Apple is looking to increase the iPhone's screen size from 3.5 inches to at least 4 inches, according to a Wall Street Journal report, a move that's presumably being made because of stiff Android competition.
This is not the first suggestion Apple will put a bigger screen on the iPhone this year. In fact, such speculation has been rumored for some time, yet Apple has consistently kept the iPhone display at 3.5 inches for every iteration of the device since its launch in 2007.
As the Apple hype machine is put in motion with just a few weeks until the company's Worldwide Developers Conference in June, talk about what the new iPhone will bring is intensifying. Since Apple didn't do any radical changes to the iPhone design last year, a revamped look is expected to come this year.
The Wall Street Journal report does not give any specifics on how big the screen of the new iPhone would be, saying it would measure "at least 4 inches diagonally," which indeed would be bigger than the current 3.5-inch display. But if it's any indication, an earlier report from Reuters put forward the more precise diagonal measurement of 4.6 inches.
Perhaps what fuels the interest in a larger-screen iPhone is that in the past couple of years Android manufactures have been pushing the size of their phone displays close to 5 inches, in a bid to differentiate themselves. With a bigger-is-better mentality, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus has a 4.65-inch screen, all the way up to 4.8 inches on the Galaxy S III or 4.7 inches on the HTC One X.
As my colleague Jared Newman explains, many snub the idea of a bigger iPhone display because easy one-handed operation is a big part of the iPhone's design, and that's just not possible with a display of around 4.6 inches. In defense of a larger-screen devices, Android manufacturers have found that that allows them to create thinner designs on phones. By making the screen bigger, Apple also would be able to deliver a more radical redesign of the iPhone. The question is, will Apple manage to maintain the highest pixel density phone display on the market if it decides to go big?
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Comments
Paul said: It happened with the Desktop PCsamp lappys - Manufacturers expected consumers to ever keep upgrading amp upgrading year after year amp they became confused when it stopped happening I for one are getting a little jaded by whats now happening in the mobile tablet market etc So the next iPhone may be half an inch bigger big deal will it have more pixels Hardly earth moving events to look forward to I feelThere is a limit as to what you can actually do with any phone or a tablet PC amp I feel we are getting there It seems to me the likes of Apple are running out of ideas amp I have better things to spend my money on than a little larger screen with a few more pixels Ill stick with what I have amp with a conversation last night with friends Im not on my own here - though time will tell It will also happen shortly with TVs too as it seems Im expected to upgrade those every two years to maybe decease the size of my bezel amp have an Internet TV amp of course 3D