The New, Smaller iPhone Could Be A Better Fit For Women

Apple didn’t explicitly design its new smaller, cheaper iPhone for women, just like it didn’t explicitly design its largest phones — the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus — for men. But some women are excited about the release of a smaller, more manageable model.

A brand new, smaller iPhone is about to hit the market. Though not explicitly aimed at female consumers, the release of the four-inch iPhone SE — a screen that's closer to the size of an iPhone 5 than an iPhone 6 — is good news for those Apple customers with smaller hands, many of whom will be women.

https://t.co/hBwGa38IzU Unmentioned: Huge phones have been a real problem for a lot of women, who actually do have smaller hands.

Not that long ago, tiny phones were all the rage. Recall, for example, the Samsung Juke — a phone that was often mistaken for a pack of gum in the pocket.

However, in the smartphone era, phones have steadily grown in size. The original iPhone screen was 3.5 inches; the iPhone 5 was 4 inches; the recently released iPhone 6 was 4.7 inches, and it was outstripped by the even larger iPhone 6 Plus at a remarkable 5.5 inches. The larger phones, Apple says, have been a commercial success. The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus broke sales records in their first weekend on the market.

But not everyone loves the giant iPhone. In fact, some people — especially those with smaller hands — found they had a hard time using it.

The iPhone 6 is too big it gives my hand cramps when I hold it😓

A coworker just told me about the iPhone SE. I'm so excited to hear about it. I haven't upgraded my 5 because the 6 was too big for me.


Even though the larger phone isn’t be a problem for all women’s hands (many women clearly like and use the iPhone 6) it can still present challenges elsewhere:

What idiot man designed the iPhone 6? They're way too big to fit in the pockets of women's clothes.

I love my iPhone, but feel it hasn't been designed for women's pockets. It's too big! Our pockets are tiny.

Kat Ely is a Boston-based product designer and co-founder of Clear Design Lab, which specializes in hardware design. Ely recently wrote a post on Medium titled “The World Is Designed For Men,” in which she illustrates how everything from household objects to medicine has historically been calibrated to best fit the shapes and sizes of the men who designed it.

A common example of this phenomenon is seat belts — since the 1960s, crash dummies used in auto safety tests were designed based on the average male dimensions. As a result, women were 47% more likely to die in a car crash. Crash dummies modeled on the average female body weren’t required until 2011.

Gendered design isn’t always a matter of life and death. In her post, Ely also highlights how power tools designed to fit the average man’s grip can be an annoyance for women with smaller hands. Which might sound familiar to some people trying to clutch an iPhone 6S, or 6S Plus.

Normally I'm a bit of a size queen 😉 but I'm having hard time wrapping my hand around my lovely #iPhone6! Any women on Apple design team?

I -hate- the size of iPhone 6s. Too damn big. Dropped my phone into a bowl of macaroni. Hire more women, Apple. So you'll notice phone size

With the iPhone 6 "Plus Size", the gender imbalance at Apple is really showing. :)

Of course, size isn’t solely determined by gender. There are lots of people — including kids and teens — whose hands might be too small to comfortably hold an iPhone 6, or maneuver the iOS with one hand. Further, tech companies — especially design-obsessed ones like Apple — put new products through extensive user testing, meaning the sometimes unwieldy size of the larger iPhones was determined to be an insignificant obstacle to most consumers.

However, some of the people who read Ely’s post commented that they had a similar experience with the iPhone, she told BuzzFeed News. “People reached out to me about the phones being too large,” says Ely, who says her iPhone 5 fits her hand just right. “It wouldn't surprise me if Apple got similar feedback.”

Images used during Apple's launch event on Monday.

Apple hasn’t said that the iPhone SE was designed with smaller-handed customers in mind, and we can’t know if their decision to market a new phone with a smaller screen was meant to entice female buyers. (There were, however, a whole lot of pictures of women using iPhones on display during Monday’s event.) But for some, at least, it’s a better fit.

Really excited about the iPhone SE. As a person with small hands, the 6 has been giving me hand cramps since the day I got it. 🍎

Looks like I will be getting a new iPhone. The #iPhoneSE sounds like it'll be a much better fit for my small hands.


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