone mini is 3% of sale. That's the trend.
- kringo 4y ago
  When did you see they promote mini? It's always the PRO since high margin is only there.
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    What about against the regular iphone 13? I think sales for that are something like 5x to 10x higher.
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  Good point, with caveats: What is the comparison of 13-non pro vs. 13 mini? When I almost bought an iPhone recently, the thing that made me hesitate to consider for so long was that the mini is not pro - I want 90/120 hz, and they made a substandard flagship and blame poor sales on size. However, if the non-pro-fat 13 has great sales, you have a point. Second, it's only iphone. I hesitated for so long to consider it at all because it requires switching environments.
  - kalleboo 4y ago
    Is it even physically possible to fit all the high-end features in a mini? The 12 mini was panned for poor battery life and they just about got that fixed in the 13, but now you want 120 Hz (which will eat away battery life), someone else in here demanded all the cameras (which will take away internal space from battery), not to mention the difficulty of heat dissipation
    - unethical_ban 4y ago
      And here's the rub. I personally don't need the telephoto lens on the mini. But I tell you, after experiencing high refresh rate on a phone, it is terribly difficult to go back. Apple touts their variable refresh rate for better use of battery than competitors - surely they could put it on the mini and still get it through a day of use.

cehrlich 4y ago

I wonder if there isn't a third factor: 3. Android OEMs can't make a good small phone, even if there was the demand to produce it at scale Because of how efficient Apple's SoCs are compared to Snapdragons, Android phones typically have much larger batteries than iPhones while getting about the same battery life. Big battery requires a big phone. The occasional somewhat small Android phone (for example Galaxy S10e) tends to have awful battery life.

nicpottier 4y ago
Pixel 5 has great battery life. Note that none of the requirements are that it is some game machine or anything. Even less than top-tier chipsets are just fine for me. I just want a good camera in a pocketable form factor.
- Closi 4y ago
  I think OP means that Android Phones with comparable battery life to an iOS device tend to have a larger battery to support that (when compared to the iPhone), which is more difficult with smaller enclosures (i.e. in a large phone it's easier to hide a large battery, and they don't scale entirely proportionally to screen size). i.e. the Pixel 5 will last about 10% longer than an iPhone 12 on a single charge, but it achieves this with a battery that is about 45% bigger (2,800 mAh vs 4,080mAh). Both have the same size screen (in fact, the iPhone is slightly larger).
- nmstoker 4y ago
  The camera is often the reason i end up with a phone that's way bigger than I'd otherwise like. The Pixel 6XL has the better camera but otherwise I'd have been all over the 6 (or smaller if it had they done anything in that space). My Pixel 4 still feels way better sized when i go back to it periodically.
- skavi 4y ago
  The Pixel 5 is closer in size to an iPhone 13 than a 13 Mini. IIRC it’s nearly the exact same size as an iPhone 11 Pro.
4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

nousermane 4y ago

Talking about notch/hole-punch displays. As somebody who never ever uses front-facing camera, can I have a phone/display without such defects, please?

Saint_Genet 4y ago
If you sum together the stuff people in this thread has suggested, you have the Homers Car of phones on your hands
- mjevans 4y ago
  It's this or a Youtube clip that's maybe monetized by Disney at best... https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Homer https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Homer The Homer was a car that Home Simpson built to exactly what they wanted without any tradeoffs for off the shelf components, trends, or sensibility of what currently was common. It's also somewhat design by committee, with features like a more luxurious bubble for the adults, and a micro-bubble for the kids; presumably so you can ignore anything but the screams or silence. I also suspect this fictional car might have been an ingredient in the market shifting from minivans to SUVs. Those don't have such great audio isolation but were even taller than the minivans (which were taller than station wagons). Or it could be the 'backup camera' finally reaching a tolerable price level.
  - 7speter 4y ago
    I also suspect this fictional car might have been an ingredient in the market shifting from minivans to SUVs The simpsons also did the canyonero: https://youtu.be/PI_Jl5WFQkA https://youtu.be/PI_Jl5WFQkA
    - lowercased 4y ago
      Didn't Homer buy the women's model? Was it the F-series?
      - 4y ago

oceanplexian 4y ago

> Big companies are drowning in market data. They know some people really, really want small phones. But it's a long-tail opportunity they're willfully ignoring I would argue that they don’t know what people want at all, since market data just reinforces previously held assumptions. For example if you surveyed people in 2006 what kind of phone they wanted, most consumers would probably ask for a better flip phone. It wasn’t until Apple came along and defined a new market that Smartphones even became a thing in the mainstream consciousness.

