After much delay and overboard expectations, Apple launched the iPhone 5 on 12th September. Due to go on sale shortly, the pre-orders were 20x faster than what Apple has ever seen before for the iPhone. Of course, no sale numbers yet. Apple might announce the same in coming weeks or perhaps during its quarterly results, but one thing is clear – the iPhone 5 is a consumer hit.
Analysts and tech pundits might be unhappy given the excessive leaks, no killer / out of the box feature or a complete redesign. But users seem to be loving the idea of buying a new iPhone. Why would that happen? Let’s look at the early days of the iPhone. We ourselves did a long post on what is missing in the iPhone. Did the lack of 3G, GPS, Bluetooth file transfer hamper iPhone’s growth in 2007 / 2008? NO. It is clear that the consumers don’t measure the device the same way as geeks or tech journalists do.
The iPhone 5 may not have NFC or a microUSB port, but it has one single feature that affected iPhone 4Ses prospects in the market. A LARGER screen! Consumers have clearly spoken in favor of the large screen. Samsung doesn’t sell millions of Note of Galaxy devices due to the TouchWiz UI. They sell it because consumers want a large screen on their smartphone. And now, iPhone has it too.
I would make this bold prediction that the iPhone 5 would be a blockbuster (yes a easy guess) and the single biggest reason for the same would be the 4″ screen. Android devices have attracted tons of consumers based on two things a) affordability b) media features, like a camera or large screen.
In the camera department, there aren’t many serious high-end smartphones that do over 8MP and the iPhone does a good job with photos. The screen was a different story until 12th Sept. Much to my surprise, Apple did increase the iPhone screen size for the first time ever, changed the resolution in a proportion like never before done for iOS and gave the consumers what they want. The new Apple not only manages to please the ones already in the iOS ecosystem, for the first time it makes an aggressive push to get Android junta who love large touchscreens on the iPhone bandwagon.