[PatNY]

Originally Posted by leebase

Yes, as I said, Apple is rarely first out of the gate. Smartphones existed before the iphone. MP3 players existed before the iPod. Apple is not one to rush out and meet the competition. Large screen phones are an excellent example of this.

No, IMO Apple has been a big innovator when it comes to smartphones and music players. While certain technologies existed previously for each, no one put it all together like Apple did when it came to the iPhone and iPod. And what made the iPod unique was its synergy with the iTunes player and music management system and the iTunes store. What other company had a music player with such synergy?

Samsung is the counter example. They DO rush out copies of anything the see the competition doing.

Samsung does everything. They copy. And they innovate. They have big expensive toys and cheaper ones. They want the money from the poor and the rich. They make phones, cameras, computers, components, everything. They are the counter-example to every other company by default because they are into everything.

But again, Samsung is not the topic here. They are almost besides the point. Which is Apple being behind the curve. If Samsung didn't exist, that would still be the case.

Larger screen phones and smaller screen tablets are no "big idea" that has caught Apple by surprise.

It doesn't matter that neither phablets or mid-sized tablets were "big ideas." What caught Apple by surprise was the big success of both size categories. Jobs was sure that no one would ever want to use the smaller tablets. He was flat out wrong there.

It's EASIER to make a larger screen phone. Have you noticed that none of the Android phones without large screens pack the power of the iphone? They can't. They don't have the power per watt advantage Apple has.

Not sure what your point is. How does this "power per watt" advantage translate into tangible benefits?

They needed big screens first for the LTE chips...to account for the bigger battery. Apple refused to go to LTE until the chips had the battery performance for the size phone/battery Apple wanted to make.

No, the Note did not have to be 5" to account for its chips. Samsung made the Note 5" because they thought that size format would allow for more functionality. And they were right. It was the Note that started the phablet trend.

Now Android phones need to be huge for the quad processors running high MHz with large RAM that Android needs to get performance anywhere close to the iPhone. So Android manufacturers make lemonade out of lemons and market the large screens as "innovation".

They have to be huge now because people are demanding bigger screens. They expect them. When I see an iPhone nowadays, I think it looks puny.

You've got things all backwards.

Two priorities keep Apple at its current size. One handed operation and compatibility with the million apps in the App Store. I suspect the firs priority was the genesis of their choice and the second one keeps them there. If they come up with a great solution to the second we may see them some time in the future.

I do understand how compatibility with existing apps is always a concern. Apple's iOS can't scale to different screen sizes the way Android can. So every new screen size requires their developers to jump through hoops. That is a limitation of iOS which holds them back on the hardware front. But that is their fault.

The point remains, they are behind the curve on these other sizes and slowly have been jumping on the bandwagon to meet the changing marketplace.

In no way, though, is Apple just UNABLE to create a larger screened phone. It's just a product choice they are making

I never said Apple is unable to do something. I just said they are BEHIND the curve. A lot of times, it is because of lack of foresight and because someone read the marketplace wrong. Jobs read the marketplace wrong when it came to mid-sized tablets.

--Pat