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Comment by potatolicious | Hacker News Reader

I'm inclined to agree - I use a iPhone 6 daily, and while the bigger screen is nice in some ways, the loss of usability is aggravating.

"Reachability", to be blunt, is an admission of defeat - and I know this is a tired trope - that would not have happened under Jobs. Sure, Jobs may have surrendered to the trend of larger screen sizes, but he would've insisted on something that wasn't so plainly awful as Reachability.

The bigger screen is beautiful and I love looking at it, but I hate touching it. I also hate the fact that the top right corner of all apps is now no-mans land, covered with touch sensors as a matter of obligation than actual usefulness. Expect app developers to start treating the top right corner of the screen as non-user-interactive space only useful for displays.

It's too bad that Apple evidently doesn't have any intention of continuing the 4" form factor. I'd like to have seen multiple screen sizes given priority.

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> Sure, Jobs may have surrendered to the trend of larger screen sizes, but he would've insisted on something that wasn't so plainly awful as Reachability.

Like what? A different way of shrinking the screen, or are you thinking there's a way to enable one-handed use without shrinking?

Here's a comparison of the existing shrinking techniques.. you be the judge: http://www.phonearena.com/news/Whose-one-handed-mode-do-you-...

The cool thing about Apple's approach is that it doesn't actually shrink any tap target sizes. Also it seems easier to enable (2 light taps vs. swiping from the bezel edge). Having said that, I never use it, I just shift the phone in my hand, like a ninja.

The samsung one is pretty much perfect, since it solves the issue of screen height AND width. I wish i had that available for my Sony Xperia Z1 Compact, since even for that medium sized phone my thumb is too short to even reach across.

> "Like what? A different way of shrinking the screen, or are you thinking there's a way to enable one-handed use without shrinking?"

This is a hard problem - one that I would've preferred avoiding altogether by keeping screen sizes sane ;) But alas, that ship has sailed.

I wasn't aware of the Samsung or LG way of doing it - IMO both of them are pretty shitty also and an admission of defeat. This is the vendor saying "totally unusable one-handed without throwing away half the pixels". Apple's way seems marginally slicker, but still sucks.

Unfortunately the best idea I have is probably not particularly tenable - we have to abandon the top of the screen for interactive elements. Google has already in some ways done this with material design - back, home, and switcher are all lined up along the bottom, and all primary actions confined to the Floating Button, also at the bottom.

But getting third party apps to buy into abandoning the top third of the screen is probably not going to happen.

Alternatively this is a chance for more gestures to come and play. On iOS the top of the screen is predominantly taken up by the Back and Confirm actions (top left and right, respectively). We already have the edge swipe for back, which works so well that I practically never use the actual back button anymore. Perhaps what we need is an equivalent gesture for "Confirm". That way the two most common uses of the top corners won't require touching the button at all.

Honestly, the LG / Samsung method seems vastly preferable. Swiping from the bezel edge is a much easier motion than the double tap on the home button (which is sort of awkwardly placed for easy access given where you hand needs to be to balance a larger phone). Tap targets shrink, but they're not any smaller than they would have been on a smaller form-factor phone.

> Tap targets shrink, but they're not any smaller than they would have been on a smaller form-factor phone.

That's only true if the screen was a "magnified" version of a smaller screen to begin with. That may be the case with many Android phones but the iPhone 6 has the same PPI as the 5, meaning the 6 maintains the same tap target sizes and actually fits more information on the screen.

In other words, if you can comfortably shrink a screen's tap targets then it wasn't an optimal screen to begin with.

> It's too bad that Apple evidently doesn't have any intention of continuing the 4" form factor.

It is in Apple's interest to keep the product marketing of the iPhone 6 focused on "it is bigger" and leverage the iPhone 5s manufacturing process as much as possible. My guess is that for the iPhone 6s they will release a iPhone 6s mini.

I'd appreciate it, but the problem is that these "mini" devices most likely will have other shortcomings like inferior internal hardware, missing features, etc. - basically the budget device. If the screen size remains the only difference I'm in, no doubt.

I'm hoping the only concessions will be battery and maybe camera. A 4" iPhone 6s with an A9, 2gb of RAM and 32gb disk would be my next phone.

Out of curiosity, which had are you using? Is this solved by simply using the other hand or both hands? I have fairly small hands and can't ever think of a time I've had trouble using large screens (I have a Note 3, but the 6+ feels fine when I use it). But using two hands to me isn't a big deal, and I'm comfortable switching hands when doing one handed things.

I do think Apple needs to fix the UI guidelines so that "stuff you need to touch" sits at the bottom half, while "stuff you see and interact with rarely" should be in the top half.

Perhaps this is why it was so easy for Android phones to move to large screen sizes - the back button is always at the bottom of the screen; whereas, the iOS equivalent is usually in the farthest corner.

The worst part is that ios always has the most pressed button, back, in the top left corner - the most unreachable position. What apple has to do is just put a physical back button on the side of the phone for your thumb and 50% of all reachability issues are solved.

Reaching to top right corner is NOT going to be an issue soon. In the next iPhone version, Apple is going to duplicate the top right and left buttons on the bottom around the centered HOME button.

This is not a leak. It's what I would do if I were a designer at Apple.

I actively looked for larger screens when I recently bought a new smartphone. I have really large hands / long fingers. For that reason, I looked again at the iPhone. It's nice for me to have choice in a phone that I can actually hang on to.

Isn't there something you want to see and not touch, or touch less often you can put in the top? The top of almost all my screens is usually occupied by a weather/calendar/email/news/etc. widget up top

You could just use both your hands. A very small problem compared to all the benefits of a bigger screen.

You could just squint. A very small problem compared to all the benefits of a more compact device.

Having to squint is not a solution, especially if you have poor eye sight. Using both hands is a minor convenience at best.

> "Using both hands is a minor convenience at best."

For some lifestyles sure, for others it's a dealbreaker - I'm not using this phone in the back seat of a car, or with my groceries in the trunk - I'm using this while holding onto a subway pole, or carrying my groceries in my other hand.

One-handed operation is absolutely a requirement for a mobile device in urban settings.

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