3.5 Inches

http://dcurt.is/2011/10/03/3-point-5-inches

by corywatilo • 15 years ago

302 158 15 years ago

steve89182• 15 years ago

Sorry but I disagree. I'm not sure how he holds his iPhone but I cradle it with my 4 fingers with my pinky supporting it from the bottom. This allows my thumb to extend well past the edge of the iPhone.

I think he's reading too much into the design. Larger isn't necessarily better. The iPhone 4's screen is good enough for me, I've never had any issues except for trying to read pdfs, which is one reason why I keep considering getting an iPad. But for everything else, I find the screen more than good enough and it's still small enough to fit in my pocket.

dmpatierno3• 15 years ago

The author states that the iPhone screen is perfectly sized to allow your thumb to reach the opposite edge. You seem to be agreeing with him.

I think you got his argument backwards.

steve89182• 15 years ago

No, I'm saying that his argument is nonsensical. I can go well past the edges of the iPhone with my thumb, probably by another 33%. I'm sure most people can, my fingers are quite average length (much to the disappointment of my wife).

I could probably extend well past the edges of the Android phone, as well. So I don't think that "average thumb length" had anything to do with the size of the iPhone screen.

Derbasti• 15 years ago

I own both an iPhone and an iPad and a Kindle. I'd tell you: for reading stuff, nothing beats the Kindle. PDFs though, not so much. You just can't comfortably put a letter page on a 7 inch screen.

That said, I would not buy an iPad again. I would by a Kindle instead. Just some food for thought regarding your PDF reading needs.

forza2• 15 years ago

I can recommend the onyx boox m91s for reading pdfs, as long as it's books/papers and not magazines.

http://www.onyx-boox.com/onyx-boox-m91s

codenerdz• 15 years ago

Different strokes for different folks. Ive had an iPhone 4 and I have Galaxy S2 with 4.5 screen now. Both are manageable.

The one thing that android is missing out of course is the Appstore eco system, it has a long way to go to match software availability/quality of Apple appstore apps.

Camera in Samsung GS2 is probably best among android phones, but i dont think its a match for iPhone 4 and definitely not a match for iPhone 4S.

skeletonjelly2• 15 years ago

The app or the hardware?

varunsrin2• 15 years ago

The diagrams drawn are highly misleading - my thumb goes well over the edge of a 3.7" device, and afaik I have pretty normal sized thumbs. The diagram there shows the thumb ending on a 3.5" device.

I may even buy the 4.2" is too large argument since devices do get a bit unwieldy, but why not anything between 3.5" & 4"? I own a Nexus One (3.7") and I think its a perfect size - I can usually reach my thumb across with minimal effort on a 4" screen as well.

tl:dr; Claims about perfect size of phone, without any data, except images of phones superimposed with one random sample of thumb size.

aristus• 15 years ago

There is no perfect size any more than there is a perfect sized glove, shirt, chair, etc. We programmers have gotten away with ignoring anthropometric variation till now.

rockarage• 15 years ago

Agreed, I have large hands I typically wear xl gloves, and I wish the iphone was larger. Some people may not have large hands but long fingers, there are many variations.

dextorious4• 15 years ago

"The diagrams drawn are highly misleading - my thumb goes well over the edge of a 3.7" device, and afaik I have pretty normal sized thumbs."

For a man? For a woman? For an American? For an Asian?

Ever considered those differences?

Someone2• 15 years ago

Here is some data to help someone answer such questions: http://dined.io.tudelft.nl/en,dined2003,102. It shows that, for Dutchmen, the difference in _average_ hand length between males and females is about 2cm. Looking at the standard deviation and across ages, one gets (at one sd) a variation between long male and short female hands of (I guesstimate) about 5cm. Thumb reach distance will be, say, about half that. I would guess elderly users not only have shorter hands, but also have less dexterity, and of course there are plenty of people outside of the +/- one stadard deviation range (37%, IIRC), so it would not surprise me at all to see difference in 'reach' of over an inch, even in small grouos of users.

varunsrin2• 15 years ago

I was refuting his anecdotal claim with mine - I meant this to illustrate the futility of using anecdotal evidence, but the words didn't convey the sentiment as well as I intended.

I fully understand there is most likely some of normal distribution of sizes, but that's a fact that the author seems to have largely ignored as well.

