Years after holding on to the notion of smaller being usually the better, looks like Apple would eventually change its position and opinions about the optimal screen size for smartphones. The company which started off with a (then) large 3.5 inch display on the iPhone, gradually made the shift to a 4 inch display last year with the iPhone 5 – thanks to the increasing success of larger screened handsets from competing manufacturers.
During the early stages of the iPhone 5S related rumors, there were talks about the possibility of Apple opting for a larger display when it launches the successor to the iPhone 5. We very well know that that didn’t happen. Instead, Apple came up with two new devices with 4 inch displays – the same size as that of the iPhone 5. Now that we’re done with the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c launches, all eyes turn towards the iPhone 6 announcement sometime next year and according to one analyst, Apple would finally take the plunge and introduce an iPhone with a much bigger display in 2014.
According to Jefferies and Co, analyst Peter Misek, Apple is likely to bend to pressure and launch an iPhone with a 4.8 inch display when the current generation iPhones get old. While it is a known fact that Apple tests larger screened devices up to 5.7 inches in display size just to “check out” how it will do as a possible future iPhone, it is quite unlikely that we would see a phablet from Apple. However, they have also been known to test devices that have 4.5 to 4.8 inch displays – which if I may add, isn’t really “big” and is an optimal screen size on today’s smartphones.
Misek in his report note adds that he estimates around 50 percent of smartphones shipped today have displays 4 inches or bigger and that the increase in size might actually result in people buying more iPhones when the new launches happen sometime in the future.
If this prediction does indeed turn out to be true, it would be a revolutionary departure from Apple’s once famous stand about easy one hand usage on smartphones.
