After transitioning from an iPhone to a (Samsung) Android, the iPhone screen seems so small that it's like a toy. My friends who have switched had the same experience.
I don't want to start an iOS-Android flame war because iPhones are great in many ways and both sets of devices have their pros / cons. But IMHO Apple should continue to invest in bigger and better displays if it expects to compete effectively with Samsung.
I had a funny experience when I got my Galaxy Note II a year or so ago. I had a Nexus 7 that I used at home all the time for web browsing and general stuff. But the day I got the Note II was the last day I used the Nexus 7 for much of anything. There just wasn't enough of a difference to matter. I had everything on my phone and nearly the same screen size as the Nexus 7 - but in a lightweight version that fit in my pocket.
More recently, I was cleaning out a drawer and found my old Google Ion (HTC MyTouch). The screen height on that phone is just about exactly the same as the screen width on my Galaxy Note 3. (My daughter has the Note II now.)
Maybe the reason these big phones work so well for me is that I don't use them as phones much at all. They are pocket Internet tablets.
> Maybe the reason these big phones work so well for me is that I don't use them as phones much at all. They are pocket Internet tablets.
Exactly. I try avoiding talking on the phone as much as possible. Text/email is the way I prefer. And reading/browsing is what I do most on phone. Hence bigger screen is a big plus.
I think one reason big phones took off in Europe/Asia was because much larger percentage of people use public transportation, meaning they spend an hour or more every working day sitting/standing in bus/subway. How do you use that time? Of course you read/watch/browse using your phone and bigger screen is a big plus. Talking on the phone is usually not practical.
Americans mostly have to drive which means they can't browse/watch while moving from 1 location to another.
I'm pretty sure NONE of the top Apple designers/execs commute to work in a public transportation or be driven in a limo, hence they don't understand WHY bigger screen phone is so attractive to a big chunk of users out there.
> I think one reason big phones took off in Europe/Asia was because much larger percentage of people use public transportation
I didn't notice that in Europe where here in France a lot of people have iPhones. But China and HK? Full of big screen phones, Galaxy Notes are extremely popular there and I actually never heard of those phones before going to HK.
Conversely, when I use my father's iPhone, it fits really well in my hands.
Its pretty well known that apple does user testing with children, and by designing a product that all ages can use they reserve a place in the mind of the next generation of smartphone users.
This is an interesting opinion to me. My background:
I had a "dumb phone" until Sept. 2012 when I bought myself an iPhone 5 as my first smartphone. I'm a large guy (6'4") and have been more than pleased with the size. It fits in my pocket perfectly; I can use one hand to do everything; I don't have any trouble with the display at all.
However, I've noticed this general trend towards bigger phones as the future. In my mind, I always thought the larger the phone, the more the hassle. Phablets look utterly ridiculous. In your opinion, what are the benefits to a larger phone? Do you game? Is text larger/easier to read? I am genuinely interested.
As another note: I have my iPhone in a case. It's not an Otter Box or anything, but when I take it out of the case occasionally it feels ridiculously lightweight and small. After a few minutes/hours, the feeling normalizes and then suddenly the case, which was perfectly fine just a few hours ago, feels quite cumbersome. Could this be a factor in your perception?
Larger percentage of people in Europe/Asia commute via public transportation, meaning they have more than an hour a working day where they can't do much else other than read something.
With smartphones people started reading/browsing/watching/gaming. And of course for these, bigger phone is more attractive.
They couldn't care less what they look like as long as they get the functionality they want out of the phones.
I can see that use case clearly now. I, too, commute with public transportation and quickly started bringing actual books, and actually just recently bought a Kindle Fire for the commute. It's wonderful.
Honestly (unrelated to screen size), I don't think I'll ever want to go back to paying money for a car to haul my own ass to work every day. I realized the other day that if I get a car that costs me $500/mo. for 72 months and commute to work on average 21 days a month, I'm spending $24 per round trip. Have the car for 15 years? Still $8/trip, not to mention maintenance, gas, parking and all of the other hassles. Sorry for the ramble, this is something I just realized after moving to a city in the States and realizing how freaking awesome public transportation is!
Haha, awesome that you actually crunched the numbers.
One reason the poor in US have EXTRA hard time getting out of poverty IMO is the requirement of a private car. If a poor American happens to lose use of a car (breakdown, gas price, etc), he/she immediately starts having hard time just getting to work. They could, but it takes 1-2 hr each way. The same commute would take half that time with a private car.
And don't forget they have to pick up kids, go to medical care, grocery shop, etc.