On an unrelated note, the site seems to be down.

dcurtis• 15 years ago

I drew the diagrams from my perspective, holding the phone in my palm, and extending my thumb over the screen. I don't think I have particularly large or small hands. If you hold the phone further out in your fingers, you can extend your thumb farther, but the phone is less stable in your hand. The instability is where the "annoyance" comes from, when I'm using the Galaxy S II.

dpark• 15 years ago

Do you have elf hands? I've got pretty small hands (I wear a small or medium in men's gloves depending on the brand), and with the iPhone tucked into my thumb as close as reasonably possible, I can reach every pixel on the screen, and I can reach past in spots. If I hold the phone so that it's most comfortable (and most secure feeling), I can reach way past the edge and slightly past the far corners.

DougBTX• 15 years ago

Possibly more interesting is where you've put the centre of the arc, half way up the left hand side. As I hold mine, the centre would be over the bottom right corner of the screen, and at "maximum extension" my thumb is just over the top left corner. (I've got "Nash equilibrium" in the back of my head writing this... if I couldn't reach the whole screen, I'd probably change the way I hold my phone.)

frooxie• 15 years ago

I have pretty small hands, but I can hold my 4.2" Xperia Arc phone in a stable way and reach the opposite corner with my thumb.

cheald4• 15 years ago

They aren't accurate, either; the SGS is shown as relatively larger than it actually is (not much, but when making comparisons like this, percentage points matter), and the SGS's "thumb circle" is smaller!

I guess the moral of the story is that if you have 2-inch range of motion with your thumb, you shouldn't get anything larger than an iPhone and probably can't draw consistent diagrams.

vacri5• 15 years ago

Nice catch - not only is the thumb-circle several pixels thinner, it's also clearly shorter top-to-bottom. Good old selection bias at work!

Confusion4• 15 years ago

If you say his diagrams are 'highly misleading', then you should also realize that your counterclaim is equally 'highly misleading' and that it doesn't actually add anything to our understanding of the situation.

He does not claim 'this size was chosen because my thumb is this large'. The blog post suggests: this size is chosen so the device can be used optimally by most of the population and he demonstrates the argument with his own thumb, without claiming it is therefore true.

Now you may very well be unconvinced by the argument and point out that you wonder whether there is any data available to test the suggestion and that it may be coincidental otherwise. However, that does not warrant the statement 'the diagrams are highly misleading'. It warrants 'the diagram may be misleading'.

I would like it very much if HN commenters would appreciate such subtleties and argue "I'm not sure you're right, because ...", instead of "You're wrong, because ...". His argument makes perfect sense and deserves to be recognized as such.

barrkel2• 15 years ago

I think his diagrams are misleading because, as far as I can make out, they are based on a particularly small hand size (perhaps a 9 year old child?). By rotating my thumb, and adjusting the angle I hold the device with my fingers, I reckon I can cope with approximately a 6" diagonal screen, and I don't have big hands. For example, I wear small-size male motorcycle gloves, and most of them are still slightly too long in the finger and glove; my girlfriend wears small size female gloves, and they are only slightly too snug for me. On the basis that glove manufacturers have an economic incentive to know the size distribution of their customers' hands, I think it's implausible to say that anything bigger than 3.5" is too big.

laconian• 15 years ago

Post-facto rationalization: everything's so perfect!

dmpatierno3• 15 years ago

He tried two devices and liked one more than the other. That's not rationalization; it's just reality.

orangecat• 15 years ago

And then he says that the one he prefers is the one objectively correct way, which is silly. Personally, I find the minor inconvenience on the rare occasions I have to hit a corner of the 4" Nexus S one-handed is far outweighed by the increased reading comfort of the larger screen.

Xuzz• 15 years ago

Or, perhaps, they thought about it beforehand? Do you know that Apple did not, in fact, consider something like this when deciding on screen size?

artursapek2• 15 years ago

I have no doubt that they did. Attention to detail is the game.

dextorious4• 15 years ago

Post facto? You reeeeally believe Apple hadn't build tons of prototypes in various sizes PRE FACTO (sic), and made extensive research in what is more comfortable for the largest majority of people?

phillmv• 15 years ago

... yes, actually, that sounds like they would think about.

"Median hand comfort" vs "maximum screen real estate" is probably something they at least toyed with.

skeletonjelly2• 15 years ago

Is this a twist on the No True Scotsman?

Surely Apple would have done that on purpose!

Pahalial• 15 years ago

Stating that this "seems like something Apple would consider" is a far cry from what this blog post does: take one data point's worth of design value from an existing design for one user, extrapolate that to be one of the lead drivers of said design for all users.

