Apple just dropped a new iPhone on us, and while it's really not that different from the phones they brought to market last year, people are still very excited about them. The iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max were introduced in Apple's yearly September keynote, and they're Apple's biggest phones yet.
It's funny because 'XS' usually stands for 'extra small', but believe me when I tell you that they certainly aren't small at all. It's just the upgraded 'S' version of the iPhone 10, but written with Roman Numerals because Apple are trying to be fancy.
But while some superfans are nearly wetting themselves with excitement about the new phones, others are calling out Apple for designing a phone that could be considered sexist.
Why? Well, some women are claiming that the huge new displays will make the phones impossible for them to hold – considering women generally have smaller hands than men.
The XS is 5.8 inches, and the XS Max is a whopping 6.5 inches. Optimal for reading stuff and playing Candy Crush, right? But perhaps not so much for people with small hands, like many women.
"I guess I'd better upgrade now before they DISCONTINUE the only phone that fits the average women's handsize," one woman wrote, "what the hell is wrong with you, @Apple? women. buy. smartphones. In fact, more women buy iPhones than men. DESIGN FOR OUR BODIES."
"To the boys at @Apple - we know you are all obsessed with size. But performance matters too," joked another.
Someone else pointed out how the quest for tech companies to keep introducing phones with bigger and better screens is forcing women who choose iPhones to be "stuck with something they can't hold and constantly risk dropping".
It's commonly acknowledged that the average female hand is smaller than the average male's hand - usually it's an inch shorter and half an inch less wide. With phones getting wider and taller, many women with smaller than average hands will struggle to operate the smartphone in one hand.
But of course, there are many men with small hands too, as well as plenty of women who will have no problems holding the new XS phones. While it sucks for people with smaller hands, I doubt that Apple was completely ignorant of ergonomic limitations for the average person when designing the new phones.
Some people are saying the "sexism" remarks are totally ridiculous, implying that perhaps all they really need is a tiny violin (at least THAT will fit in their hands).
But all jokes aside, it does suck that Apple seems to have overlooked the differences in body proportions between men and women, potentially isolating customers and making them feel discriminated against.
Remember the good old days where having the thinnest flip phone was the coolest thing, and having a "brick" phone was so shameful and embarrassing? Maybe tech design will go back to the days of "the smaller the better", but for now, it seems that small-handed-people who really, truly want the new iPhone might just have to start holding them with two hands.
