iPhone 6 Big Screen vs Compact iPhone 5S
I actually think that Tim Cook is doing his best not to trash larger screens and to frame his comments around “Apple won’t do a larger screen unless Apple can do it without major compromises” because… Apple is going to introduce a larger screen iPhone.
Apple recognizes that a crappy bigger screen gets the customers attention in the store more than an awesome and near-perfect smaller screen.
The customer satisfaction may be lower if the customer later finds that they are constantly fumbling the phone (i.e.: customers who don’t know what is best for their use case may end up buying the wrong thing).
But the “Wow Factor” of a bigger screen is huge (no pun intended).
I like my 3.5-inch iPhone 4S and I have played around with the iPhone 5 and I like that too. I have tried out the Galaxy Note 2 and it is too big for my use case.
I think that Apple will release a larger screen non-retina iPhone at a lower price point at first. This will be a way of Apple saying “here is the big screen for the people who are wowed by that, but here is the premier model that has a more compact size”.
This will upset many people awaiting a larger screen iPhone that is also the top-of-the-line model just as the Galaxy S4 mini upsets Android users who want a premier Android phone in a smaller size.
But I don’t see Apple achieving pixel-doubling in length and width on a 5-inch iPhone with retina display in the next 24 to 30 months. Let’s face it, Apple is not going to introduce a screen that has crappy 1.5x scaling of apps.
Apple will go with 264ppi iPad display cut to a 4.99-inch size. Even so, 264ppi is really really nice and about 60% better than the original iPhone, 3G, or 3GS. The folks Apple will be targeting are the less-savvy folks who simply “wow” over the big screen. Those folks can’t tell the difference between 264ppi and 326ppi.
The more savvy folks who simply want a bigger display on an iPhone (like the ones who post to tech forums) will likely split with half of them saying that 264ppi is good enough and the others complaining how the larger iPhone display is not nearly as good as the Galaxy S4.