Apple's iPhone screen to grow to 4 or 5 inches?

As much as many people love their iPhones, the screen size has come to seem a bit cramped as other manufacturers have introduced larger-screen models. Apple has in the past said there are reasons larger screens haven't been offered. 


The form factor for Apple's "retina display" has been among the arguments for the 3.5-inch screen. 


A new device could use a 1024 x 768 panel which is the same resolution as the company’s first two iPads and works out to 320 pixels per inch. 


That would allow a 4-inch iPhone to natively run all of the existing iPad applications that aren’t optimized for the new iPad, which is double the resolution in both directions. 


So larger screens might be coming in the next version of the iPhone, the Wall Street Journal reports. 


The new displays are said to measure four inches in diagonal, up from the 3.5 inches on previous versions of the iPhone, sources say. 


Apple has in the past defended the screen size as necessary for a good "one-handed" user experience. Those of you already using four-inch screens know navigation with a single thumb can be harder on a bigger screen. 


That might be true, but smart phones these days function as content consumption devices, not just "phones," and there, a bigger screen is better.