Big phones are the future.

And it’s because of wearables.

I’ve never owned an iPad. I just haven’t needed one. It always seemed like a non-essential product for me. I’ve always worked off a laptop and had a mobile phone. For people who work in an industry where most of their time is spent using the internet, that was always the best setup for both work and personal computing. Laptop + Mobile.

Now, some of my friends do own tablets. And they use them a lot. They use them like I use my laptop — to consume content, chat to people and shop. My friends who use their tablets are mostly in jobs where they don’t use a computer for 90% of their day. My Mum and Dad also do most of their internet browsing on tablets. And they all have mobiles too, obviously. The best setup for them is Tablet + Mobile.

For the last six months I’ve been using an iPhone 6 plus. It is by far the best computer I’ve ever owned. Stack it up against any laptop and it wins every time. Give me the choice of only having just a laptop or a phone and the answer is easy. Last week I was on holiday and for the first time, probably in my working life, I didn’t open my laptop once. I didn’t need to. I could do everything I needed off my iPhone.

There are a few behavioural things that I’ve really noticed using a bigger phone:

1. I never really hold my iPhone to my ear when making a phone call. I pretty much always use headphones. Firstly, it’s just easier, whether that’s to look up something on my laptop that gets mentioned or calling family when walking home from work. It’s also because the plus is bigger. I used to hold the 5 to my ear, but it looks a bit stupid doing that with the plus.
2. The size brings Siri more into play. Using your headphones more, means voice control is easier. It feels less weird (ok, only only a bit) making a command into your headphone than it does to your phone. Voice control will only get better over time, and if you look at how it’s developing in Asia then there are clear signs it could become the norm.
3. Running with the Plus in my pocket sucks.
4. It is a little bit too big to use with just one hand. Taking screenshots or selfies for example is a challenge. The back button is a bit of a pain.
5. I take more pictures now. The camera is amazing and when you do pull it out of your pocket you feel like you should be using it.
6. I’ve watched Netflix, Youtube and iPlayer on it a lot than I ever would with a smaller phone. I also use it to cast to my TV via chromecast.
7. I write a lot more emails on my mobile than before. In the past I would check my inbox, and then reply when I got to my laptop.

All this has lead me to think that the Plus is just one big experiment for Apple.

At the start of the year I made a couple of predictions internally within our company. One was to watch out for voice control or messaging on mobile. There are already some interesting things happening in this space, but I think I might be wrong. Voice is already interesting, it just needed a different form and Apple might have known this for years.

Apple have this amazing ability to build in applications to their products with an eye towards the future. When passport was launched, it was pretty pointless aside from a few things like storing boarding passes. It’s now the place you store your debit and credit cards to drive Apple Pay. It’s the same with the Health Kit, which launched last year on the iPhone but is really all about the Apple Watch. I feel like they are doing this with the bigger Plus mobile too.

Siri has been built into the iPhone since 2011. Apple have been collecting data on how people use voice control for 4 years now. I wonder, just wonder, if they knew that voice control would really come into play with wearables, as mobile replaces laptops/PC as the main computing device.

Everyone is going to own a mobile — to quote Benedict Evans — yes, everyone. It will be everyone’s personal computer, but more than that it will be the device that powers everything else. Forget the PC/Laptop, mobile will be the centre point of personal computing.

That means that everything will be built off mobile as a platform. TV will be played on a mobile and cast to a screen, which is probably why someone like Apple or Google haven’t released a TV hardware product. Whether writing or coding, there’s no reason why in the future a more powerful phone won’t be your hard drive, connected to a screen and keyboard. Wearables will become what the phone is now. You’ll use them to check notifications, send the odd message, play a playlist or record a quick note, but if you need to do something more time consuming it’ll be on your phone. Basically, the way you currently used to your laptop with your mobile.

And this is the reason why bigger mobile phones are the future. Because many people won’t own a laptop and everything they do with computers will be on a mobile. Wearables will become the add on for some features.

The ideal setup for many people will be Mobile + Wearable. The mobile will stay in the pocket more, or even at home, with the wearable becoming the more direct way to check in on everything.

What wearable that is, if it is indeed just one dominating product, I have no idea. Apple Watch feels like just the start though.