Dan Frommer, writing for Quartz:
A big part of the iPhone’s success can likely be attributed to one decision: To finally offer it in larger sizes, matching the phones that Android rivals, such as Samsung and Motorola, have made for years. On Apple’s earnings call, CEO Tim Cook said the company saw a record number of new iPhone customers and more people switching from Android than for any of the previous three iPhone versions.
Of course, now that Apple’s met the demand for larger phones, it risks disappointing investors next time. Surely, nothing else can deliver such a big jump in sales? But perhaps the shift to larger smartphones will serve a secondary purpose. Paul Kedrosky, the financial commentator, theorized this week that Apple has created a “portability deficit”—i.e., big phones are cumbersome. This, Kedrosky posits, will prove helpful as Apple starts selling its new iPhone accessory, the Apple Watch, this April.
The portability deficit suggests that the larger the phone, the less portable. The title of Dan’s piece is “Maybe this is the real reason Apple made the iPhone bigger.” In other words, Apple made a larger phone to create the need for an Apple Watch.
I don’t know if I buy that, but I do think the Apple Watch addresses the portability deficit. Like a cell repeater, the Apple Watch helps get the message from your phone to your brain, washed through a more portable interface.
Over time, we’ll presumably be able to pack enough technology into a watch-size package that the phone itself will no longer be necessary.
Necessary? Probably not but preferable may be another story. Limiting factor on a watch will, at least for the foreseeable future, be screen size. It’s all very well having a fully-functional smartphone on your wrist but browsing the web on a 2″ screen doesn’t exactly sound appealing.
Personally I hope that the smartwatch develops into a true companion to a phone. A device that doesn’t just extend the phone to a second screen but brings its own features to the party that improve specific use cases. The obvious example for me would be having NFC in a watch that lets me use an Oyster card in London. Just tap your wrist on the reader and go (though only having readers on the right side of the gate is going to be annoying).
What “portability deficit”? My iPhone 6+ still fits in my pocket, and I don’t notice that it’s more difficult to take out when I need to look at it…I think we’re missing the main functions that the watch will serve, primarily because we can’t know what they are yet. It’ll depend on the apps.
Plus maybe home kit. I can imagine how useful using a watch to adjust lights and TVs and everything else a smart home has in it. I mean, yeah, we have our phones with us in our pockets, and that’ll be good for automatic settings as you move from room to room. But if you’re sitting on the couch, it’ll be much easier to control everything with the watch rather than fumble around for the phone.
Exactly. The popularity of the 6 Plus shows that people highly value screen size. And a watch is always going to be limited by screen size.
A less cynical way of looking at this is maybe Apple felt justified in building a larger phone knowing that the Apple Watch will soon be here to address any “portability” deficit issues.
This was suggested by Paul Kedrisky, not Dan Frommer.