Next Apple iPhone To Have a 4 Inch Display?

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Next Apple iPhone To Have a 4 Inch Display?

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday November 27, 2011 @01:00PM from the more-screen dept.

dkd903 writes "According to reports from Macotakara, Hitachi Displays Ltd and Sony Mobile Display Corporation has started shipping the screens for the iPad 3 and a 4-inch LCD screen for an unnamed iOS device. It would be fairly safe to assume that the 4-inch display will be for the next iPhone – the iPhone 5."

16 of 330 comments (clear)

First Post by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-27 13:02 · Score: 5, Funny

I have something 4 inches to show you...
I kinda hope not. by DWMorse · 2011-11-27 13:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

I kinda hope it doesn't. It might have advantages, having a screen the size of a toaster. The only problem is having a screen the size of a toaster.
I like a phone I can use with one hand easily. This whole post was typed with my right hand only, on my iPhone 4.

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There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
1. Re:I kinda hope not. by grcumb · 2011-11-27 13:09 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  So you're left handed then? 8)
  
  --
  Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
2. Re:I kinda hope not. by mug+funky · 2011-11-27 14:06 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  that's interesting because there's a bit of truth in it.
  it could be argued that Apple can't refine it's interfaces beyond a certain point because users adapt to Apple while Apple adapts to it's users.
  perhaps we need competing products so Apple can watch people's complaints about their competitor's interfaces in order to get some fresh ideas for their own, because feedback about their own devices would be tainted by sycophant users who say "doubleplusgood" to everything they buy.
3. Re:I kinda hope not. by symbolset · 2011-11-27 15:40 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  There's a certain amount of truth in this. People, and their fingers, come in different sizes, different visual acuities. Some are more graceful than others. Some have purses to carry their phones in, some shirt pockets, some cargo pockets. Some prefer a physical keyboard, others a choice of onscreen keyboards. Some need a cheaper phone to suit their wallet, some more battery life, some more storage, some the slimmest possible device. In Android serving these needs is called "choice." On other platforms it's called "fragmentation" and is held to diminish the main.
  The Jobsian vision is to make the one best phone they can, and continue to make several historical revisions. This increases economies of scale and hence margins. It simplifies developer needs and update complexity so that one app works on all phones and updates can be swift and sure. It gives a great experience if it suits your needs, and the design is engineered toward a human curve that should fit most. Because it delivers a premium experience for the people it's engineered for they can charge a premium price for it. But if your needs diverge from this solid design that suits most: too bad.
  I wouldn't say Jobs' design philosophies are falling down here. By all reports these devices serve so many people so well that customer satisfaction is as high as any product gets, for all products, for all time. Apparently the engineers are masters of the standard deviation and excel at serving huge numbers of people with what they want, even before the people themselves know what that is. And hence the devices are as profitable as consumer products get and then 6x times that. So much so that they gather an estimated two thirds of the profits in the smartphone trade with something like 20 percent of sales. I would call that a win both for Apple and for their well-served customers.
  But if it's not for you, it's not. Apparently there are other companies eager to serve the outliers on the curve like you and me. So many in fact that you can find a phone to suit any conceivable assortment of needs that aren't contradictory. These phones can't run the proprietary iOS, but they do run software deemed by many to be close enough in utility and with a grand assortment of applications. In their eagerness to please these phone vendors get bold and try seriously crazy things: pico projectors, 5" screens, detachable keyboards, gamepads for keyboards, phones that dock to a tablet or smartbook, HDMI 1080p outputs, all kinds of stuff. Some of these extreme solutions become niche markets that don't sell many units - on some of them the manufacturer loses money. In general they're not as profitable as iPhone, but it beats earning $10 on a $200 laptop, or $3 on a BluRay player - and it's honest work.
  
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  Help stamp out iliturcy.
As I keep telling my wife... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-27 13:05 · Score: 5, Funny

Four inches should be enough for anyone.
1. Re:As I keep telling my wife... by caitsith01 · 2011-11-27 14:30 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Remind me not to accept "facetime" requests from you.
  
  --
  Read Pynchon.
Re:Won't sell. by Tyrannosaur · 2011-11-27 13:07 · Score: 5, Insightful

except... if the next one is 4", then that would make the "current iScreen" 4", so they'll be happy. Don't you know how Apple works?
Seriously?! by whisper_jeff · 2011-11-27 13:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

I'm a massive Apple fanboi and proud to admit it but, seriously, we're already posting articles about the iPhone 5? Really? It's literally a year away and we're already discussing it? Give it a damn rest!

Not to mention the rumour is that the screen is for a _NEW_ iOS device. If you're going to rumour-monger, at least get the rumours right...

