By Jeremy Ervin
With the iPhone 6 measuring in at 4.7 inches and the 6 plus at 5.5 inches, it seems that big is in. It makes sense too, bigger screens and more space on the inside often mean more visual muscle and more room for newer, faster processors.
And from what I’ve seen, the newest iterations of Apple’s smart phones seem to deliver. There’s only one thing that makes me leery about upgrading to one.
I don’t want a phone that big.
Right now, I’m rocking the iPhone 5. Apple happened to get business for my first smart phone in part because their new device’s screen came in at 4 inches with minimal bulk around it. I immediately ruined that advantage with one of those standard-issue Otterboxes until I found a case that didn’t resemble Optimus Prime.
But time stops for no phone and you can’t just download improved hardware to match a new update or OS. Some day, probably fairly soon, the sands of time will choke my dutiful iPhone 5 into obsolescence.
Even still, the iPhone 4s seems cool to me, though.
16 home screen slots are enough for the bare necessities, right? My dream phone is pretty much the shell of a 4s with modern guts. Something with a crisp but conservative screen that’ll play music, display web text, let me use apps while making itself small and scarce.
I want to forget it exists. Almost like the old school flip phones, only with modern bells and whistles.
Looking forward with Apple, the way things are currently stacked I’ll have to stray afield to find a phone I like, unless I just want to get the 5s as an expansion to the same experience I’m currently having. It’ll be the same or similar OS and same feel in my hand, with the biggest upgrades hidden under the hood.
But where’s the fun in that?
Some of the excitement of an upgrade is the sense of something new and improved. Even the physical-button-having dumb-phones of my adolescence offered a fresh experience and format when you got a new one. Part of me misses that.
Android offers alternatives hovering around the 4-inch range. Windows Phone does as well, and I know that getting to call my phone “Cortana” would make me unreasonably happy.
Part of what I like about my phone, and what I want from any phone, is that I barely realize the existence of the device itself.
Yeah, I think about the apps, information and media on it, but the experience it offers comes not from what it is but from what it does.
Digital reminders fill in the holes in my memory and mobile internet fills the holes in my knowledge. But I barely think about the buttons or the wallpaper, only the tools.
Anyway, by the time my iPhone 5 bites the dust; there’ll surely be a new slew of devices to choose from. No matter what the future holds, I’ve decided that a good phone fades into the background.
Fitting in a pocket is just one part of that.
Graphic by Elizabeth Peck
