Large screen phones: a challenge for UX design, and human hands

"Why the iPhone's screen is 3.5″ and will most likely never be bigger than 4″"

https://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/10/07/why-the-iphones-scre...

From 2011, of course. I had to look this up, because I was beginning to think I must have dreamt the whole history of it.

As someone with small hands I wish I could shout this from the Apple rooftops. I‘ve owned every iPhone from 1-8 and I’m dreading the day my 8 becomes ineligible for iOS updates. The bigger iPhones require me to use both hands. Even this one is too big. It’s taken two toilet baths and had the screen replaced from a drop.

I would happily pay a premium for an iPhone with only four or five rows of icons again.

Someday we'll admit that the touch screen, with "virtual" controls, is a complete failure. It'll probably take a few more years. Like LCD screens, where "no one wants more than 1920x1080" was apparently a Law handed down from on high for so many years.

Why don't we have the option to buy a modern small (normal) phone anymore? It's baffling.

Personally I'm glad that there's screen space when it's used for things that I'm reading or watching. However I'm bothered by all the geniuses implementing the ‘material design’ sticking the drop-down menu in the top right corner. My hand is busy keeping the phone from falling down here, yer doofuses!

I even seem to vaguely recall that in early versions of the two mobile OSes, more menus occupied the full width of the screen, thus being essentially full-blown dialogs. What prevents menus from working about the same way and scrolling all the way down so I can tap the top element at the bottom of the screen? They're modal anyway!

I'd really like to see how an average user holds their phone...

I have quite averagely sized hands and I've never once dropped my phone because it was "too big" (currently on the 5.8" iPhone XS, before that I've had the gigantic Note 3) and I can comfortably reach about 80% of the screen with my thumb...