First Click: Who wants an iPhone Edge?
March 11th, 2016
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Remember how Apple laughed off the giant 5-inch phone trend of 2010? “No one’s going to buy that,” said Steve Jobs at the time, “you can’t get your hand around it.” Well, a year later and Samsung would release the 5.3-inch Galaxy Note and forever cement “phablet” into our gadget vernacular. Meanwhile, Apple continued to argue body part dimensions well into 2014. It took a few years, but Apple and everyone else eventually followed Samsung’s lead, with the bigger iPhone 6 and 6 Plus sending Apple’s already record profits into the stratosphere. Hell, nobody even says phablet anymore because giant phones are now the norm.
Samsung's first Edge device, the Galaxy Note Edge, received similar pooh-poohing when launched in 2014. Now, Samsung’s more refined Galaxy S7 Edge is winning accolade after accolade with some calling it the best handset ever. Not the best Android phone, the best smartphone, period. We gave the S7 Edge our highest score ever for a phone. This, despite the fact that the software features unique to Samsung’s Edge displays were viewed as "gimmicks" by Verge reviewers Walt Mossberg and Dan Seifert.
That makes me wonder: if Apple made an iPhone 7 Edge, would you buy it? Rumors and speculation of such a device have already started. So, imagine Apple applying its software prowess to those Edge screens, making them less gimmicky than Samsung’s efforts. Failing that, you’d still be getting iOS stretched across a bigger screen on a relatively narrower footprint that’s also waterproof and more comfortable to hold. And let’s face it, the industrial design of the iPhone 6 family pales in comparison to the Galaxy S7 Edge.
So I put it to you, dear internet.
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