alt Hacker NewsBecause for a lot (most?) people their iPhone is their primary and only personal computer. I also want a smaller phone. I bet Apple designers would love to sell you a smaller phone. They've certainly tried with my beloved and retired iPhone mini and the same size but thinner iPhone air. But the market keeps rejecting it because it's not just a portable companion to some other computer, it is the computer. If you're doing all your work on it then you need more real estate. Aging populations across the globe probably need more screen real estate also for bigger text.
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They confused "smaller" with "budget" though, if the good camera was available in the smaller size I would have bought it.
The iPhone Air is nearly 20% larger than the mini
As my eyesight is getting worse I do end up appreciating bigger phones. Even though I miss how smaller phones felt in my hand, it's just hard to see small text on it and that's even though I don't use my phone all that much since I have a kindle for reading and a computer for everything else.
Like many other HNers, I don't quite understand the appeal of not having their own computer, or even a VPS setup they can remote info for more structured work. But then I remember the famous Dropbox comment where one user had qualms, and perhaps looking outside our bubble can be worth it.
I'm honestly curious about the "market keeps rejecting it" part. Yes, they sold far fewer units than the other models....but did they really not make money? I have made variations on this comment many many times. I completely buy that the opinions about phone form factor and features expressed on HN/reddit/online, and my own idiosyncratic preferences probably even more so, represent somewhat of a niche, and that your median phone consumer isn't interested in what we/I want. But the phone market seems like it's so large that it should be able to support a lot of niches! A tenth of a percent of the total market (~1,300 million in 2023 according to [0], 0.1% of which would be 1.3 million phones) should be totally viable as a business! I get that, maybe for Apple there is opportunity cost. Having more product lines adds overhead, and if the profit margin on those extra product lines isn't enough higher than the main lines to justify that overhead, they kill it. But why doesn't some smaller company (so yes, this mostly applies to Android) try to steal that fractional market share? I simply don't understand why it doesn't work to the point that now, when the market is so much larger than it was in the past, we have so much less hardware diversity.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/263437/global-smartphone...
If you went back in time to 2006 and showed a cellular Apple Watch and an iPhone (with no apps for either) side by side I think a lot of people would assume the former would be the ubiquitous consumer product and the latter would be a niche product for wealthy executives.
The cellular Apple Watch would be a great cell phone if all you want is to use your phone as a phone + iPod. But it’s hamstrung by its software and being forced to be anchored to an iPhone to be activated just makes it unsuitable as a primary device. We’d probably all be healthier as a society if we didn’t have the black rectangle of doom in our pockets all the time.
I’d love a cellular Apple Watch that’s elongated enough to have a headphone jack (lol) and all day battery life. It’d be fine even if it was meant to stay in my pocket instead of on the wrist.
I really don't think this is just for people who don't have personal computers. I do think this is for people who don't want to carry additional separate devices with them in order to access the bigger-screen experiences. There are a couple gimmicks based on the fold as well.
I for one would love to have my phone turn into a tablet while I'm charging my car. Saves me from having to bring the iPad separately, which can't fit in my pocket. Would eliminate a step from that routine.
Also would love to always have that capability on me in the case where I couldn't have foreseen a need for the bigger screen. Being randomly out with friends and able to spontaneously just show them something in a way they can actually see would be nice.
My need for this new iPhone is driven by my declining vision. Twenty years ago, I had no problem with my first iPhone. Five years ago, I started to get acquainted with some of the visual accommodation measures in iOS. I do still use my (physically larger than I would like) iPhone 16 Pro Max, which I bought for the biggest screen. I'd love to do my stuff on my laptop or desktop, but smartphones are de facto The Computer these days. So I'll probably buy an iPhone Duo after I sell a kidney for financing. All that said, today's Apple presentation left me gobsmacked at the technology they've developed. I was born before civilian jet transports were in service, with all that implies for a long personal view of tech dev. The tech feels to me like a cut&paste from 2076.