Smartphones are the most outrageous gadgets which have truly dominated the modern day technology. The competition is growing day by day with an array of devices featuring every now and then. The fascinating design, beguiling specifications and adorable platform all account in the success of a smartphone. Perhaps the most subtle feature is that of screen size. At one end Samsung, HTC and Motorola are competing in making huge screens but the top smartphone company, Apple, remains aloof of the competition and is stuck at 3.5 inches from day one and is likely to remain as it is for a genuine reason.

Apple could have easily outraged its competitors through a large, maybe a 4.3 inches screen, in the lately iPhone 4S but has instead chosen the contemporary 3.5 inches size. No one ever came up with an intriguing reason to support Apple but Dustin Curtis.

Curtis, a designer who has been spending a little time with a Samsung Galaxy SII Android phone, complete with its huge 4.21-inch screen. Apparently, the reason Apple’s iPhones are smaller is all down to how you use the device with one hand, and more to the point, where your thumb reaches. Read his interesting discovery with facts, given after the break.

I’ve been wondering why Apple chose to make the iPhone 4′s screen 3.5-inches when other comparable phones with Android and Windows Phone 7 have larger, more inviting screens. When you first see a phone with a 4-inch or larger screen, it seems like a much better experience. I thought it was a technical decision, and it could be, but since switching to an Android phone — a Samsung Galaxy S II, the “best Android phone you can buy, anywhere” — 15 days ago, I have realized another huge downside of larger screens: when holding the phone with one hand, I can’t reach the other side of the screen with my thumb.

Touching the upper right corner of the screen on the Galaxy S II using one hand, with its 4.27-inch screen, while you’re walking down the street looking at Google Maps, is extremely difficult and frustrating. I pulled out my iPhone 4 to do a quick test, and it turns out that when you hold the iPhone in your left hand and articulate your thumb, you can reach almost exactly to the other side of the screen. This means it’s easy to touch any area of the screen while holding the phone in one hand, with your thumb. It is almost impossible to do this on the Galaxy S II.