Apple’s Smaller iPhone 6c/7c Fills an Oddly Empty Niche

According to various not-terribly-reliable sources cited in BGR, Apple intends to replace the iPhone 5c with a small, A9-powered “6c” or “7c” in January. Smartphones got bigger and bigger for a while because people wanted bigger windows to the Internet. But ultimately, they’re handheld and pocketable devices, so for now we seem to have reached an uneasy equilibrium around 5.7-inch phablets being the largest devices people want to carry around. (There have been 6-inch phones, but they haven’t been too successful. They’re just too big.)

As phones get bigger, I’ve been hearing complaints from many readers and friends—primarily women in urban areas, who want to use their phones in one, smaller-sized hand—that current premium Android phones are just too big. Those people flock to Apple’s iPhone 6 line, which at 2.64 inches is the narrowest premium smartphone out there right now.

(Tangent: when people talk about screen sizes and comfort, they’re never really talking about screen sizes. They’re talking about the narrowness of the phones, because that controls what you can reach with your thumb.)

Read the full story at PC Magazine, by Sascha Segan