Comment by protocolture
9 months ago
Phones had smaller screens when you needed the keypad to interact with the largest number of features.
Phone screen sizes grew as the applications that could use screen space grew in demand.
People are watching 1080p films on the train now. The people who want smaller screens are usually willing to deal with a larger one. People who want larger screens usually cant operate their use cases on a smaller screen. Larger screens also tend to mask larger case meaning less miniaturisation required for the components.
None of this explains why it's just impossible to get small phones.
You have people who want them unusably large and people who want them to fit in your hand. The solution in every other market is that products are manufactured to fit both sets of needs. You don't see pants coming in one size with the advice "wear a belt".
What's going on?
I agree with the sentiment, but pants is a very funny example.
Every manufacturer seems to think people are either tall and fat or short and slim. I'm tall and my only alternative is literally to wear a belt.
>You don't see pants coming in one size with the advice "wear a belt".
Great example. Because people who are shorter than average tend to have to get pants taken up, and people who are vastly taller than average tend to go to specialty stores.
The average height of pants is largely dictated by what the market will permit, requiring people to make adjustments or leave the market. Having a 2d matrix of height and width defined pant sizes is too complex for the market to bother with.
Technology is worse, anything that requires tooling is done the least number of times possible. While small phone enjoyers are disadvantaged, they arent disadvantaged enough to force them out of the market. Larger tooling is easier to make and caters to all other preferences.
> Technology is worse, anything that requires tooling is done the least number of times possible. While small phone enjoyers are disadvantaged, they arent disadvantaged enough to force them out of the market. Larger tooling is easier to make and caters to all other preferences.
No, you're making up a claim that you know perfectly well is false. Just blank most of your day out of your mind, and then... what? Why?
You don't like pants? Televisions come in dozens of different sizes. Laptops come in dozens of different sizes. Are phones different in some way?
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> What's going on?
You're in a minority, it's not profitable to cater to you, and most people don't care.
That's the cold hard truth of it.
You seem to have ignored the part of my comment pointing out that the dynamic you describe doesn't occur in any other market.
Perhaps... just perhaps... the explanation lies elsewhere?
I should have included some kind of question as to what it might be.
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