What More Could You Have Wanted in a hypothetical ‘iPhone 5’ Today?
A 4-inch screen? What sign has Apple ever given that it will ever change from the one-size-fits-all 3.5-inch screen? Every single iPhone and iPod Touch ever released has had the exact same size screen.
Now, maybe you would prefer a 4-inch screen. Or maybe a 4.5-inch screen. And maybe someone else would prefer a slightly smaller 3.25-inch screen. That’s not how Apple rolls, especially with iOS devices. There is no doubt that some people would prefer a bigger screen. But nor is there any doubt that many other people would not. I wouldn’t. I like to see things get smaller, not bigger. Bigger is not necessarily better. Apple decided on the optimal size for an iPhone display back in 2006. If they thought 4-inches was better, overall, as the one true size for the iPhone display, then the original iPhone would have had a 4-inch display. It’s not like 4-inch screens are harder to make, or use some sort of new technology. If anything they’re surely easier to make, as the pixels are less dense.
One big advantage of a 3.5-inch display: with average-size hands, your thumb can reach any pixel on screen more comfortably while holding the phone one-handed. Judging from my email, many proponents of bigger screens — those who are disappointed that the iPhone 4S doesn’t sport a 4-inch display — see no such trade-off. Bigger is better, period, they say, and anyone who says otherwise is in denial that Apple is falling behind its competition. But by that logic, 5-inch screens would be better than 4-inch ones, and 6-inch screens better still. That’s silly. Bigger is not necessarily better for handheld/pocket devices.
4G LTE support? Impossible, given the value Apple places on battery life and device thinness. The thing to keep in mind about the A5 chip is not simply that it goes dual-core, roughly doubles CPU performance, and offers up to 7x graphics performance — no, the thing to keep in mind is that it does all these things while improving overall battery life versus the iPhone 4, in the exact same form factor.
4G LTE support would make that impossible. Anand Lal Shimpi explains:
"The iPhone 4 PCB is already incredibly small, not leaving any room for an extra chip to enable LTE without shrinking the size of the battery (or increasing the thickness of the phone to accomodate both a larger PCB and a big battery)."
If you value tech specs over practical real-world battery life, if you would like to choose from a variety of screen sizes ranging from 3-4.5 inches, if you would prefer a thicker bulkier form factor to accomodate large LTE chips and a bigger battery to power said LTE chips, then the iPhone is not and never will be the phone for you. And, lucky for you, there’s another platform, Android, that offers you everything you want.
People who claim to be disappointed that Apple’s 2011 new iPhone doesn’t have a bigger display or LTE are effectively arguing that the iPhone should be more like Android. Whereas in truth, the iOS and Android platforms are growing more different over time, not less.
How About at Least a New Form Factor? The gist I get, after talking to some valuable little birdies over the past few days, is that a new form factor was never in the cards for this year’s iPhone. It may or may not have ideally launched a few months sooner, but the plan was always for an iPhone 4 successor that looked like the 4 but had improved internal components. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next iPhone doesn’t change, or doesn’t change much, either.
Apple isn’t going to make a new form factor just for the sake of newness itself — they make changes only if the changes make things decidedly better. Thinner, stronger, smaller, more efficient. If they don’t have a new design that brings about such adjectives, they’re going to stick with what they have.
Apple pursues timeless style, not fleeting trendiness. This iPhone design might be like that of the Porsche 911 — a distinctive, iconic, timeless, instantly-recognizable representation of the product’s brand itself.