I'm all for giving Apple's designs as much credit as possible, but it's still a far cry from even that to "wow this thing about the design I just noticed that works for me must have been something they considered for the populace at large."

mkopinsky• 15 years ago

Looks like the site is down. HN effect?

coyled• 15 years ago

Coral Cache has it: http://dcurt.is.nyud.net/2011/10/03/3-point-5-inches/

dextorious4• 15 years ago

Also check this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HandAnthropometry.JPG

Statistical hand breadth is around 3.8-3.5 inches (men, women).

beredon• 15 years ago

You know what they say about a man with small hands.

lachyg• 15 years ago

Small gloves?

noonespecial• 15 years ago

Sadly, I've got below average sized hands. I can't even reach all the way across my Palm Pre. Even holding a iphone is just a touch uncomfortable. One of the things that's kept me off the device. You can't please everyone.

hashbo• 15 years ago

Somewhat amusingly the site is down and we’re left to guess what exactly is 3.5 inches in length ...?

groovy2shoes• 15 years ago

I had assumed it was some nostalgia about floppy disks. Turns out this guy just holds his phone wrong.

sliverstorm• 15 years ago

Not to mention the minutes spent marveling after reading comments that say the article claims 3.5 inches is the perfect length

nicksergeant3• 15 years ago

Most of the arguments here are that "well my thumbs can reach far past the iPhone screen".

That's not what he's arguing. I can reach the pedals of my car with the seat all the way back, too, but I'll probably plow into someone as a result.

He's arguing that it's not comfortable to do so, and I agree. Stretching my thumb across the iPhone screen (top-left / top right) is as close to uncomfortable as I'd like to be. When my thumb is over there, the phone arches forward because of the position of my index finger, almost moving the phone out of my hand. Any larger of a screen and it'll go flying.

Whether or not Apple decided on the original screen size because of this, it was a good decision to not increase the size of the screen with the 4S.

nchlswu• 15 years ago

To add to this point, it's not comfortable for the majority of users. If you look at a normal distribution of users, they want to cover some sort of number and I'd wager that this screen size is hitting that number.

EDIT: Spelling. I don't know why I mentioned "normal" either.Apple simply wants to cover a majority of users.

sid02• 15 years ago

Evidence? Citation? Or are you saying that on blind faith simply because it's Apple?

artursapek2• 15 years ago

This is the only response to the article that gets it. When I read the article, I immediately picked up my iPod touch and put my thumb into the top-right corner as far as I could stretch it while remaining comfortable. It rests right on the corner, covering it nearly perfectly. I can keep stretching it to the point where the last joint in my thumb meets the edge, but it feels terrible to do so. I'm sure this wasn't the only factor that went into the decision for the screen size, but I have to think it was an inflexible maximum boundary for it.

dhughes3• 15 years ago

It only makes sense if every person on the planet all have the same size hands and the same length thumbs.

nicksergeant3• 15 years ago

So you're suggesting the iPhone have a resizable screen?

forza2• 15 years ago

I would suspect it has a lot to do with being early in the market segment.

brigade• 15 years ago

One thing I don't see pointed out much is how the iPhone is just about as wide as iPods with a docking connector (dating back to 2003 with the 3rd gen.)

Specifically, the original iPhone was 1.1 mm narrower than iPods, and iPhone 4 is 3.2 mm narrower.

krangsquared• 15 years ago

I definitely think the iPhone is the size that it is because the iPod was also around the same size. It's entirely possible they were both part of an overarching plan in the transition from "Apple computer" to Apple, the shiny thingy consumer company. Some considerations for the form factor would have been similar for both - eg, able to be manipulated with one hand, fits in the pocket, consistency and compatibility with third-party ecosystem.

nextparadigms• 15 years ago

3.5" I consider too small. Even for my little 12 year old sister I plan on buying a 3.7" Motorola Defy+ soon. I wouldn't get anything less than 4" for myself, and my next device is probably going to be a 4.3" one unless the Nexus Prime is just too awesome to pass up.

2muchcoffeeman2• 15 years ago

Rumor is that the Prime will have a 4.65 inch screen. Why stop there? The Galaxy Note is 5.3 inches.

Android handsets are becoming ridiculous. We spent all this time trying to make things small, but in an effort to differentiate themselves, manufacturers started making things huge again.

Most of the high end phones would not even fit comfortably in my jeans pockets.

vidarh• 15 years ago

The make things huge because it sells well.

There's definitively a large market segment for whom the iPhone form factor is too small. Myself included - it was one of the big things that stopped me from getting one; I just can't type on the thing at a reasonable speed.

