
3.5 Inches - corywatilo
http://dcurt.is/2011/10/03/3-point-5-inches
======
ansy
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.

~~~
lars
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?

~~~
bni
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.

~~~
vacri
Does this mean that you haven't seen a desktop OS UI that doesn't look like
crap? All desktop operating systems have to deal with different resolutions as
they have to support different monitors. Even laptops generally have a video
output for a second, unknown-sized monitor.

~~~
bni
Desktop UIs are generally not resolution independent, they just have resizable
windows. The UI component sizes stays the same.

~~~
vacri
Ah, I see what you mean. Yes, fair call - you see this a lot in games, where
the interface is based off static images - as you increase the resolution for
better main view experience, the UI shrinks along with it, and it's tough if
you like a high res main view but want larger control surfaces.

That being said, I have seen some games with nice UIs that scale appropriately
with resolution, that is, changing resolution doesn't change the screen size
of the controls. I can't for the life of me think of any at the moment -
they're not that common, but they do exist.

------
varunsrin
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.

~~~
dcurtis
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
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.

------
cheald
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
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.

------
nicksergeant
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
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.

~~~
sid0
Evidence? Citation? Or are you saying that on blind faith simply because it's
Apple?

~~~
nicksergeant
Because Apple generally tries to create products that appeal to a large
percentage of the population, not "blind faith". It's an observation based on
common sense.

~~~
sid0
I disagree, and I'm presenting as much evidence for it as you are (i.e. none).
In which conference was Apple's finding published? Where can I download a PDF
of the paper?

------
steve8918
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.

~~~
Derbasti
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.

~~~
forza
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>

------
laconian
Post-facto rationalization: everything's so perfect!

~~~
dextorious
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?

~~~
skeletonjelly
Is this a twist on the No True Scotsman?

Surely Apple would have done that on purpose!

~~~
artsrc
I was guilty of that yesterday.

I was looking at notebooks and thinking I want a big screen but with the
keyboard in the center. I want my hands write in front of me, but I don't want
to look to one side. I 'know' apple do it that way. Then I found an HP that
was almost like that but the F was more left than the J was right, which are
the home keys, so I thought still no good. Then I looked at the Apple and it
was the same the F was more left that J was right. So I decided it must be
right to do that, because Apple know best.

~~~
vacri
_I want my hands write in front of me_

I like this typo, intentional or not!

------
cppsnob
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.

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

~~~
dhughes
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.

~~~
cheald
People like voice recognition, but its uses are limited. I use voice search on
my Android phone every time I get in the car to go somewhere that I need
navigation to, or if I need a map. That's about it, though; having
conversations with your phone makes you look rather special.

------
billmcneale
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.

------
nextparadigms
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.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
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.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
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-...](http://versusio.com/en/google-nexus-prime-vs-apple-
iphone-4-16gb)

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

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
You should really compare sizes by lining up edges.

They have not really decreased the bezel that much either. But area increases
as a square so you get good returns.

[http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i9100_galaxy_s_ii-
pictures-3...](http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i9100_galaxy_s_ii-
pictures-3621.php) <http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_evo_3d-pictures-3901.php>
<http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_desire_hd-pictures-3468.php>
<http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s_ii_hd_lte-4198.php>

I'd handled the HTC Desire HD a fair bit (someone at work has one). The
opposite end of increasing as a square is that small increases are bigger than
they sound. It's a lot of phone there.

I am sure a lot of people are fine with it.

If they could make everything edge to edge, I'l be right there with with.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
At least with Firefox you can drag the images and get a trasparent onion-skin
image to move around and compare any edges you want. It's still not much
bigger.

------
jeswin
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
> 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.

------
codenerdz
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.

~~~
skeletonjelly
The app or the hardware?

------
tallanvor
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.

------
rayiner
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.

~~~
alperakgun
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.

~~~
rayiner
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.

~~~
lukeschlather
The (somewhat clumsy) point alperakgun was trying to make is that there's no
such thing as one-size-fits-all, and it would be somewhat silly to only
release a phone in a single size if your goal is to let everyone comfortably
operate their phone with one hand. There's too much variation in hand sizes to
properly achieve that goal. For some it will be too small, for others too
large, and for some just right.

~~~
rayiner
I took his point to be that the hand-size explanation is something made up
after the fact to justify the iPhone's 3.5 inch screen. I don't think that's a
sensible critique. Apple undoubtedly considered the hand-size issue when
choosing the iPhone's screen size.

Clearly Apple's only goal wasn't to release a phone that everyone could
comfortably operate. But consideration of hand sizes was undoubtedly a spec,
to be balanced against other specs. The engineers probably got some ultimatum
along the lines of: "we're only going to have one basic model, to maximize our
margin, so figure out the screen size that hits the greatest number of target
customers."

The iPhone is a reasonable size for people ranging from teenage girls to guys
with pretty large hands. Probably too big for people with child-like hands,
and too small for the big guys with massive paws, but very likely hits 90% of
the potential market. I don't think the 4.3" Android phones hit the same sweet
spot. My girlfriend probably couldn't operate one comfortably with one hand.
That's okay for Samsung, which has a segmented product line, but not for
Apple.

~~~
lukeschlather
I don't buy that it's automatically inferior if you can't operate it with one
hand. Larger carries trade-offs, smaller carries different trade-offs, and
those trade-offs are different for everyone. You can't hit 90% with one size.
I'd buy that you can make 90% happy, but not if the people you're marketing to
have used decent smartphones in the form factor that hits the "sweet spot" for
them.

~~~
alperakgun
In addition the arguments attributed to apple are usually void, and usually
vain rumors, (see bunches of contradictory iphone5 rumors), they read like
early people talking things like, of course god wanted 7 planets, because it
is perfect. average palm size in some asian countries are small and 3.5 inches
are already unusable to them. Samsung has in this case even a better strategy,
because they offer variations for diversity of sex, age and ethnicities rather
than making totalitarian assumptions :-)

i believe apple will release larger screens at some point and all this apple-
mind readings will be forgotten even by their writers. And those people will
search miracles elsewise.

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

------
zobzu
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
No, he used the SGS2.[1]

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

------
noonespecial
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.

------
scottjad
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.

------
covati
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.

------
LogoBids
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.

------
mkopinsky
Looks like the site is down. HN effect?

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

------
sp4rki
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.

------
ajtaylor
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.

------
bignoggins
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.

------
plessthanpoint5
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).

------
matt_trentini
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.

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

------
parbo
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.

------
jsmcgd
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.

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

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

------
jinushaun
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.

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

------
PedroCandeias
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.

------
rb2k_
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
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").

------
mlmilleratmit
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.

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

------
marknutter
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.

~~~
potatolicious
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.

------
jneal
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?

------
powertower
Some men's thumbs are bigger than others.

~~~
jinushaun
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?

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

------
brudgers
Circular reasoning:

The iPhone is well designed.

Therefore they used a 3.5" screen.

Therefore the iPhone is well designed.

------
mapster
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
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.

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

------
mycodebreaks
This is the dumbest analysis about design.

------
thehelix112
You have small hands. :)

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mahcode
server down?

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dlss
he's holding it wrong

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

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

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

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jXZtssY...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jXZtssYpUHkJ:next.dustincurtis.com/2011/10/03/3-point-5-inches/)

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lclaude01
Designing for Humans: Design Research - Ergonomics - Human Factors - Usability

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

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

Mark my words...

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

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lachyg
Small gloves?

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

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alexwolfe
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.

