One of the disadvantages of the move towards 'hybrid' working (a mixture of at home and in the office) is having to lug a laptop to and from work. Forget to slip it into your bag in the morning, and you might find yourself with only a smartphone to work from. Which, if your device is as small as mine, can be a recipe for pain.
"Don't worry," said my editor with a smile. "You can just write today's articles from your phone!" Clearly she had forgotten that I, a staunch supporter of small phones, am rocking an iPhone 13 mini. And for the first time ever, today I am regretting that choice.
(Image credit: Apple/Future)
I've long been baffled by the move towards bigger and bigger displays. It seems to me that a phone shouldn't require more than three hands to hold, and for my money, the 5S was the last great iPhone design. I don't want to carry an IMAX display in my pocket, thank you very much. But now that I'm attempting to use it for actual work, I'm starting to see the appeal of those bigger devices.
Only two paragraphs in, and my thumbs aren't happy. The compact keyboard isn't exactly designed for long-form typing. My eyes aren't happy either, and by now I'm holding the thing an inch from my face.
This might be the first time I've longed for the iPhone 14 Pro Max (Image credit: Basil Kronfli)
Oh, no. I've just remembered that I'm going to need to add pictures. Which means editing, resizing, cropping, uploading. Oh, how I long for a 6.69-inch display right now! How I wish I had not scoffed at the best iPhone 14 Pro Max deals! (Seamless linking there, I know.)
Okay, I'm going to wrap this up now. I could say more – about how I wish I had invested in a bluetooth keyboard or even a Lightning to HDMI adapter (my lifeless 4K monitor is mocking me right now). But I'm going to wrap things up before my thumbs fall off. I have learned a valuable lesson today. Perhaps I was too quick to judge larger phones. Perhaps, in this world, there is room for different types of phones. Different shapes and sizes. Different uses. And we should celebrate these differences, for it these differences that make them unique.
TL;DR: iPhone mini isn't great for work.
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Daniel John is Design Editor at Creative Bloq. He reports on the worlds of design, branding and lifestyle tech, and has covered several industry events including Milan Design Week, OFFF Barcelona and Adobe Max in Los Angeles.