My HTC Desire HD is more than small enough to fit in my pocket, and rests comfortably in my hand, and I love having a decent sized display and I can actually type on it at a tolerable speed. I could easily handle a device a bit bigger than that with one hand, I might just get one because it reduces the number of situations where the screen is "too small" for it to be nice to use.

ZeroGravitas2• 15 years ago

The iPhone 4S has a 3.5 diagonal screen, but a 5.1 inch diagonal frame.

Most Android phones are increasing the screen size while decreasing the bezel, but only the increased screen size gets quoted. The next generation using Ice-Cream Sandwich, such as the Prime you mention, can replace the capacitive keys at the bottom with on-screen buttons, just like Honeycomb tablets. The screen size alone doesn't tell you everything about the device size.

This site shows a comparison (note you can click in the top right corner to resize the pictures to actual size)

http://versusio.com/en/google-nexus-prime-vs-apple-iphone-4-...

It's only slightly bigger, yet has nearly double the screen area.

rsheridan6• 15 years ago

Different strokes for different folks. I would like a bigger screen and I don't wear jeans. If you don't want a big screen, there will be plenty of Android phones with smaller screens.

That's one big advantage Android has over the iphone. Android can cater to different segments while the iphone is one-size-fits-all (literally and figuratively).

vacri5• 15 years ago

I have a defy. It has some poor points (though it is a cheaper smartphone anyway), but what sold me on it was that the screen size was 'big enough' while the form factor barely bigger than the screen. Easy to pocket, light, and tough.

Compare to the iphone 4, which while being a nicer phone, has huge great lumps off the top and bottom of the screen - which means less pocketability / ease of management - not to mention that most iPhone 4s are even larger (and less attractive) due to the plastic bumper.

The form factor is what sold me on the defy over the first-class range of android phones, despite it being a bit underpowered and having one or two other issues, some of which were due to Motorola bloatware that went away when CM7 went on.

I find that in portable devices, getting the right size for you is a much underrated question when people look to buy tech.

morsch• 15 years ago

Plus, it runs underwater. :D

Didn't get a Defy in the end, went for the still-cheaper ZTE Blade, but the new Defy+ is very tempting.

dagw• 15 years ago

I'm getting a defy+ for exactly that reason (that and the fact that it might actually not break on me). I've got several friends with with Galaxy S phones and I simply find them to damn big. Uncomfortable to hold when making calls and uncomfortable to shove into my front jeans pocket. While I'm obviously not begrudging people the right to buy huge phones, I just hope someone will stay off that bandwagon and keep making reasonable sized phones. If I need a big screen I've got my 7" tablet.

micheljansen• 15 years ago

Ironically, this is something that is really bad about the iPad, while 7 inch Android tablets are much better. I recently wrote something about this, should you care: http://micheljansen.org/blog/entry/1111

rufo• 15 years ago

FWIW, Apple has added a movable split keyboard to the iPad in iOS 5.

easp• 15 years ago

Oh the other hand. I can touch type at a pretty good clip on the iPad keyboard in landscape mode something I've never been able to do on a netbook or a 7" tablet.

For what it is worth, iOS 5 helps with thumb typing on the iPad.

mahcode• 15 years ago

server down?

dbbo• 15 years ago

I'm getting a 500 error. Could it be the HN effect? Cached:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jXZtssY...

cheald4• 15 years ago

My Sensation has a 4.3" screen and I have no issues navigating it. I had a Nexus One prior to that, and its 3.7" screen likewise felt fine.

I'd be willing to bet that the iPhone's original screen size was dictated more by battery concerns than the average mobile thumb length of tea drinkers in the midwest or whatever crazy metric people want to use. Bigger screens use exponentially more energy. Once that size was decided, Apple's basically stuck with it, since iPhone apps use absolute layouts and are designed for a 3:2 screen. You can't just scale the app to the new aspect ratio without stretching assets (squares become rectangles, circles become ellipses), and iPhone apps are designed against a specific aspect ratio.

Increasing a 3:2 screen to 4.3" would make the screen 2.4" wide; the iPhone's screen is currently 1.9" wide, and the Sensation/SGS II have 2.1" wide screens, by comparison. If you think the SGS is hard to use, a 3:2 screen of the same size would be downright intolerable.

Retric• 15 years ago

Phone weight is fairly meaningless limitation in these size ranges, so battery size is mostly limited by form factor - internal components so a larger screen should give you better battery to surface area ratio and thus longer life.

cppsnob2• 15 years ago

Given your 3.5" measurement, a 7" screen for the iPad would have been much better, would it have not?

