Clearly, something is going on with the next iPhone. The rumors of big screens have been floating around for ages, but there’s a lot more smoke this time around. So I have to think this is at least a possibility.
Personally, though, I’m still not feeling the need for a larger screen. The notion that Apple “needs” to do this because of all the Android phones out there with big screens is preposterous. Android is coming apart at the seams. The big screens were an attempt to differentiate the Android phones from Apple. This wasn’t something most users were clamoring for, and many users who get these devices pushed on them don’t even like the larger screen. They aren’t an improvement, in other words. People in general don’t want larger devices in their pockets. They like their phones small. I think Gruber is right that if the iPhone gets a larger screen, it doesn’t necessarily mean the phone itself will be larger. There’s room for a larger screen without going nuts and making a Galaxy Note hunk of junk. In fact, the screen could be 4 inches without making the footprint of the iPhone any bigger.
(I really don’t think Apple needs to worry about Android in the long run at all, by the way. Maybe that sounds nuts, but watch the numbers carefully. Android’s golden age is already over. It’s peaked, as far as growth rate relative to others is concerned, and it’s nowhere in the tablet race. Google has never gotten the app ecosystem off the ground, and now with all the viruses plaguing Android there’s even less trust from the users, which means even fewer developers are going to make apps. Every OEM making Android devices except for Samsung is losing money. They will jump ship to Microsoft, or whoever else offers them a better deal down the line. And the users will buy whatever the kids in the carrier stores push on them. This is a fickle market. Android will self-destruct without any help from Apple.)
But again, I’ll ask the question none of the nerds seem to be asking. How does a bigger screen make the phone better? More icons on the home screen? Really? That’s it? Widescreen videos a little bigger? Ok. I guess. I have yet to read any compelling argument for how this would improve the iPhone experience. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a compelling argument; I’m just saying that no one seems to be focusing on the only reason Apple would pull the trigger on this.
As far as third party developer concerns, that’s a bit ludicrous, too. Apple ultimately doesn’t care if we developers have to work to get our apps updated to match the new screen size. If they think a bigger phone screen would be better, than they’ll make the phone with a bigger screen, and the developers will fall in line. What choice do we have? They may provide some tools to make the transition easier, but basically, what the developers need or want is the lowest thing on Apple’s hierarchy of concerns. Apple does what is best for Apple, what is best for the customer, and then what is best for developers, in that order. Anyone who has ever opened Xcode knows this.
Now, if Apple announces this new phone, but no apps support it on day one, that’s a problem. And clearly, some apps won’t ever get updated, because their developers have abandoned them long ago. So Apple will need something equivalent to what they did on the iPad with iPhone apps. There will have to be some default way that this new phone adapts older apps to work correctly on the new screen. It doesn’t have to make for a perfect experience—iPhone apps on the iPad are a pretty lame experience—but it does have to work. A stop-gap measure until the developers do the correct enhancements. Other than that, Apple doesn’t need to be concerned about third-party apps at all.
I do worry about the long-term health of the App Store ecosystem, but that’s a subject for a separate post. Right now, Apple is in the driver’s seat, and they can get away with pretty much anything, making us all jump through hoops to be in the Store. But ultimately, it would probably be in Apple’s best interests to start thinking a little more about what kinds of developers are successful in this market. If they’re not careful, they could easily end up in a position where only big corporations like Adobe are back in control of the software side of things. And that’s not in Apple’s best interest.
As soon as someone can tell me why a bigger iPhone screen would be better, I’ll get more excited about this. Whether or not it happens is much less interesting to me than the why.
