News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:The Popularity of the 4.7″ iPhone by dangus on Thursday June 27, 2019 @11:04AM (#20295036)
What makes you think the trend will reverse or that this is part of a cycle?

Small phones were popular when all they could do was make calls and even texting was sort of cumbersome and rare. Of course you'd want that sort of single use device to be as small as possible.

I fail to see how YouTube, Fornite, and Instagram users (to name a few) will want a smaller screen.

I also think the market has settled on rather standard phone body sizes that have not changed significantly since 2014 or so.

Re:The Popularity of the 4.7″ iPhone by zedpm on Thursday June 27, 2019 @05:07PM (#20298762)
>I fail to see how YouTube, Fornite, and Instagram users (to name a few) will want a smaller screen.

I can't comment on what those users want; I don't use any of those things on my phone. I'm not claiming that large phones will cease to exist; I'm guessing that there will be a new trend promoting smaller phones. Some folks will jump on the bandwagon, some will stick with their phablets. Apple in particular will probably make a big marketing push that tries to portray small phones as some kind of cutting-edge innovation.

Re:The Popularity of the 4.7″ iPhone by dangus on Friday June 28, 2019 @09:24AM (#20304013)
It certainly doesn’t have to be Fortnite in particular, which has over 80 million monthly logins, but if you are on a bus or subway count the number of people who aren’t reading, playing, or watching content on their phone during the journey.

As another example, Nintendo completely discontinued the non-XL 3DS models in the USA.

I think you aren’t wrong, there are enough people somewhere to buy a small screen smartphone, but apparently that number is small enough to not even open up a single assembly line for.

Re:The Popularity of the 4.7″ iPhone by hhunccfing on Thursday June 27, 2019 @11:48AM (#20295479)
Foldable screens might change that. Along with AR and maybe even implants.
Re:The Popularity of the 4.7″ iPhone by dangus on Thursday June 27, 2019 @02:52PM (#20297362)
I think in the 5-10 year time period, people who value using the phone as more of a productivity tool and dislike the distraction will have only a wearable and perhaps not even use a phone.

But those who like content consumption (probably most people) will still be walking around with a rectangle in 10 years, if I had to guess.

Just my own speculation.