Garbage like that is what gives good Apple fanbois like me a bad name...
Re:It would be dumb to replace the smaller one by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-27 13:38 · Score: 5, Insightful

I don't understand why so many people here think a 4" screen is gigantic. Remember that screen size is measured on the diagonal. The current iPhone has a 3.5" screen; a 4" screen would be 14% bigger. Look at an iPhone 4 and you'll see that the display doesn't even take up the whole surface of the device (the bezel on the iPhone is in fact much larger than most other smartphones). Increasing it to 4" could just mean that the display takes up more of the front-face of the device: you wouldn't even have to make it bigger than the current iPhone. Besides, there are lots of Android phones with screens of 4" or more. They are not absurdly big, and plenty of people carry them around in their pockets.

The headline should really read: "Rumour that next-gen iPhone may have incrementally larger display, similar to competing devices already doing well on the market". Not exactly a big deal, here.
Re:Here We Go.... by ThorGod · 2011-11-27 13:53 · Score: 5, Insightful

Can we just agree that Apple hardware articles are flamebait by default, especially the ones about the mere possibility of new Apple hardware, and stop frickin posting them?
Plenty of the more popular things posted on this site are polarizing. Look at some of the things that aren't polarizing, how many comments they get, and contrast with the number of comments here. I'd argue it'd be irrational to not run stories that *always* get a large number of comments.
I love the theoretical physics posts, for instance, but they usually average 30-50 comments. This Apple post, though, might run 100 comments (or more) and it's just on screen size!

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PS: I don't reply to ACs.
If it's not AMOLED it'll be polarizing by tepples · 2011-11-27 13:57 · Score: 5, Funny

Look at some of the things that aren't polarizing
Except it's impossible to have an article about a new device with an LCD panel without it being polarizing, because polarizing is how LCDs work. In order for it not to be polarizing, it'd have to be AMOLED or something.
So the daily Jobs bowel movement posts keep comin' by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-27 14:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

I thought we were done with those, but,
every rumor,
every idiosyncracy,
every non-newsworthy, trivial, bieberite thing about it,
is a front page /. post.
The integrity of the process (yeah, I know, have I read /. lately) is in jeopardy. Please stop, before Netcraft gets involved.
bigger display means a bigger... by tyme · 2011-11-27 14:50 · Score: 5, Interesting

I tend to agree with John Gruber of Daring Fireball that all of these rumors of larger screen iPhones are just bullshit, except for one detail: a larger screen would mean a larger phone body, which would allow for a larger battery, and would give even longer battery life. Battery life is the name of the game in mobile devices, and the larger display would give Apple an opportunity to get an additional leg up on their competition. It would also be helpful to have more battery capacity if they were upgrading the iPhone to 4G, which seems to need a lot more power.
While I tend to find Gruber's arguments about maintaining the dimensions of the UI by maintaining the dimensions and resolution of the display convincing, the change in dimensions of the iPhone interface going from a 3.5" to a 4" screen doesn't seem to be much of a concern. The greater concern is that the 4" screen is too large for many people to comfortably access the full screen with their thumb while holding the phone in the same hand (though that could be alleviated by narrowing the bezel around the screen).
So, while I'd love to bet against the rumor mongers clamoring for a 4" display on the next iPhone, I think that it might actually happen. A 4G phone will need a bigger battery, and I think Apple would rather make the phone face larger, than make the phone thicker, and that make a 4" display an easy sell.

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just a ghost in the machine.
Re:Here We Go.... by Guy+Harris · 2011-11-27 15:29 · Score: 5, Interesting

Can we just agree that Apple hardware articles are flamebait by default, especially the ones about the mere possibility of new Apple hardware, and stop frickin posting them?
Can we just agree that a huge number of articles on Slashdot, period, are flamebait by default? Anything that mentions {Apple,Microsoft,the Linux community,BSD} will probably get the usual pile of shouting from both sides, anything that mentions global warming will probably get the usual pile of shouting from both sides, anything about Gummint {forcing people to do XXX, nudging people to do XXX, refusing to give money to people who don't do XXX, encouraging people to do XXX} will probably get the usual pile of shouting from both sides, anything about the RIAA/MPAA will probably get the usual pile of shouting (mostly against the RIAA/MPAA in this case),, etc., etc., etc..
Re:Here We Go.... by artor3 · 2011-11-27 16:45 · Score: 5, Insightful

That's the sort of attitude that leads to news stations reporting meaningless scandals and outright fabrications, instead of real news. It's like offering a recovering alcoholic a beer. On some level they may want it, but it's bad for them and you'd be an ass to do so.
If you just want to rack up a bunch of comments, make Slashdot into a 24/7 "discussion" board for global warming and religion. That might rake in the advertising dollars in the short term, but the site would suck.