Bigger than bigger

Much has been written about the new iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus. My own review could be summarized in just a very short statement. I love my new iPhone 6 Plus, for its beautiful display, the solid battery life, Touch ID (I was upgrading from an iPhone 5), the camera.

One thing, however, is certainly sub-optimal. The size of it. Well, I do enjoy the large display, I love to watch movies, I love the screen real estate and what developers are doing with it. It’s almost like an iPad mini-mini. And what Apple calls Reachability is actually quite helpful. But no mistake – it’s a workaround. A workaround for Apps that aren’t aware of the bigger device.

But there are Apps updates being released these days where the What’s New section mentions support for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, and support for iOS 8. Yet when I use them, most of them just support the higher pixel number, instead of being scaled up. Well, in my opinion, that is NOT “support for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus”. It is just a mandatory first step.

What is missing, but what the developer community has to address, is that people can’t reach certain areas in one-handed-operation. And let’s be honest. One handed is the default for many, and it sometimes – like when carrying or holding something else in one hand – is the only option.

The solution?

Avoid the top area of the screen. The area you can’t reach with your thumb. Move it down to the bottom, or add (respectively replace with) gestures. But stop putting often used tap targets in areas I can’t reach one-handed. Period.

Too many apps I’m using still have frequently used UI elements where I can’t reach them. My favorite RSS reader (right now I’m back at using Newsify, after using Unread for quite a while) is one of those really bad examples. And there’s many more.

The bottom line, for me at least, is that Reachability should be a feature I rarely have to use, maybe to the point of almost forgetting it exists. If there’s an App forcing me to use it all the time, I start looking for an alternative.