I was an early adopter of the Galaxy Note which looked outlandishly large and goofy, back when people still spoke in awe of how Jobs made the 3.5" iPhone to fit the human hand naturally and no other form factor could possibly be right.
Fast forward today and nearly every phone looks like a galaxy note. Turns out when the utility is there, people will adapt.
> to fit the human hand naturally and no other form factor could possibly be right.
I still think this is correct. "Features" like Reachability, and even Screen Time, are software solutions to hardware problems.
I don't think people would be as addicted to their smartphones if they stayed small. At that size, they were more of a tool, and a means to get something done when away from a proper computer. As the size increased, it became mobile-first, doom scrolling entered the picture, and people started asking if phones were bad of our mental health.
Sure, but if a phone is your primary computing device, as it is for more than half the world's population, it makes sense for it to get bigger as well.
Those of us with larger hands are happy with larger phones with bigger screens.
But even people I know with smaller hands generally prefer larger phones, probably for the same reason most PC computer users prefer larger monitors rather than the 14" monitors of yesteryear.
Fast forward today and nearly every phone looks like a galaxy note. Turns out when the utility is there, people will adapt.