In other countries with well connected/cheap public transportation, no such barrier exists.
Part of the problem with the iphone form factor for me is that there are these great honking useless black 'tabs' off the top and bottom of the screen. The footprint of the screen is considerably smaller than the footprint of the phone. Widen the phone a little, shorten it a little, and you get the same ratio but in a larger screen taking up a greater proportion of the footprint. So much wasted space.
To provide a counter-anecdote, I really wish there was a flagship-class Android device the size of current iPhones. My Nexus 5 is difficult for me to use one-handed and makes itself known in my pocket more than I'd like.
Sony's Z1 Compact is close in screen size, but its external dimensions are nearly identical to the Moto X, which has a 4.7" screen.
This is exactly what I want too. Pocket-sized tablets may have their advantages, but the compact size of the iPhone is more attractive to me. Make an Android flagship phone of that size, that'd be #1 on my list.
Funny. I transitioned from an Android to an iPhone and marveled that it didn't feel like I was carrying a brick in my pocket anymore, and that one-handed use was SO MUCH EASISER. You're right, Apple should invest in larger displays, but iPhones should be more like their laptop line: let the consumer pick the display size.
My problem with Android vs iPhone is the inverted security model. On Android the app tells me what it is going to do and I have to take it or leave it. I end up leaving it and thus have no apps. On iPhone I can finely tune which permissions I allow an app to have. Any fix for this on the horizon? I am a fan of the more liberal app store policy on Android, read bitcoin, but not to the extent where I would allow apps to have more access than I think they should.
App Ops was available briefly and did exactly what you want. Google made it inaccessable in 4.4, claiming it was only intended for testing. It's possible to restore on a rooted device, but more sophisticated solutions are available with root.
At the moment, I use XPrivacy, which has very fine-grained control, confirm-on-use for permissions and the ability to supply fake data. As far as certain apps are concerned, I'm in Pyongyang.
Seem I prefer my iPad mini + iPhone one-two punch combo. It means that I have a bigger device that is still small enough to carry around in my bag and nice enough to be more useful than a Laptop for anything but work related stuff, but with a small easy to use phone that I can use for actual phone tasks like calling.
I can leave my iPad at home and still be connected, and splitting my workload across two devices means my batteries both last for ages. Some prefer the convergence, and i totally get that, but I had used the original large android handsets, and now I've decided that 4-4.5" is the absolute maximum I feel comfortable with for using in one hand. If I, using two hands, I may as well use my 8" tablet with a much better screen and processor!
I like that my iPhone 5S can go in my back pocket and I can sit on it (on all but the hardest of chairs) without damaging it (in a reasonable magpul case).
i don't know about you but people carrying Samsung Galaxy phones look ridicules when using the phone (and not to mention Galaxy S V is even BIGGER than S IV)
Interesting. Ever since I switched to an iPhone 5 from a 4S, the bigger screen feels obnoxious and less handy. To each his own, I suppose, but I don't think I will ever need or desire a screen larger than the 4S.
Wow, I never knew how different the US was to the rest of the world with smartphone market share. Gartner says [0] that Apple has just 12% worldwide, whereas Samsung has 32%. Android as a whole is at an incredible 82%.
It's really hard to understand why somebody would over report Apple share. I guess it's some kind of Apple fanship. Anyways, these are the real numbers (World wide):
Rank . Brand . . . . 2013 units . . Share . . 2012 units . . Share . . 2011 units . . Share
1 (1) . Samsung . 311.4 M . . . .31.5% . . 215.0 M . . . 30.8% . . . 90.9 M . . . 18.7%
2 (2) . Apple . . . . 153.4 M . . . .15.5% . . 135.8 M . . . 19.5% . . . 93.1 M . . . 19.1%
3 (5) . Huawei . . . . 52.0 M . . . . 5.3% . . 32.0 M . . . . 4.6% . . . 20.0 M . . . . 4.1%
4 (9) . LG . . . . . . . 47.6M . . . . .4.8% . . 26.5 M . . . . 3.8% . . . 23.3 M . . . . 4.8%
5 (10) . Lenovo *. . . 46.2 M . . . . 4.7% . . 24.9 M . . . . 3.6% . . . - - - . . . . . . . - -
6 (8) . . ZTE . . . . . . 40.0 M . . . . 4.0% . . 30.0 M . . . . 4.3% . . 12.0 M . . . . 2.5%
7 (6) . Sony . . . . . . 38.4 M . . . . 3.9% . . 31.9 M . . . . 4.6% . . 26.8 M . . . 5.5%
8 (-) . . Coolpad . . . 35.3 M . . . . 3.6% . . - - - - . . . . . . - - . . . . - - - - . . . . . . - -
9 (3) . Nokia . . . . . 30.5 M . . . . 3.1% . . 35.0 M . . . . 5.0% . . 77.3 M . . . 15.9%
10 (7) . HTC . . . . . . 26.6 M . . . . 2.7% . . 31.5 M . . . . 4.5% . . 44.6 M . . . 9.2%
Other . . . . . . . . . . 182.9 M . . . 18.5%
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . 990.0 M . . . . . . . . . . 697.7 M . . . . . . . . . 486.0 M
* Note: Lenovo has purchased the Motorola business from Google. When Motorola smartphone sales are added to Lenovo, the total number is about 60 million in 2013 and 6% market share which makes Lenovo instantly the 3rd largest smartphone maker when the Motorola sale has been completed
Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2014
This data may be freely used and repeated
My point is that US stats mean nothing (compared to world stats) and that linked report/article is skewing perspective on who the real players are in mobile world.