Apple's not shipping a bigger phone yet because it's something they can hold back on until they need to do it. The iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5XL iPhone 6... one of these will eventually do it so as to sell you something new.

potatolicious3• 15 years ago

> "a 7" screen for the iPad would have been much better, would it have not?"

There's a reason iOS5 features a "splittable" keyboard that brings all keys within thumb reach of both edges of the screen.

cppsnob2• 15 years ago

Ok... that fixes the keyboard, not the entire reach, which is what OP is discussing.

jan_g• 15 years ago

Yup, I wonder what the author will say, if the next iPhone has larger screen.

resnamen• 15 years ago

As long as the larger screen wasn't a battery leech, I'm pretty sure nobody would complain "aw, my poor thumbs!"

dhughes3• 15 years ago

Maybe that's why Apple is pushing for voice recognition with Siri.

I still think people like big screens on smartphones and thumbs be damned plus nobody seems to like voice recognition or Dragon Dictate would be on every PC.

josefresco• 15 years ago

His thumbs will magically grow and Apple will be hailed as genius for evolving to the perfect size to accommodate journalists newly larger digits.

jeswin• 15 years ago

Maybe, just maybe, they factored in supply chains, costs and re-engineering effort and decided that it can happen later.

Sometimes you wonder why such speculative (not to mention defensive) articles get on the front page on HN. Aren't we supposed to be more rational and balanced?

adgar• 15 years ago

> Aren't we supposed to be more rational and balanced?

Reddit has the same misconception. In reality, voting-based aggregators are at the whims of the user's personal feelings and preconceived beliefs, no matter the community guidelines.

HN has one nice benefit in that misleading titles can be changed, which I greatly appreciate.

brudgers• 15 years ago

Circular reasoning:

The iPhone is well designed.

Therefore they used a 3.5" screen.

Therefore the iPhone is well designed.

lclaude01• 15 years ago

Designing for Humans: Design Research - Ergonomics - Human Factors - Usability

http://www.designingforhumans.com/idsa/anthropometric_data/

alexwolfe2• 15 years ago

Wow, nice observation, very interesting. I've never seen that other phone before, amazing how much it looks like the iPhone.

alexwolfe2• 15 years ago

Its interesting how much energy people are putting into shutting his observation down. It might make sense to ask someone at Apple how they decide on product dimensions for mobile devices. I'm pretty sure some thought goes into the size of their products.

zobzu• 15 years ago

My actually quite small hand, compared to a Logitech G7 and the SGSII. I'm guessing.. the guy made a guess compared to his iPhone4, without really using a SGS2, only seeing some.

Before getting it, I too though it might be too big. But nope. Using it since 6 month. As long as the body is thin like the SGS2 its perfect. There's only a small region at the top right I can't reach and which I don't need to. Also note that his graphic is wrong, as the SGSII is much higher, but not much wider than the iPhone (and thats probably why it works so well despite the size)

'nuff said, here's the pic:

http://i.imgur.com/LFoIR.jpg

dgtljunglist• 15 years ago

No, he used the SGS2.[1]

1. http://twitter.com/#!/dcurtis/status/121653781241921537

cnu• 15 years ago

I don't think you read the article fully. The author has a SGS2 and while using it he realised that it was not as comfortable to reach the edges and corners as it was on an iPhone.

ansy• 15 years ago

The reason the iPhone 4's screen is 3.5 inches is because the iPhone 3GS was 3.5 inches is because the iPhone 3G was 3.5 inches is because the original iPhone was 3.5 inches.

A consistent platform is a huge deal. The whole point of the iPhone is that it's touch friendly. Part of the iOS user interface guidelines is making sure touch areas are the size of a finger tip. This is heavily emphasized.

If there were different sized iPhone screens with incompatible aspect ratios this guideline would be meaningless. An app that has finger sized touch zones on a 4.3 inch widescreen phone would not on a 3.5 inch standard screen phone.

Apple's designers know this. It's on purpose. And Apple's designers decide what its devices look like. That's why the iPhone 4 has a 3.5 inch screen.

If you want to wonder why the original iPhone had a 3.5 screen, you've got to go back to 2007 when everyone else was still trying to copy the Blackberry. A 3.5 inch screen at that time was already unprecedented.