toqy 4y ago
Smaller screened smartphones aren't a new market that needs to be defined though. Most people know what they are by virtue of having lived through the era that they were the only choice. And as OP pointed out, Apple makes a smaller screened smartphone, so they exist. In some comment on this post someone said that it accounts for 3% of Apple's phone sales. How big is the group of people that want a smaller smart phone but aren't willing or able to switch to Apple? Who knows. My intuition says not many, but maybe we'll find out through OP's efforts. I'm an iPhone user and the only reason I haven't switched to something like the iPhone Mini is because I want the better camera on the pro's.
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  Apple's limited success is not only a factor of the screen size but also market positioning. The mini is inferior in some specs to other iPhones but at the same time really high end as far as mobiles in general go. That makes it a niche product even if screen size was not a factor at all. It targets people that have plenty of cash for a flagship but are willing to forego the top tier specs for a smaller size. Apple prefers you just buy the pro. And if you don't have much cash you can get the reheated 2017 iphone 8 with SE slapped on it :) I bet if they made a mini T the price of an SE with a more limited camera and screen spec than the current mini it would take 50% of SE sales away. You can't judge the market viability of one aspect based on a single model.
  - hedgehog 4y ago

ufmace 4y ago

I suspect that part of the problem is that, as measured by actual purchases, people don't really prioritize small size and displays that much. Look at how long all of the requirement lists posted around these threads are. Some people really want a nice camera, some a headphone jack, some a SD card or big battery etc. I would expect that it's a fact of life in a small phone that you can't fit everything anyone might want, but everyone has a different list of must-haves, making it much harder to make one device that all of the small-phone-wanter market will actually buy. And price. If you really want some one-off thing, you've gotta pay more for it. Would you pay $2k, $3k, more for a great small phone? Seems likely that such prices would help a lot at getting them made. But in reality, people seem to refuse to pay more than a modest markup over the mainstream model with tens of millions produced. Sorry folks, I don't think it works like that.

tazjin 4y ago
> Some people really want a nice camera, some a headphone jack, some a SD card or big battery etc We used to have these things in small form factors. Those of us annoyed by where the big companies forced the direction of development are mostly very aware that things have regressed hard.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
kalleboo 4y ago
> But in reality, people seem to refuse to pay more than a modest markup over the mainstream model with tens of millions produced Worse, they expect it to be cheaper since "it has less screen and battery it must be cheaper to make!"

bscphil 4y ago

> people who need phones will still buy something even if reluctantly I'll be blunt: no I won't. I reluctantly bought the phone I still use (a moto X4) back in 2019, at which point it was already getting old. It was one of the smaller Android phones available at the time; I measured it diagonally corner to corner (including bezel) at 159 mm (6.26 inches). The screen size is 130 mm (5.2 in) according to Wikipedia. This phone is in fact much too big for me, and I'm not happy with it. But I will be sticking with this phone into the indefinite future: until it breaks, becomes unusable, or a worthy replacement arises (a phone the size of the Nexus 5X or preferably smaller, with my must-have features). In the event I can't get this I will switch to a cheap feature phone since I need something for emergency use. I'll look into the mp3 player market to see if there's something I can use for playing music and audio books, maybe if I'm lucky there's something with a nice screen and an e-reader. I'm sure you're right and some people are more willing to compromise than me. However, what also seems likely is that many people are somewhere in between and will wait until their current phone is unusable before reluctantly downgrading to whatever the latest model is. Surely plenty of sales are lost due to this.

thih9 4y ago
> In the event I can't get this I will switch to a cheap feature phone since I need something for emergency use. I tried switching to a feature phone and was surprised how often I use a smartphone; and how many people, banks, government organizations, restaurants, etc, assume that you have one.
- depereo 4y ago
  Yes. COVID contact tracing in New Zealand nearly completely relied on QR-code sign-ins with an ios or android app, for example. My company has an app to manage my sick/annual leave in. Sure, there are fallbacks, but they're inconvenient and time or energy intensive in a way a phone isn't. There are vanishingly small numbers of people who will insist on a perfect-or-nothing approach to smartphones. This market segment is unserviceable. Sure, the size will be right, but it won't have the right battery size, or the battery has to be swappable on-the-go, or it didn't have quite the right sd card option, or maybe the software isn't 'polished' enough, or it had to have two headphone jacks. There will be something 'not good enough' and therefore it's passed over even though they want a 'small' phone.

