Is Bigger Better?

Me in 2015 (artist's impression)

After the Apple announcement yesterday, I mentioned to a few people the to was going to get the iPhone Six Plus (I have, in fact, been wanting them to make a larger iPhone for years, and doubted that they would until they forked products with the 5s/5c last year). Their response was 'why?'.

I was initially a little stumped. Of course I wanted a bigger phone, why wouldn't I (if there's one thing I know, it's that 'moar screenz is bettor')? But couldn't put my finger on the reason, nor why the Apple Watch excites me so much.

After some thought, I realised it boils down to this. Why is a tablet better than a phone? Okay, well sometimes maybe it isn't, but more people have been talking seriously about tablets as a PC replacement than about phones taking over (I think they're wrong, right now, but still, it tells you something).

So why don't we just carry tablets around? Obviously the very size that makes them useful works against them. We need something small enough to fit in a pocket or small bag and, just occasionally, to hold up to our faces.

So the 'phablet' phenomenon is an attempt to bring some of the expanded usefulness of tablets to phones. The size increase has some disadvantages, and they're not for everyone. It depends on your needs and habits. Bigger is bulkier, harder to hold, harder to use one-handed. For me, that's not a dealbreaker - the benefits of the bigger and better display and keyboard outweigh the annoyances - but what if there were a way to mitigate these?

The annoyances of a large phone are greatest when out and about and walking around. So, how we can take advantage of the phone's features without whipping it out every five minutes? Have an adjunct device strapped to your wrist.

The Apple Watch (or, fair enough, an equivalent device) at the very least picks up the strain here. How many times have you dug your phone out when it vibrates only to find it's an irrelevant notification? Check it on your watch. Reply to texts from your watch. Quickly check the time, weather, make calls, control other devices, get summary reports - all on your watch. That's aside from all of the stuff that it actually does in and of itself.

There's no one killer thing a smart watch does - I don't want it to. I want it to make the main device I use - my phone - better and improve the way I use it. This is the future I see. More of the phone as a 'hub', combined with adjoining devices that expand what it can do while piggybacking off its capabilities. These are essentially 'modular', adding and complementing functionality when it is needed. One of the things I think people misunderstand about Google Glass is that if you own it, you don't have to wear it all the time. You can take it off, for politeness, for practicality, and yet still get the benefits that it offers when they're useful.

Of course, there are some big questions to be answered about Apple Watch in particular. Firstly, does it actually work? Secondly, can it do everything promised (if it's 60%+ of what's shown at launch, I'll still likely be happy). Finally - battery life. This is going to be the knotty topic. On the one hand, if it's one-day-per-charge, well, that's not great, but I'm not going to be wearing it at night and am already pretty well trained to connect my phone to charge anyway. If it's getting to not-quite-making-it-through-the-day-territory, then it's going to be pretty horrendous. Time will tell, but I'm optimistic.

So I'm excited. For me, pairing the iPhone Six Plus and the Apple Watch seems like the way to go. With some of the Continuity handoff features starting in the new iOS and OSX in particular, I'm really excited about what the next 2-3 years of personal technology will bring.

Me in 2017 (enslaved artist's impression)