During the American dawn of mobile computing, Jeff Hawkins carried various blocks of wood in his shirt pocket, tapping on a hand-drawn keypad with a chopstick. Over time, he zeroed in on the optimal size for the chopstick and block of wood. And that’s why the first PalmPilot was the size it was.
I wonder what would happen if you decided to try the same approach with today’s smartphones? Far more phones than PDAs are sold daily, And the market has settled on similar sizes for each part of the portfolio. Perhaps Tim Cook needs some of Hawkins’ wood because Apple has a habit of trying out different sizes and not finding the success the company is known for.
The current “awkward size” model is the iPhone 15 Plus. Consumer Intelligence Research Partners’ report from May states that the plus size model represents just nine percent of overall iPhone sales, while the vanilla model’s percentage of iPhone sales continues to drop. Not only are the Pro models more appealing to those buying new, but older models from the iPhone 14 range have also proved to be attractive choices.
Before the larger Plus, Apple had the smaller iPhone Mini, an opportunity for a smaller iPhone with higher specs. This satisfied a vocal part of the community, but alas the vocal segment was not as large an audience as Apple hoped for. The Mini iPhones did not crack the best-seller lists in 2021 or 2022, according to Counterpoint Research.
And so we turn to Apple’s next transformative size of the iPhone. Going big wasn’t a success, going small wasn’t a success/ Will going thin be the decision that finally allows Apple to have an off-scale success?
Writing for Bloomberg, Mark Gurman writes about the presumptively named iPhone Air. This would be “the fourth model” for the 2025’s iPhone 17 family. It would sit between the iPhone 17 and 17 Pro (much like the current Plus modes) and echo the original idea of the MacBook Air—namely, to be fashionable, competent, and offer performance without disrupting the value proposition of the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max.
Look at the number of color options a modern smartphone has, look at how many “web exclusives” are built around access to a specific colour, and consider the prominence given to new colours in launch videos. If you can find the right aesthetic design and fit the fashion of the day, you don’t need to improve the specs to find success.
Several Palm PDA models followed Jeff Hawkins’ block of wood ethos, but it was the Palm V that not only broke away from the blocky look but arguably broke the PDA into the mainstream. That year Palm sales rose 400 percent.
“We wanted something that didn’t broadcast that you were using a piece of technology…We were looking for something more like a piece of jewelry,” said Jeff Hawkins at the time. “…we’re not going to add any features. Nothing. We’re going to make a beautiful product… We’re going to focus on industrial design.”
Tim Cook’s next iPhone design needs to be more Palm and less iPhone.
Now read more about Apple’s plans for AI in the iPhone 16 family…