I don't doubt Apple prototypes iPhones with different screen sizes and there is pressure to upgrade. But the fact Apple has not just shows how reluctant it is to break with consistency. If Apple moves to a new screen size, I think it will have to be larger for backward compatibility with old apps. I highly doubt it will go smaller, ever. All old apps would suck on a smaller screen, and Apple doesn't deliver sucky user experiences. And if it does go larger, it will be a big deal. I wouldn't expect a new screen size for a long time after that.

cheald4• 15 years ago

Retina was Apple's "screen size upgrade" for the forseeable future. The devices like the Sensation and SGS II have screen resolutions of 800x480; 480x320 just wasn't going to look good next to them. Apple's stuck at 3.5" like you mentioned, so to compete with the new high-resolution (and larger screen, as a result) devices, they doubled the iPhone 4's resolution, which is a pretty decent compromise. One of the benefits of increasing resolution without increasing the display size is that your DPI skyrockets, and they jumped on that and marketed the crap out of it. The display looks "better", even if it's not larger. I would be genuinely surprised if Apple released an iPhone variant at >3.5". They might release an iPod Touch around ~3.75", but that's as high as they can really go before the 3:2 aspect ratio starts to make the device width prohibitive.

w33ble• 15 years ago

In order to maintain "Retina" display, they'd need to keep their 300 pixels per square inch or more density. That also doesn't leave them a whole lot of room to bump up the screen size without bumping up the resolution again. They've got some small room to play with in terms of the screen bezel though, so we could see a screen size bump without a resolution bump that still offered both the 300 ppi and the ability to touch all of the screen with one hand. (Think about some of the "iPhone 5" leaked images). Time will tell.

bretthellman• 15 years ago

I think you missed the point.

lars• 15 years ago

They've also locked themselves into a resolution, in some sense. IPhone apps, unlike Android apps, are built using absolute coordinates. Developers can make assumptions about the width and height of the screen. And widths and heights are described, believe it or not, with floats, not ints. They've been able to maintain compatibility between devices because they've doubled the resolution every time they wanted to increase it. This has in some sense made life easier for developers, while it's allowed Apple to not build the UI abstractions that Android had to. It seems fundamentally unsustainable though, surely they can't keep doubling forever?

bni2• 15 years ago

I have yet to se a UI system that is resolution independent (not even mentioning aspect ratio independent), that doesnt look like crap.

Notice for example how the buttons in Android seem to have the wrong dimensions all the time, they sort of look chunky or stretched.

I think Apple made the right choice with solving this with resolution doubling.

stewbrew• 15 years ago

"A 3.5 inch screen at that time was already unprecedented."

3.5 inch screens were a standard size for PDA screens.

keenerd2• 15 years ago

Yup. Today's smartphones (and even tablets) are pretty much rebadged PDAs. The only advances have been a stylus-less UI, a vastly improved image (PDAs are for stodgy business men), and realizing that a package manager is a really good idea.

fletcher• 15 years ago

Your prediction that Apple will not switch to a smaller screen size is illuminating...

The problem as I see it is that for marketing pressure they could switch to 4 inches displays, and the issue showed by the original poster is a bad one for smart users interacting with their device with just one hand (this is at least how I use it and how I see all my friends interacting with it).

Actually the iPhone software keyboard appears to be designed for a good one hand interaction since it works incredibly well even when you think you are putting your thumb in a too wide and imprecise area but actually you end pressing exactly the intended letter.

If there was a reason for the original display to be 3.5" is likely exactly that: the largest screen that is possible to get while preserving one hand interaction and reasonable size for holding it in your pocket.

Confusion4• 15 years ago

  A 3.5 inch screen at that time was already unprecedented.

Supposing that is true: so was a 3.6" screen. Your story does not explain why the 3.5" was initially chosen instead of 3.6".

It's not productive when a commenter completely ignores an argument and instead proposes his own theory, without considering that the arguments need not be mutually exclusive.

kaiuhl• 15 years ago

Hold an iPhone in your right hand with your fingers wrapped securely around the device. Now type Q with your thumb. It's perfectly comfortable for me. But if I try to reach literally any further, I can start feeling a tightness in the tendons of my thumb to stretch further.

It really is the perfect size for me, and I'm a 6'0" lumberjack of a human. Any bigger and it would be less comfortable to use.

grantland• 15 years ago

his post is pretty deceiving, plus i'm pretty sure he just has small thumbs

http://grantland.me/dcurtis_small_thumbs.png

dlss• 15 years ago

he's holding it wrong

plessthanpoint5• 15 years ago

i dunno, very skeptical about the conclusion here. w/ the nexus prime (purportedly) at 4.65", that seems pretty ideal -- decently big enough to read a pdf, but still small enough for portability (pocket transport, unlike a tablet needing to be tossed into a backpack/bag of some sort). nice merging/compromise of smartphone & tablet (which i suppose is the point w/ this new ics os).

