One thing I noticed in many iPhone 6/6 Plus reviews was the ability to use them one handed. That’s fair since this is an actual preference for many users. On the flip side though, it’s almost a tunneled vision argument for those who had earlier used the iPhone’s smaller design as the perfect model for one handed usability.
While I do agree that it’s an important usability preference for some, it’s not an end-all-be-all type of situation either. For example, even though the iPhone 5S has excellent one handed usability, I’ve more or less, always tended to use two hands with it. So I know that for my own personal preference, neither the 6 or 6 Plus, will be an issue for me.
The 6 offers a far better compromise though where for many, it will still retain one handed ease of use. But it’s quite clear the 6 Plus will favor more 2 handed use (like with an iPad mini; which is why I refer to it as the mini iPad mini).
Daring Fireball’s John Gruber opined that the 6 Plus is going to be more like a new device class within Apple’s lineup (he basically said the difference between a 6 and 6 Plus is more like two different device classes than two variations of the same device).
I myself actually think it’s more along the lines of what Apple did with the iPod product line; where they offered a breadth of designs/sizes and price points to meet different market demographics. As Steve Jobs mentioned, they actually were working on the tablet (iPad) first. The iPhone was what they ended up working on for an actual shipping product first though not only based on what Jobs mentioned back in 2010 at D8 (below), but that it was also a safer bet in case the device didn’t actually do well.
Had Apple shipped the larger tablet form factor first and it’s uptake did not materialize, it would have had a negative consequence on a smaller form factor. The perfect example in this was the Power Mac G4 Cube. Apple got the pricing and feature set on that so wrong, that the company shied away from making smaller desktop form factors in that cube shape (the Mac mini represented a derivative design that had the same square foot print, but was much flatter/shorter) because of the perception that it left.
The point though is that since the iPhone concept actually was derived from the original iPad tablet they were working on, the entire line of products from iPod touch to the iPad Air, share this common lineage. And it makes sense looking at the success Apple had with the iPod, to borrow some of the size, feature, and price points, to reach a variety of consumers.
The 6 Plus offers a transition between the iPhone and iPad lines (similar to how the iPod touch bridged the gap between the non-touch iPods and the lowest end iPhone). But as I wrote in a prior post, the 6 Plus will potentially cannibalize iPad (specifically the mini) sales and Apple already knows this (but the philosophy at Apple is ok with this; the ethos is forwards looking and to outdo and be the one to obsolete what they’ve done before). That is unless Apple really begins pushing the iPad product line more aggressively as true replacements for portable laptops (where there is more they can do functionally via software and services which take advantage of their larger form factor). In some respects, it has for some but not to the extent where the lines between an iPad and MacBook Air really begin to blur.
But Apple also views the laptop/desktop lines as legacy in the sense that they’ve referred to the mobile era as the post-PC device era. And as Jobs also mentioned in the above interview, it will continue to live on but as more of a niche as time passes (and in some international markets, laptops and less so desktops, weren’t even big to begin with compared to the uptake of larger mobile devices which have served the same purpose).
Apple’s partnership with IBM in terms of this mobility angle, signals a cue that this is the intent (having iPad’s in general use across a range of turn key systems – simple examples include point of sales systems and informational kiosks). As far as replacing the traditional laptop and desktop form factors, I just believe that is something which will take time. While the processing capabilities of mobile processors continues to get better (reaching desktop class levels), it’s going to take some piece of software that is so transformative to where it can move that needle; where a mobile platform can really supplant a laptop/desktop for everything.
But going back to the 6 and 6 Plus, it wasn’t just about giving people what they wanted. It’s about not giving up that lucrative market place to the competition without compromising the ideals of their design ethos. Sure, there will be some Apple users who will stubbornly refuse to give up on the earlier ideology that any mobile phone with a screen size larger than 4″ was too big (while championing one handed usability as proof of that argument).
IMHO, the 4.7″ iPhone 6 will bear that out. It offers a pretty good compromise with one handed use but at a display size that will quickly make older iPhones, feel too small (it’s not going to stop those folks with an ideology issue from letting go of the fact their original opinions+usage patterns, are just that; their own opinion/preference). The 6 Plus may seem too big if you have a psychological mind block thinking of it as a phone first. But as I also mentioned a long time ago, these things are portable mobile computing devices; some of them (like the iPhone line), have telephony capabilities in them that allows voice communications. With the 6 Plus, I think Apple will end up hitting a home run in that space where the lines between smart phone and tablet continues to blur.
