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Apple And Android Working To Remove Small Smartphones From Your Pocket

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Have we seen the last of the four-inch smartphone?

With the launch of the iPhone 6, Apple's regular run-of-the-mill handset comes in at 4.7 inches on the screen diagonal. While the four-inch 5C and 5S are available at the lower tiers, next year will likely see the 6 and 6 Plus move further down the portfolio, pushing the one-handed iOS devices aside.

Apple has never felt the need to return to the 3.5 inch screen of the earlier iPhone handsets, even though these were immensely practical. Given the restricted portfolio Tim Cook likes to employ, I don't seem them moving backwards from the 4.7 inch standard it now uses.

It's not much better in the Android world. With the upcoming launch of the Nexus 6, Google's reference design for Android is squarely in the large screened 'phablet' category and a 5.9 inch screen. It replaces the Nexus 5 (with a five-inch screen), which replaced the Nexus 4's 4.7 inch screen. You have to go back to 2010 and the Nexus S to find a reference design for a smaller screened smartphone.

The leading manufactures, especially those who sell at the high-end, have continually pushed the ethos of going large and moving away from practically sized handsets. Now that Apple has joined the size queens, the chances of a small and practical smartphone from a leading manufacturer is remote.

I'm not sure I'm ready to move on. One of my favourite handsets over the last five years was Nokia's C6-01. A Symbian OS powered handset, it had all the functionality I was looking for (in 2010), an all-day battery, a delightfully tactile metal chaotic and case... and a 3.2 inch screen that kept everything svelte and easily mobile.

Since then, the manufacturers have pushed larger and larger screens to the consumer. I wonder if the demand for phablets and large screened devices has been driven not by consumer desire, but a lack of choice around anything smaller than the flagship model trying to physically stand out.

At this point the forward-looking prospects must be for the current rash of five-inch handsets to rule the roost, with any portable or discrete functionality to be supplied through a smartwatch. It's an intoxicating idea for futurists and those who have an interest in making an additional sale. Smartwatches are not for everybody and that seems a long-winded and impractical solution to the problem of small smartphones.

The rise of the compact or mini smartphone has created some of the nicer Android handsets over the last twelve months (I'll highlight the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini, and the Sony Z3 Compact I reviewed this week), but while this goal is admirable, the 'compact' craze still goes with a screen in the 4.5 inch to 4.7 inch category. You can only call those handsets small when you stick them next to a phablet. They still require deep pockets, and while I can stretch with my thumb, the one-handed experience is possible, but not pleasant.

The current trends of large screens and thin devices are in exact opposition to small, chunky handsets. Any small-form smartphone is going to be an outlier device. With so many off-the-shelf parts designed around larger handsets, any small handset is not going to have any economy of scale on its side. It's unlikely that Android manufacturers, already facing pressure to find any significant profit in the smartphone business, will take on a side project that will take away attention from the flagships.

'Compact' is about as small as a modern Android implementation will go, which leads me back to Apple.

The release of the iPhone 6 Plus gives Apple a foothold in the phablet market, and it will be interesting to see how the sales of the larger iOS device will go - does the public really want the phablet, or will they choose the smaller of the two devices? And if Apple had offered a 4 inch iPhone 6, how well would that have sold in comparison to the other two handsets on a level playing field?

The iPhone Six Plus continues to feel like an indignant 'fine, here's your phablet' from Apple and the 4.7 inch screen splits the difference. Next year, Apple will have to decide what to do with the smaller sized handsets. The historical precedent will be for the 5C to disappear, the 5S to take the budget slot, and the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus to move down and leave the top tier for the new flagship.

Or Apple could change its long-standing practice to accommodate various sizes of devices. I don't think that's going to happen. The traditional ideals of keeping the product line-up as simple as possible, reducing the number of components required, and not muddying the marketing message, all suggest that Apple will stick with 4.7 inches as the base screen size for a number of years.

Apple has moved up. Android is already there. So this is it. If you want to stay small, you'd better stock up. The bigger and better smartphone world is going to roll over your favorite form factor.