mapster2• 15 years ago

3.5" is very practical. Any larger it will surely fall out of your jeans pocket. And the screen is enough to complete all tasks since it is a productivity and communications device.

danbee• 15 years ago

This. It's all very well talking about how suitable the screen size is for thumb reach, but I bet being a decent size to fit in a pocket was also very much part of the decision too.

mapster2• 15 years ago

that's wild conjecture unless you helped design the iphone.

marknutter• 15 years ago

I do not doubt that Apple not only did a lot of research on the perfect screen size, but they probably went overboard with it. They are nuts about these kinds of things. When I worked for Apple, I would always hear stories like how they created hundreds of different colored casings for the iPod mini and spent an entire week just to figure out which 5 to pick. Any other company would make that kind of decision in a matter of hours.

potatolicious3• 15 years ago

I'd argue it's that attention to detail that has made Apple great - Apple doesn't settle for merely competent decision-making, and this is plainly visible in the end product.

I now work for a company that has some of the highest-rated and most perennially popular apps on the app store, and the focus on details is insane. We will go in and fix a tiny animation inconsistency that would last barely half a second on screen - but people perceive this polish, whether they are conscious of it or not, and it crosses that gap between merely functional and actually pleasurable to use.

powertower• 15 years ago

Some men's thumbs are bigger than others.

jinushaun3• 15 years ago

True, but if you're designing a product, you want to target the 80% and the average thumb length.

As I see it, that's how the iPhone penetrated enterprise. Everyone is a consumer, but not everyone is a business consumer. Regular people go to work and turn into business people. If regular people love the iPhone at home, why wouldn't they want to take it to work? Why were companies in 2006 designing smartphones only for business people instead of for everyone?

senthilnayagam• 15 years ago

I have both, but I very often end up holding SGSII on left Hand and use right hand for navigation and keyboard input

scottjad• 15 years ago

When using their thumb to press, how often are right handed people using their right hand versus their left hand to hold the phone?

I'm right handed and almost always am using my right hand, but the image in the article looks like the left hand is the common case.

Anyway, if the right hand is the common case then the Galaxy is actually the ergonomically superior format because you have to ask yourself, what is most commonly in the furthest position that you would be pressing with your thumb? The back button. Yet on the Galaxy, with it's dedicated button, it's well within reach.

rayiner4• 15 years ago

It's weird that everyone here is assuming that the user is a man. Lot's of 13 y/o girls have iPhones. Heck, I just did an experiment with my girlfriend. She's got pretty long fingers for a girl, and the iPhone is just about the right size for her to reach most of the screen with her thumb without stretching.

alperakgun2• 15 years ago

This type of stories of a perfect size when small handed children use smartphones remind me of dogma created in the name of religion, which were easily falsified by science.

rayiner4• 15 years ago

What on earth are you talking about? If you were designing a phone for the mass market, wouldn't you consider one-handed operability?

Apparently, this is why Apple makes so much money. Because some people design phones without considering that 13 y/o girls texting and posting on Facebook are a core demographic.

jff• 15 years ago

The real question is why you're dating a 13 y/o girl.</joke>

mlmilleratmit• 15 years ago

It ain't all about hand size. My beat-up 3G definitely spends more time in my left front pocket than in my hand, so that's a personal priority.

billmcneale• 15 years ago

The Samsung Galaxy S II has sold more than ten million units these past few months, the screen size doesn't seem to bother anyone.

Apple gets a lot of things right, but come on, let's not imagine that every single thing they do is perfectly thought out.

LogoBids• 15 years ago

Very presumptuous that your fingers are the size of everyone elses that uses the iPhone.

The average length of an adult male hand is 189 mm, while the average length of an adult female hand is 172 mm. The Females had at AVERAGE is 17mm smaller than their male counterpart.

With this in mind and simple mathematics, your theory is completely wrong.

ajtaylor• 15 years ago

I must have freakishly large hands, because my thumb has no problem covering any part of the screen on my Galaxy S II. My vote is with @ansy about keeping aspect ratios the same.

njharman• 15 years ago

Yeah, like everyone on the planet has the exact same hand size and thumb length of the author.

rb2k_• 15 years ago

When starting to read the article, the first thing I noticed was the "iPhone 4′s".

For some reason I really react annoyed at people using an accent instead of an apostrophe (4′s vs 4's).

I'm not sure why, but this always gets me

aes• 15 years ago

To add a little nitpicking to your nitpicking, it should've been a right single quotation mark (’, U+2017). In fact it's not an accent (´, U+00B4), but a prime (′, U+2032).

