I remember once referring to the iPhone 8 Plus as a “surfboard-sized phone” while inside an Apple Store. I got A Look from an Apple Genius. Not a good and knowing look. Just A Look. As if said Genius would, if they could, fire actual lightning from a Lightning cable and zap me over a balcony to my doom. The thing is, I actually loved that gigantic phone, which was a step up from the comparatively piddly iPhone 5s I’d been using for years. Those extra screen acres meant games were more playable and web pages showed more content. And the battery lasted ages.
I was hooked – and I wasn’t alone. Apple responded accordingly. It eradicated much of the bezel and the Home button with the iPhone X, its swanky new ‘all screen’ design making my merely months-old iPhone 8 Plus feel like a relic. But a year later, Apple took things further, ‘maxing’ that design with the iPhone XS Max and its 6.5in screen. It felt ludicrous to any iPhone fan who’d been there since the start. Yet the screens kept growing. This year, Apple shaved the bezels with a razor blade to eke out a few more pixels. Now the display is up to 6.9in.
Maxed out
As someone who’d used a Pro Max for years as a daily driver – and a plus-sized iPhone since 2017 – I nonetheless found myself with choice paralysis. Much as I loved the screens on larger phones, I was not keen on the extra heft. Nor requiring comedy pockets to cart the things about. So I started to shop around and figure out what I’d really miss if I switched from a Pro Max.
Things were complicated this year by Apple making the standard iPhone the closest to the iPhone Pro it’s been in years – and there’s a Plus version of that too. It’s very good. I said as much in my review. But after using it for a few weeks, there were two things I missed from the Pro. One was the 120Hz display, which Apple omits from its still spendy standard iPhones, while whispering in your ear, “remember you can go Pro for another 200 bucks”.
The other was the camera. I used the 5x zoom so often that the thought of going back to 2x filled me with dread. Not least because I like taking photos at my local pond and had no desire to end up getting monstered by a swan.
Go Pro
My iPhone 16 Pro arrived a few weeks ago. And given that I this year turned Reading Glasses years old, dark thoughts lurked that the purchase was a costly blunder. I feared I’d miss the bigger screen. I don’t. Then I was concerned I’d find the new iPhone fiddly. Also no. Within days, I was typing as quickly as ever, because auto-cauliflower had me covered. And I certainly don’t miss the extra weight. Nor does my pinky finger, on which I’d regularly balance the Pro Max. Read all about that in my new book: How To Develop Arthritis The Easy Way.
What did surprise me is how a smaller iPhone transformed how I think of smartphones. The smaller screen is a bit less good for video and games. The battery is smaller and less suited to chewing through 5G when I’m away from a charger. This has naturally made me use the phone more deliberately.
I’d already been using software to force more meaningful iPhone use: Dumb Phone for a temptation-free Home Screen; greyscale during evenings; Screen Time to gently remind me I spend too many hours doomscrolling on Bluesky. The iPhone 16 Pro has further cemented that – and now makes me wish for an even smaller iPhone. Even if using one might cause my ageing eyes to give up entirely, in protest.