iPhone 6: Bigger Isn’t Always Better

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m a big fan of Apple and its terrific products. I’m no “fanboy,” but I do have a stable of Apple products that manage to enhance my life in their respective ways. That said, I hate my fucking iPhone 6.

My first iPhone was purchased on November 11, 2007, as a birthday gift to myself. And what a gift it was. I was a God among men. People came to me with burning questions, like “Was Bill Paxton or Bill Pullman the one that was in Weird Science?” And within a few clicks (and a lengthy wait – it was Edge speeds after all), I answered with the wisdom of Solomon.

This was before the app store, so I was pretty well stuck with the apps that came with the product. But I didn’t need any more. After all, why would anyone want to do anything with a phone other than check mail, make calls, send texts and surf the web, am I right?

Of course, the world has changed since then and people have been clamoring for more, more, more from Apple and a slew of me-too phones. “It needs to be bigger,” “It needs to be faster,” “It needs to be bendable.” Through a handful of generations, it got bigger, better, and faster, but it always stayed manageable.

Well, sadly, with the recent release of the iPhone 6, cooler heads didn’t prevail. My new iPhone 6 is gigantic. I can’t imagine why anyone would want such a large phone. And much to my surprise, the iPhone 6 Plus is even larger?! If your base product doesn’t fit in a hand, why the hell would you make an even larger one? It’s a phablet, you say? Well that’s phstupid.

So here I struggle, unable to click on my entire screen without resorting to the two-hand method. I keep mistyping my username because there’s so much real estate between letters. This damn phone needs to be smaller.

In fact, Apple must’ve realized it was stupid big, because it made it possible to double-tap on the home button to bring the top half of the screen within reach. But folks, that feels like a workaround rather than a feature.

Oh, sure, I had the option of replacing my iPhone 4s with an iPhone 5s. But that phone is a year old at this point, and some of the most compelling features of the iPhone 6 aren’t available in the 5s. So that wasn’t an option.

I’m on a 3-year upgrade cycle, so I’m hopeful that Apple will fix this problem. Each mid-generation was emblazoned with an S, which signified its improvement. For the iPhone 3GS, the S stood for speed. For the iPhone 4S, the S stood for Siri. For the iPhone 5S, the S stood for Security.

So hopefully for the iPhone 7S, the S stands for Smaller.