Since none of these characters can be easily produced on a standard US keyboard, I suspect that the blame belongs not on the author but on his publishing system that thought he meant "4 feet" (or perhaps "4 arcminutes").

parbo• 15 years ago

The ability to reach the whole screen with my thumb, while still having a high resolution was one of the main reasons i bought my Motorola Defy. It has a 3.7" screen with 858x480 resolution. The other main reason was that a waterproof phone is a good idea when you have a two-year old toddler.

matt_trentini• 15 years ago

Comfortable thumb reach? I don't think so.

If anything, I'd say it was chosen because the size 'feels' about right.

For me the SGS II is way too big; it doesn't fit in my pockets comfortably and it feels awkward when holding it to my ear.

There's a balance - bigger is better in terms of a touch interface but smaller is better in terms of convenience. Somewhere around 3.5" seems about the best compromise for a smartphone.

For me at least.

Tichy• 15 years ago

Why do you have to touch the upper right corner with your thumb while walking and looking at Google maps? Some "problems" are overblown...

jsmcgd• 15 years ago

Am I the only person who holds their phone such that the base of their thumb is over the bottom corner of their phone and with the end of the thumb hovering over the middle of the screen?

In this diagram the base of thumb seems to be halfway up one side of the phone which seems restrictive to me.

tallanvor• 15 years ago

Trying to guess why decisions are made, while an interesting exercise, is somewhat pointless. The author has decided, based on his own opinion, that the iPhone has a 3.5" screen because that is a size comfortable for many users. You can come up with equally possible reasons such as:

Apple wants to maintain a consistent environment for users, and a larger screen may cause problems for some apps. Apple was unable to secure a sufficient number of larger screens and chose to keep the current size due to availability. Alternative to the last possibility, Apple may have committed to buying a larger number of screens than they needed and do not want to take the financial hit of writing them off. A larger device may have required more testing time, pushing the release date past the holiday season. *etc.

Apple isn't likely to confirm or deny reasons they chose not to increase the screen size, so no matter how sure you are of your reasoning, it's still speculation.

gghootch• 15 years ago

When I hold my iPhone horizontally, these arches make a lot more sense.

PedroCandeias• 15 years ago

In my opinion, a phone needs to be extremely portable and easy to use with a single hand. I'm a tall man and the thumbs on my large hands have no trouble reaching anywhere in a 3.5" screen. I'm also rather athletic in build, so a device the size and weight of an iphone is just within the bounds of what I consider acceptable to carry all day in a front trouser pocket. I've experimented with phones that came in other sizes. The smaller ones sacrificed too much screen real estate, the larger ones were a bit unwieldy to touch / carry.

This is only my opinion and YMMV, of course. But for me at least, it's so wonderful that there are products out there that take ergonomics into account instead of just dashing for the biggest possible spec.

RyanKearney• 15 years ago

This will hold true until the iPhone 5 comes with a 4"+ screen. Then it will become magical and revolutionary.

Mark my words...

jinushaun3• 15 years ago

Reminds me of why a 27" screen is perfect, but a 30" screen is too big. Sure, 3" may not sound like a big difference, but when 27" is already the absolute max, any more is a waste of space and provides negative return (e.g., parallax issues). Bigger is not always better.

bignoggins• 15 years ago

I have a 4.3 inch windows phone, have slightly below average hands and can reach all the way across just fine. Maybe the OP has really small hands.

covati• 15 years ago

This is probably also based on user study data. I actually took part in a user study where we had to play with about 10 different phone and tablet sized lucite rectangles. They all had numbered grids and you had to hold it different ways and say how far up/down/over you could reach.

You also had to note your thoughts on holding, storing in pockets, etc.

Afterwards we had an open discussion period and most people seemed to agree that the iphone size was close to best, but that perhaps the screen should take up more of the real-estate, like how it does on the droid.

jneal• 15 years ago

I have no problem holding my 4" HTC HD7 in one hand and reaching the entire screen with my thumb.

Maybe the blogger has small hands?

sp4rki• 15 years ago

I could easily mean that Apple actually did some research to find out what the average user felt was a confortable horizontal stretch of their thumbs when using a touch based phone with one hand.

Even if that was not the case, companies making phone's these days are forgetting that regardless of the myriad of features that smart phones might have these days, they're still mobile phones... and not small tablets. Mobile phone's should be confortable to use and confortable to keep in your jeans pocket in my opinion.

thehelix112• 15 years ago

You have small hands. :)

mycodebreaks• 15 years ago

This is the dumbest analysis about design.

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