I just wish phone manufacturers (other than the Samsung Galaxy) line would make phones with removable batteries. Having <20 hours of usage is annoying since outlets are a scarce resource in my workplace and I don't want to accidentally leave the thing sitting on the charging cable when I leave.
I commute by bus roughly 45-60 minutes each way, including walking time. A couple of spots have poor signal coverage so the phone works harder, plus I have the screen on most of the trip. Having the ability to buy larger batteries and/or more of them is a mandatory feature for my devices so I'm pretty much limited to the Galaxy series and my Lumia 520.
Get an external charger. You can get at least 12000 mAh external batteries.
Otherwise, import from China. My phone is an iOcean x7 Elite bought via Aliexpress - it was cheap, high spec'ed for the most part, and you get a 3000mAh replacable battery with a new back doubling as a protective case for next to nothing (the standard battery is 2000 mAh). Pretty much all the Chinese Android phones have replaceable batteries.
I use it extensively for a 45 minute commute with the (5" full hd) screen on maximum brightness and I no longer really need to charge my phone all day.
(beware: while I love my phone, there's a general issue with GPS quality for most MTK based phones; for many there are known fixes, but they often involve "surgery" on the GPS antennae - if GPS is important for you, look into that first; my phone supposedly has an easy fix, but I haven't bothered trying)
Recommend getting a 2nd charger, or even a 3rd one. It should be not too expensive since they use universal micro usb cables.
Just invest a few extra bucks and don't waste time worrying about cables...
Iphone external battery case is 2-3 times more expensive than a replaceable battery of a galaxy phone. Yes another reason you end up spending far more when you get an iphone imo (proprietary charger, battery case, phone price...)
What you save on money with Android, you gain in headaches. You get a throwaway device that the manufacturer drops serious support for a few months later. Instead of your phone being the core of the company's business line, it's something to be released to fanfare and then forgotten after the initial burst of sales. Meanwhile bugs and issues with Apple products are treated seriously for years after the initial launch of the hardware.
This disposable attitude trickles all the way down to the customer support teams. With my Note II there was an issue with the stylus which I eventually gave up trying to get fixed because Samsung was giving me the run-around for weeks. In comparison, when the volume control broke on my first iPhone after a year, Apple replaced the entire phone at no cost. After getting tired of Samsung's deflection, I ditched my Note II and bought a new iPhone.
As a user and a consumer, I don't care about average spend per platform. I just want a solid phone that will work reliably and stay out of my way. Market share, profit margins, market cap don't matter at all to me. I just want a decent phone at a reasonable price.
As a developer, I look at the comparatively larger number of Android phones worldwide and weigh that against average spend. A global marketshare around 80% may make the average spend thing a non-issue depending on what app you are trying to sell (and at what price, and to what demographic).
Apple has always been about premium product and premium margin.
Samsung (and other Asian companies) are more into market share. Charging premium price would be nice bonus but for someone playing catch up, lower price with greater marketshare makes more sense.
Do you have the latest (reliable) numbers on that? I know it was true two years ago, but Android is now roughly seven times larger globally than iOS. Hard to believe international users are spending so little.
Keep in mind that Android stretches much further into the low end. You can pick up an Android phone for <$40 some places. For some people it's a feature phone on steroids.
I don't want to start an iOS-Android flame war because iPhones are great in many ways and both sets of devices have their pros / cons. But IMHO Apple should continue to invest in bigger and better displays if it expects to compete effectively with Samsung.