Spooky23 4y ago

> Big companies are drowning in market data. They know some people really, really want small phones. But it's a long-tail opportunity they're willfully ignoring, and people who need phones will still buy something even if reluctantly. I've been in the meetings, small phone advocacy goes nowhere. I love my iPhone 12 mini and prefer the form factor, but will go bigger, because of battery life.

skavi 4y ago
The iPhone 13 Mini improved battery life significantly. The A15 series is significantly more efficient and they managed to increase the battery capacity. It should last somewhere in the range of 30% longer than the 12 Mini.

usrusr 4y ago

“and people who need phones will still buy something even if reluctantly“ So true... And my anecdotal observation suggest another detail that makes small unattractive to brands: the way my social circles happen to be, I crossed path with plenty of owners of various incarnations of the Xperia Compact (r.i.p.). If my observations where representative, the Compacts would come close to outnumbering iPhones. They all wanted a small phone, somewhat waterproof and with a reasonably good camera. Almost all of them identifying strongly with some outdoor hobby like cycling or rock climbing, but wouldn't want a dedicated "outdoor" or "sports" phone. So far so good, looks like a pattern. But they have another thing in common: none of them would ever consider buying a high end phone (the Compacts were, or reasonably close) at or near release price.

derefr 4y ago

> You will be very, very hard pressed to source a pre-existing, high quality, non-exclusive 5.4" display with a hole punch How about getting one of those foldable screens in the larger standard size, and then just... tucking away the excess inside the phone body? Y'know, like the marketing material for the iPhone X claimed it was doing: https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-0fd6daf2b9b742bf5dbf10080283beb2 https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-0fd6daf2b9b742bf5dbf10... (though it actually wasn't.)

Pasorrijer 4y ago

You helped design the HTC EVO 3D!! I loved that phone what a great design.

davee5 4y ago
Thanks for the kind words! I love the "helped" preface because it's exactly right, design is a team sport and I strongly believe in giving credit where due. Ben Chen (https://www.benchendesign.com/ https://www.benchendesign.com/) was the creative lead on EVO 3D. I lead the technical side of the design for that one but he set the vision and the aesthetic. Great dude to work with too.

JMiao 4y ago

Also I'm a little surprised you're hoping an online petition will work after your prior experience trying to influence your acquirers. I presume you saw the inside of Fitbit / Google and how decisions are made... probably because eric has a history of pd from a customer frustration pov whereas your well articulated explanation mainly represents manufacturers' pov. btw, such kind of math-checks-out logic is what keeps someone from developing the iphone in 2004. everything about mobile then made sense...to carriers and manufacturers.

nine_k 4y ago

I go to aliexpress, and I see a number of 4" screens. Some even come with capacitive touch sensors mounted on top. Yes, they are low-resolution by today's standards, something like 800x480. Still, they are available for those who might be considering to produce a really compact phone. Instead, they go to high-end coffee machines and the like, and to RPi tinkerers. My hunch that the limiting factor would mostly be the battery. Modern radios and modern CPUs and GPUs consume more, and you don't want to market a very slow phone, or a phone that has 6 hours of daily usage worth of battery. And you can't hide as much battery behind a small screen.

Wowfunhappy 4y ago

> You will be very, very hard pressed to source a pre-existing, high quality, non-exclusive 5.4" display with a hole punch. I think GP probably needs to be more flexible about their "must-have"'s. If you could get a nice phone with a small screen, would a small bezel on top for a camera be such a disaster?

zanderz 4y ago

All the comments about how it will be too expensive and difficult to source unusually sized parts make me wonder how they make something like the Hammerhead Karoo for $400 - an android device with a 3.2" sunlight readable reflective screen (supposedly even more expensive), custom software. etc. Is the market for a bike computer so much larger than that for a smaller phone? I don't think they're burning VC, it was crowdfunded IIRC.