American businessman Donald Trump thinks that Apple is losing business because the iPhone screen is too small.
He wrote the following on his Facebook page: “Tim Cook must immediately increase the size of the screen on the iPhone. It should be slightly larger than the Samsung screen – and they better get it right fast because they will lose a lot of business. I like the larger screen,” reports iPhone in Canada.
The Apple stockholder also claims he misses Steve Jobs.
CultofMac notes that Samsung recently introduced the Galaxy Mega with a whopping 6.3in screen, and suggests that perhaps Apple’s iPad mini with it’s 7in screen might meet Trump’s needs.
There have been calls for Apple to produce a so-called Phablet (the word is a combination of the word Phone and Tablet, it doesn’t mean the device is Fab). The Galaxy Note is one such oversized phone, and the company is estimated to have sold about 25 million Notes in 16 months, which sounds a lot until you note that Apple sold 48 million iPhones in just one quarter.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 is likely to be a little bit more popular, and that phone has a 5in screen compared to the 4in screen on Apple’s iPhone 5. Previous iPhones had a 3.5in display. On announcing the slightly bigger screen on the iPhone 5 Apple said that the 4in display size had been selected because it was most comfortable in the hand and allowed users to reach the whole screen. Crucially the iPhone is only 9mm taller and no wider than the iPhone 4S.
CEO Tim Cook recently emphasised that the company will not launch a bigger iPhone in the foreseeable future. In a conference call with analysts, Cook said that the company won’t be launching a bigger iPhone until building one doesn’t require any ‘trade-offs’ in order to accommodate a larger display.
“Our competitors have made some significant trade-offs in many of these areas in order to ship a larger display,” Cook said. “We would not ship a larger-display iPhone while these trade-offs exist.”
Incidentally, a bigger screen size means that the phone is easier to break. The S4, which hit stores over the weekend, is more susceptible to damage from average drops and water than its predecessor, the Galaxy S III, or even the iPhone 5, according to tests by SquareTrade, which sells damage warranties for all kinds of smartphones.
Larger screen sizes make display breakage a stronger possibility, notes SquareTrade. In a YouTube video, SquareTrade performs a four-foot corner drop test showing the three devices falling onto a concrete floor. The iPhone came out the best with two smaller scratches, while the GS4 had a bigger crack at the bottom and fine cracks along the screen, similar to the GSIII. The GS4’s back cover popped off slightly in the video drop test. Sometimes manufacturers want the back cover to pop off to protect the rest of the device, Twinn said.
The SquareTrade evaluation also highlighted that the larger size of the Samsung devices made them less easy to grip than the iPhone 5.
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Author: Karen Haslam, Editor
Macworld editor since 2008, Karen has worked on both sides of the Apple divide, clocking up a number of years at Apple's PR agency prior to joining Macworld almost two decades ago.
Karen's career highlights include interviewing Apple's Steve Wozniak and discussing Steve Jobs’ legacy on the BBC. Her focus is Mac, but she lives and breathes Apple.