What followed was the expected round of people getting all worked up about an old phone, but out of the prank came an interesting, if not entirely unexpected piece of information — people love smaller phones.
“Nice and light,” says the first interviewee, who absolutely isn’t acting up for the cameras, adding “it fits in the palm of my hand.” It’s the first of several mentions of the 2007 iPhone’s size, which in case you’d forgotten, had a 3.5-inch touchscreen and weighed 135 grams. The iPhone 6S is 143 grams and has a 4.7-inch screen.
“It’s actually quite comfortable,” according to man-on-the-street #2, “I don’t have to stretch my thumb across the touch reader (sic) to type.” Deeper into the video, a woman compares the 2007 model to what looks like a 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus, calling the original “dainty,” while another is pleased the device “fits so perfectly” in the palm of her hand.
Kimmel’s video may want to show people fail to notice the design changes with every iPhone iteration, but it actually does the opposite. Sure, many of those interviewed don’t explicitly mention it, but the size of the “new” phone is a talking point. Apple has kept the 4-inch iPhone 5S as it’s most basic and cheapest iPhone on sale, making it ideal for those desperate-to-be-on-camera types seen here. However, it doesn’t come with any of the latest features, but will run iOS 9.
We’ve seen this kind of thing from Kimmel before, when he showed the iPhone 4S to people and told them it was the iPhone 5.