5:30 PM -- I think we should be told: Are Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) and other smartphone makers bringing back terrible fashion trends of the 1980s by accident? Or by design?

Consider this: The launch of the original iPhone and its revolutionary touch screen in 2007 slowly but surely made it acceptable to wear fingerless gloves again. Now, there's a whole cottage industry ready to provide you "fun and fancy" fingerless hand warmers so you can still surf the Web on the move.

Now Apple has launched an iPhone with a bigger four-inch screen. This follows the super-sized screens of the best-selling Samsung Corp. Galaxy S III and Note, which was an unabashed smartphone-cum-tablet, or "Phablet" if you prefer.

Naturally, this trend toward bigger screens has me worried. Will the extra pocket space required for our slim-yet-massive phones inevitably lead to the reintroduction of the parachute pant into polite society?

In other words, is this video safely in the past or actually a nightmarish vision of our future?



I shudder to think....

— Dan Jones, Site Editor, Light Reading Mobile