I imagine it will be again. Once the huge phone cycle wanes (and it may already be doing so), we'll start seeing smaller phones pitched as a hot new development. Then again, with Apple beefing up the functionality of their watch, it may be that watch + AirPods takes the place of the tiny phone. Shrug.
What makes you think the trend will reverse or that this is part of a cycle?
Small phones were popular when all they could do was make calls and even texting was sort of cumbersome and rare. Of course you'd want that sort of single use device to be as small as possible.
I fail to see how YouTube, Fornite, and Instagram users (to name a few) will want a smaller screen.
I also think the market has settled on rather standard phone body sizes that have not changed significantly since 2014 or so.
>I fail to see how YouTube, Fornite, and Instagram users (to name a few) will want a smaller screen.
I can't comment on what those users want; I don't use any of those things on my phone. I'm not claiming that large phones will cease to exist; I'm guessing that there will be a new trend promoting smaller phones. Some folks will jump on the bandwagon, some will stick with their phablets. Apple in particular will probably make a big marketing push that tries to portray small phones as some kind of cutting-edge innovation.
It certainly doesn’t have to be Fortnite in particular, which has over 80 million monthly logins, but if you are on a bus or subway count the number of people who aren’t reading, playing, or watching content on their phone during the journey.
As another example, Nintendo completely discontinued the non-XL 3DS models in the USA.
I think you aren’t wrong, there are enough people somewhere to buy a small screen smartphone, but apparently that number is small enough to not even open up a single assembly line for.
I think in the 5-10 year time period, people who value using the phone as more of a productivity tool and dislike the distraction will have only a wearable and perhaps not even use a phone.
But those who like content consumption (probably most people) will still be walking around with a rectangle in 10 years, if I had to guess.
It depends on how one plans to use it. I personally don't want to carry one device for reading, one for watching videos in addition to a phone. (It's very unweildy, I have done that for some time so I know)
Large screen phone for me is a catch all device. When commuting, I can catch up on Netflix or read books comfortably on iPhone 8+
Landscape orientation and continusous scrolling in Kindle or Apple Books works pretty good. The screen is just about right size for watching video content as well without much strain.
I say this as I invariably carry a laptop as I do get uncontrollable urges to write code at any random time of the day. If that happens while I am commuting and lucky enough to have a seat, I have my personal Thinkpad (or a work MacBook) to that end.
Have been trying Pythonista+WorkingCopy recently, seems OK on an iPad, hopefully if I get in the flow of using it on iPhone 8+... happy days. Maybe I will consider getting Xs Max (cost and lack of physical home button are keeping me away from it for now)
It makes sense, though. Back then, phones couldn't do anything except make calls, so the smaller it was, the better.
Those who needed PDA functionality got a standalone device like a Palm Pilot or Dell Axim, which had much bigger screens to support the intended workflows.
