Next-Gen iPhone & iPhone Nano Speculation

May be worth waiting to see what the Nexus Prime has to offer. It is scheduled to be announced next week (I believe) and reportedly has a curved 4.6" screen with 1280 x 720 resolution.

Pretty big screen but not as large as the Note which looks to be quite unwieldy to me!

 

4.6 is the wrong side of usable for my girly hands, sadly, no matter how much pixel density they're cramming in (it should be a fantastic screen!). Can't wait to see what it's finally like.

 

Good bye Steve.

 

Only 56 years old.
R.I.P.

 

Surprisingly, 4.6", 16:9 is actually an almost ideal edge-to-edge fit for the iPhone 4 shape (i.e. leaving some space at the top and bottom where the rounded corners start). It's too big for one-handed operation, though.

Siri is looking really nice if a bit laggy. But really, it should be controllable through a watch, or an iPod Nano (with a dedicated button).

 

QFT

 

I would have been perfectly happy with a 4" screen at the same 960x640 resolution. And the leaked prototype aluminum unibody would have sealed the deal for me. Those specs should have been comparable to superstars of this fall (Nexus Prime and Galaxy Note), but next summer, a iPhone 5 with just a 4" display at 960x640 would be already outdated.

 

I don't think backwards compatibility would be much of a problem. You could run older apps with black borders (and an on-screen home button) which wouldn't look much different from what you get today. Supporting a higher resolution (at the same pixel density) is a small change for many apps, though some may need extended layout tweaks.

 

Even an AMOLED screen reflects light differently than any bezel material. And in average/bright lighting conditions the reflected light will always dominate backlight leakage from a high-quality LCD.

But I don't think it's something to be worried about. Some users may even prefer a wallpaper/frame to black bars.

 

What is the killer app for these big screens with high resolution? The 720p screen suggests HD video.

Is video that prevalent on a phone, at the tradeoff of battery life? I sync'd some movies to the iPhone but never watched a full one. Some short video podcasts are okay but they're not HD nor are most Youtube videos.

I get the sense that designers don't really have good ideas on what to do with the increasing power of SOCs so they concentrate it mostly towards the display/graphics. And if they can't keep putting more powerful SOCs in phones, then new sales would be hampered.

 

"Desktop-like" web browsing.
I would gladly pay lots for a smartphone with a large 4->4.3" screen and 720p resolution that'd allow me to navigate the web like I do in tablets, notebooks or desktops, instead of having to depend on tens of ridiculous apps that exist for the sole purpose of compensating for the lack of visual information that can be shown in a typical 3.7" WVGA smartphone.



In a lesser scale youtube HD videos and games with on-screen controls. Most games (except Angry Birds, accelerometer-based racing games and some others) are borderline impractical to play in my N8's 3.5" screen or my Defy's 3.7" screen.

 

As well adapted as I am to phones with larger, 4.5" and up displays and as easily as my hands accommodate them, I still appreciate the extra one-handed usability and portability of the current iPhone displays, and I wouldn't trade the quality of the display for any phone out there (after comparing them all in person). Of course, I would still prefer a larger screen size, and it's the wasted space on the phone that drives me crazy the most.

In the quest for pixel density, Apple could leverage the 150K+ apps built for iPad and increase the phone's resolution to that level. That would be a poor choice versus making a clean break for a much higher resolution corresponding to a larger screen size, though.

Overall, the 4S will still be the performance king, the display size still has its usefulness, and it'll be running in the range of current "4G" speeds, so it's still a top option for now.

 

The only reason the iPhone would get a larger screen is if it doesn't change the physical size of the phone.
This is first and foremost a phone.

From a design perspective there really wouldn't be anything gained going from 3.5" to 4" if the resolution stays the same.
It's all about the user experience offered by the software and in that sense the iPhone is still offering the better overall experience.

It's hard to argue against the fact that the Apple A5 is still the fastest overall SoC available.

 

Your arguments lose validity once you talk about user experience.
A larger screen enhances the user experience greatly. Specially if you go from 3.5 to ~4".

With at least a 3.7" 16:10 screen, they could even keep the same dimensions and just cut on those huge top and bottom bezels.

 

The difference in browsing convenience between 3.5" N900 vs 4" N950 is immense. I never thought just that little could make so huge difference. The resolution for both is nearly the same as well.

Though I'd kill for a 4.5-5" screen, HW qwerty kb and 3000+ mAh battery phone. I don't care if it weighs >200g and is 2cm thick. I've got big hands and pockets