I suspect, they’ll just make them bigger.
That gets to a broader point that I try to keep in mind when talking about politics.
Conservative people cause harm. Voting for Republicans causes harm. There’s no (reasonable) debate around that point. People who take conservative actions and vote for Republicans harm others and themselves.
There are two questions to consider.
- Why are you like this?
- How to I stop you from hurting people?
It’s useful to separate the two. E.g., we have to stop conservative people from harming others as a primary objective, even if this “harms” these conservative people.
But, it’s clear that society, propaganda, etc… cause certain people to act this way. The awful maga guy screaming at people is a danger and a threat, but also is a result of a deep and profound failure of society.
We have to stop them from harming others first. But in the long run, we have to understand what makes people like that and address the root causes as best as possible.
Frankly, I think “big cell phones” is caused by a complex set of circumstances that result in people having one primary/sole computing device, and wanting all capabilities to fit into it. The obvious solution of “have a phone and a tablet for different purposes” is fine in a vacuum, but the reality is most people (thanks to late capitalism) can’t reasonable afford to do this.
Car culture is also a factor. I definitely see a lot more massive phones on people who drive, and smaller phones on people who walk/train and/or have to carry everything with them on their persons.
The “why are you like this?” answer for phones is complex and deeply tied to our economy and culture.
The extra couple inches of screen real estate on a big phone don’t have a very large impact on the number of computing tasks you can perform on the phone. More web sites being mobile friendly and more companies developing and maintaining mobile apps is the most important factor.
If a web site you need to use doesn’t work on mobile, and they don’t have an app, you’re going to need to find a PC no matter how big your phone’s screen is.
Case in point, I think a primary issue here is that a huge number of Americans have uncorrected vision problems. Correctable uncorrected vision problems.
Just get glasses, right?
It’s not just vain people refusing to wear their glasses. Most people can’t afford health care in the US. They wear the same glasses for years and years. They can’t get updated lens prescriptions. They can’t afford good contacts or LASIK.
So of course they need larger screens, if only for basic accessibility.
Why is it so hard for you all to imagine that people might just want a big screen? My vision is corrected to 20/20 with glasses. I have perfectly normal manual dexterity. I wear normal business casual attire to work every day with normal size pockets. I am a person who shuts out as much advertising as possible. I still have always wanted a larger phone since smart phones because a thing because it feels better, handles better. Its like, you can sit on this tiny hard stool or chill in this giant cushy leather recliner and spread out like “Ahhhh, comfy!” Thats the best way I can describe it.
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Do you have to carry that giant phone in a pants pocket all day, or do you put it in a bag? Do you mostly use a car so that carrying around a huge phone is not a problem? Yeah, a big screen is comfy, but a big device sucks if you are a city person.
I keep it in my pocket all day. On my old job I was on my feet walking and doing somewhat physical stuff all day and it never bothered me, and my phone was actually even slightly bigger than the one I have now.
My pockets are big enough for a larger phone, but I use it one handed with my pinky under it. Even at 4.6 inches I have I stretch to reach the top left corner. Anything larger just sucks to use.
I’ve always two handed my phone and used both thumbs even when it was small, its just how I prefer to use it.
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I want a bigger screen, not giant phablet like Samsung Note, but I run the fullsize Pixel 3 and thats a pretty good size. I play a lot of boardgames, games, watch netflix TV shows on commute, etc. all tasks that greatly benefit from more screen realestate. I have decently small text when I read books via the Kindle App, but it really is about maximizing concurrently displayed things in a larger screen realestate and also minimizing the imprecise finger input method for interaction that a larger display also affords.
Would you ever use a device like the apple watch, or if you use android an apple watch but for android? Pretend for this thought experiment that it’s free for you but you can’t sell it. It’s use it or leave it home.
Definitely not. I have zero use for a smartwatch, even if I got it for free I don’t think I’d use more than once or twice as a novelty before just abandoning it in a drawer.
Do you understand why someone may want to? I mean you must as the things sell like really expensive hotcakes.
Sure, I can totally see uses for them for some people or just being a preference, like phone size.
Ok, imagine you live in bizarro land. There’s no such thing as tablets. There’s only phones and smart watches. Everyone has a smart watch and for most their smart watch is their primary means of computing and using the things we all use cell phones for. Only some people have phones. You of course have both and have it set up exactly the way you want, though in this universe ya kinda need a watch to get around.
Then for some unknown reason there’s this trend where people want bigger and bigger smart watches.
You’d probably think this is crazy. Just use your phone for this, make it as big as you want but I for one don’t want a dinner plate strapped to my wrist all day, you’d say in vein.
Then along comes this universe you, saying:
We briefly touched on this before, but I wonder if some of this isn’t that you’re skinny, with skinny guy skinny jeans. My Pixel and Razer both fit in my pocket fine, with room to spare. I wonder if there’s a correlation with weight, cus I’m a large guy with large guy pockets.
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Yes? Maybe some people just want a big screen on their smart watch? I get the complaint that people have that they want a smaller phone and most phones are big, its a valid complaint, there ought to be both. In bizzaro land there should be big and small watches. I just want to push back on folks like Rym not getting that not everyone is them wanting a tiny phone, a tiny phone isn’t the “correct” form and large phones inferior, neither is a big phone.
All I can say then is good luck taking off your jacket without also taking off your dinner plate wrist band.
To me, in the end, if your phone does phone things and is convenient and comfortable to you as an individual its fine. If Bizzaro people are cool with having to take off their watch to put on their coat that’s fine for them.
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The idea of people wanting bigger and bigger smart watches runs into a fairly hard ergonomic limit. As well as just the fact of fashion. Phone size has no such hard limit because there’s so many different use cases they can get away with various form factors. And from a style perspective if they’re all big dumb rectangles with a case then it doesn’t really matter if it’s 4.9 or 5.3 inches.
Yes some people benefit from a compact phone and fashion plays into that from a storage perspective but until you get really small it’s still a big brick in a pocket or bag, so in for a penny in for a pound.
Offer a massive smart watch and the outcry of how ridiculous it is would just drown out the three people who want to flash their wrist pancakes.
Should compact smart phones be marketed? Absolutely. And I have seen multiple attempts and designs for the come around only to never hear of them again. I can understand why.
Personally I’ll take the big phone as a do-all device.
I would like a smaller phone but I would need to have both phones seamlessly identical in every way. I should be able to put down the phablet, pick up the smaller phone, and they just know which one is now primary. If I grab the compact one for a jog it needs to have all of the same content and apps and use the same phone number. If I stop at the cafe and download a new app while hanging out, and then tomorrow go out with my big phone it needs to have that app already installed as if I had had it with me yesterday. If I draw some concept sketches on the Note, I need those to be saved and then loaded onto my small phone at home.
I don’t have mental space to juggle keeping 3 different computers, 2 phones, and a tablet all updated and concurrent. Until we have ways for everything to be seamlessly synced between at least the phones (and tablets) then I’m going to go with the minimal amount of hardware, which means just living with a Note which does everything.
Ideally I could have 5 or 10 physical devices, each tailored for each use case and then they all just access the same “space” when I swipe in.
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