From small to big and beyond
Prologue
There are videos that one might eventually wish were never made (and published). Yes my friends, there are. I know your dirty mind may wander somewhere in the pink/booze/sex, drugs & rock'n'roll department, but what i refer to is this one.
The video ad that should not be
Yes Sir, i am talking about this official Apple video ad for the iPhone 5 where the narrator calls upon our common sense and clearly points out that "our thumb goes from here to here". Is it just me or does the video clearly imply that anything bigger than what your thumb can reach without significant strain actually defies common sense? Huh, Apple?
How do people feel about this video while everybody already knows that the next iPhone will be offered in L (4.7 inch) and XL (5.5 inch) variations only? I cannot but reproduce a comment (of the video in the above link) of a certain 'Paul Mancine' who clearly asks:
"So given that Apple Fan Zombies believe everything fed to them, does the larger screen on the new upcoming Iphone mean that evolution has given us longer thumbs in record time? Or does it mean that the standard Apple fan will just believe anything they tell them and think it's the best thing ever? Hmmm....."
While i sincerely believe that Apple fans (myself included) do not always qualify as zombies, i certainly do agree with Paul. You see, dear reader, Apple has been trying to convince us that a 3.5 inch cellphone screen is the ticket to Paradise for quite some years and later on tried to tackle the (by now infamous) Schnitzel problem by moving up to 4 inches, offered the above video as a means to justify what cannot be justified.
Let us all pretend we believe Apple that on a moment of true revelation a voice from the sky told their executive team that they should stretch the iPhone 4S screen to iPhone 5 dimensions because it would be good for humanity. (I clearly state here that i mostly agree with the video commercial and actually think that the optimal screen size for people with M sized hands (undeniably the majority) is 4.3 inch with a 4:3 ratio, as was the case with (possibly) the best phone ever made.)
How are they going to feed us the news that 4.7 inch is now the optimal size? Were they mislead in the past and just managed to drink from the fountain of truth? Were they correct in the past and trying to deceive us now? Were they correct in the past and correct now as well? But of course, is is Apple we are talking about here, these guys are always correct. But just for a tiny fraction of second, let's hypothesise that they were wrong in the video ad, do you think they would ever admit it?
The man who ate his words
Networking pioneer Robert Metcalfe in 1995 predicted a total collapse of the Internet in the following year (1996) and as the elder among you might remember was proven wrong. During his keynote speech at the sixth International World Wide Web Conference in 1997, he took a printed copy of his column that predicted the collapse, put it in a blender with some liquid and then consumed the pulpy mass. Yeap, the man literally ate his words.
The Apple way
Okay, i certainly am not expecting Tim Cook or Johny Ive to eat their video, practical reasons aside. To be frank, i would say Tim doing that is far more probable than Johny, by the way. Anyway. I am eager to see how they are going to try and justify the transition form M size to L and XL. My guess is they are not going to say one thing about it in the keynote. They will just try to force feed us their unequivocal truth, the way the usually do. (Reminder to annoyed readers: I am an Apple fan. I have a Macbook Air, an iPad and two iPhones and i love each of them.) Just the way an annoyed (by the signal reception drop when holding the phone by the steel bands (the obvious way to hold it, by the way)) iPhone 4 user was advised by (an even more annoyed) unforgettable Steve Jobs to "Just avoid holding it in that way"!Epilogue
I love my iPhone. I love the OS, the tight integration between my Apple devices (which will get even better with iOS 8 and continuity) and above all i love it's size and weight. This is a very important reason i am not considering an Android flagship right now. They are far too big for my taste. |
| Image from bgr.com (link) |
Wanna know what the Galaxy Alpha's dimensions will be? Exactly 132.4mm long x 65.5mm wide x 6.7mm thick with a weight of 114 gr. Smaller in every dimension than the next iPhone, that is.
Get it now dear Apple? The size factor that was of uttermost importance to many people shall not remain your strong card, not anymore. It is true that in M sizes the iPhone was the indisputable king, but in the L and XL categories? What is going to happen? Competition is stiff.
And one more thing, where is the God damned iWatch? Huh? The Gear 2 is here for quite some time and getting better all the time, the standalone Gear Solo is almost here, the magnificent Moto 360 will be here on September 4. You know that, right? You know that if i am desperate (and i am) for a decent smartwatch, then my phone must run Android. And the Galaxy Alpha is very very close to the iPhone 6 regarding every hardware/manufacturing aspect....
