When we released the iPhone, we put a lot of thought in to making it the perfect size so that it could easily be used with one hand. When we increased the size of the iPhone 5, we did it knowing that it wouldn't impact one-handed use. While a lot of our competitors release larger and larger screens on their phones every year, they're becoming increasingly harder to use with one hand.
So much so, that they have to rely on gimmicks in order to compensate for the larger screen. Buttons on the back of the phone, shake gestures to navigate the operating system, third party keyboards that take up half the screen, etc, etc... these are all crazy ideas that don't work well.
When we set out to create an iPhone with a larger screen, we made sure to pay paticular attention to the one handed operation of the device and we think we've compensated for the larger screen in a fantastic way.
A lot of people don't know this, but we actually already calibrate the iPhone's touch sensor for how you hold it. This is something our competitors don't do. They go for straight on presses. We've actually changed the touch points on our screen to compensate for your viewing angle. When you're holding the phone and using it, you're generally not using it straight on. There's almost always an angle in the way you hold you phone so we compensate for that angle by making sure your touches hit the area you intended to hit which may not be the area you actually touched.
So for the brand new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+, we've taken this methodology to a whole new level. When you hold the iPhone 6 in your hand, sensors inside the phone automatically detect which hand is holding the device and adjusts the touch targets on the screen to compensate for the larger screen. So when you hold it in your left hand, the targets shift over to the left. When you hold it in your right hand, they shift to the right. When you're holding it with both hands, the phone will detect that and will adjust accordingly.
We do this through some fantastic software in conjunction with the amazing M7 motion chip inside each and every new iPhone now. The M7 chip offloads all that work from the A8 processor and gives instant feedback to the software about how the phone is being held. And we use the spectacular parallax perspective in iOS 8 to show the shifting of the letters on the keyboard or buttons in apps so that you know the phone is working with you. It's an extension of your thumb as opposed to it's enemy.
We think it's a fantastic solution to the problem of larger screens on phones and we can't wait for you to try it out. We think that, when you do, you'll agree that the screen has been designed for the device as opposed to just taking a phone and putting a bigger screen on it. We're really excited about it and we think all the iPhone users will be too.
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