It sounds like if Apple ever increases their screen size, it'll be to something more like 4". That way they can stick to the same resolution, and the pixel density should still allow them to use "Retina Display" as a marketing term.
The latest set of rumours, that seem to be firming up now, contradict that. I normally try to ignore the "next phone" rumours, but they appear to all be pretty much in agreement.
It looks likely that the next iPhone will have a 4 inch screen, but the same physical width as the current one and a bit taller. So the screen gains just over 100 vertical pixels and ends up being 16:9.
I hope it isn't true as while the extra height is probably within comfortable one handed use, 16:9 brings with it far more disadvantages than advantages.
Advantages:
- better for movies (not much of an advantage, given the other disadvantages of watching films on a phone)
- one extra line of icons or and extra message in a list of emails, a few extra visible pixels of website in portrait
Disadvantages:
- even less well suited to photos than the current aspect ration
- you actually get to see less of most websites in landscape (as the website scales to fill the width in landscape it will mean you see less vertical pixels from the site)
- PDFs, books etc don't really fit the aspect ratio
- they are going to have to work really hard to make the landscape keyboard work without eating up screen height at the same time)
- moving further away from square means toolbars will either end up even more crammed in portrait or have even more empty space in landscape
But that's the upshot to the whole "Android fragmentation" issue. You have options, so there's probably a phone with a screen size you'll like. Though to be honest, if you want the best Android phones they'll probably be big screens, since the market seems to be saying that people like them an awful lot...
Yeah, but which came first the cart or the horse...
Any one who wants a top end Android at this point has little choice but to buy one with a huge screen. I wonder whether they all wanted a massive phone
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