I Bought the Huge iPhone. I'm Already Thinking of Returning It (READ COMPLAIN)

As I stood in line at my local AT&T store Friday morning, preparing to plunk down $399 on Apple’s next big thing, a fear crept into my thoughts: What if the iPhone 6 Plus is too big to fit into my pants pocket? Am I going to have to start carrying a purse?

This, of course, is not a novel problem. Half the smartphone-buying population has been grappling with it stoically for years, because the pockets on women’s clothing tend to be Lilliputian. Only with the growing popularity of “phablets” like the 6 Plus and the Samsung Galaxy Note, however, has the pocket-or-purse dilemma begun to affect men. Predictably, we’re freaking out.

As it turned out, however, I had no problem sliding the iPhone 6 Plus into the pockets of my Uniqlo chinos. One of my colleagues, whose sartorial taste skews toward elfin hipster jeans, had somewhat more difficulty when he tried my new phone on for size. I'm guessing he'll opt for a smaller version.

Yet just as I began to rejoice that I hadn’t wasted my money on a phone I couldn’t carry, a different drawback became apparent: There’s no easy way to use the device with just one hand.

Over the years, I’ve grown blithely accustomed to the notion that operating a smartphone is a single-handed endeavor. Not only can I comfortably cradle the iPhone 5 in my palm, but the tips of my fingers have no trouble reaching the farthest corners of the screen. I’ve even mastered the art of swatting home runs one-handed on my favorite little time-wasting mobile game, 9 Innings Pro Baseball.

No more. Just typing in your passcode to unlock the 6 Plus requires either a second hand or a feat of manual acrobatics. Reaching the top buttons on the home screen—you know, trivial things like “messages,” “photos,” and “camera”—is out of the question, unless you’re Kawhi Leonard.

When Apple announced the 6 Plus, I noted that it had included a feature that allows you to pull the top buttons halfway down the screen by double-tapping the home button. I did not anticipate that I would quickly come to rely on this feature for almost everything I need to do on the phone.

Opening my Gmail app and composing a message used to require just three actions:

Tap to open the app
Tap the “compose” button
Start typing

Now it requires the following finger dance:

Double-tap the home button to bring the Gmail app within reach
Tap to open the app
Double-tap the home button to bring the compose button within reach
Tap the “compose” button
Start typing

That might sound like a small difference. If you use your phone a lot, it isn’t. It nearly doubles the amount of time it takes to complete certain tasks. And while the double-tap feature makes it relatively easy to reach the top of the screen, it remains a struggle to reach the sides without dropping the device altogether. Two of the people I to whom I briefly loaned the phone managed to fumble it within the first 30 seconds.