Easily notification light. People always say “oh, it’s totally obsolete with always on displays”. But with a notification light I could focus on other stuff and the blinking light got my attention better. With the AOD, I always catch myself glancing at my phone. Also, the light’s color clearly indicated which app caused the notification. I had White for calls, Green for Whatsapp, Yellow for the ebay app, Red for GMail and so on. “You can do all that with an OLED screen! It only lights up the pixels that-” Can you, though? All apps that I tried were utter garbage. Buggy performance, very battery hungry and very cumbersome to configure. I don’t know if custom firmwares actually have that feature in a usable state nowadays, as I cannot root my phone anymore without losing core functionalities like online banking.
Yeah, everything tends to go to shit with time. I miss my Galaxy S2.
Can’t believe I forgot all about this. It was the one thing I was sad to lose when I upgraded from my Nexus 5 to the Google Pixel. So simple but so useful.
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Does IR sensor count? I loved that on older phones so much.
Not a gimmick. It was great to control TVs, air conditioners, audio receivers, and even electronics projects using something like an arduino and an IR sensor. Such a shame that our smartphones have been stripped of so many features as companies have run out of good ideas to increase demand.
I feel like the implementation was a bit gimmicky. I first used an IR transceiver as a remote on a late-model palm and the interface was much better than most apps I found on Android.
I wonder if it would be possible to pack that functionality into a smart-watch
Apparently nearly everything I look for in a phone. Others have said IR blaster, side squeeze, notification light, and pop-up front camera, all of which were amazing.
I’d add an unlocked bootloader (I bought it, it’s my phone to do what I want with), removable battery (hello instant charging), and a small form factor (so sick of needing two hands to do anything).
Good news on the battery front: the EU is mandating that smartphones have user-replaceable batteries by 2027. It’s not clear if “readily removable” will mean “hot-swappable,” but… hope springs eternal, I guess?
Even if it requires some screws to swap that’s still good for breathing extra life into old phones.
Not so much a gimmick, as much as something that seemingly went extinct that I miss: rear fingerprint sensors. I loved them on my Nexus/Pixels, and the in-screen one on my 6a is way less consistent and convenient.
Also it flashbangs me when I try to unlock my phone at night.
My latest phone has a sensor on the power button and it’s not too bad but misreads happened way less often with a rear sensor.
I had a side/power button fingerprint sensor on my S10e. The S22’s in-screen one is cool and all, but I really miss how my phone would be unlocked before it even came out of my pocket.
I’m still on a pixel 4a, and I am terribly disappointed to hear that those have gone away.
Pixel 2 XL here, the rear fingerprint scanner on this is the only fingerprint scanner on any of my devices that works flawlessly, every time. Why on earth would they remove this???
[waves arms in the air] INNOVATION!
😭
Idk if this is a gimmick but I love swiping on the rear fingerprint scanner to pull up/down the notifications and quick settings. I also got an app that lets me swipe left/right on the sensor to adjust the brightness.
Adjusting the brightness with the fingerprint scanner sounds super practical, how’s that app called?
Front facing stereo speakers were nice.
I miss the HTC One family, such cool phones…
This. I got a Xperia 1 III for the speakers and headphone jack.
That pop up camera on the OnePlus 7 pro.
That thing was cool as fuck. My roommate got the phone and I was VERY jealous even though I had a OnePlus 8T at the time.
As a OnePlus 7 Pro owner, I absolutely love it. No front camera cutout was one of the reasons I bought it.
It’s been gone for a while now, but I really liked the IR blaster to use as a secondary remote when you can’t find the remote because your toddler was playing with it. Dammit Susie!
I use an old remote without batteries for that purpose.
Me sitting here wondering how you control your TV with a remote that doesn’t have batteries…
Material You. I wondered why they wasted resources for … colors. But it’s so nice to have a consistently colored UI across apps and across dark/light modes, and I wished that more apps would support it. Also, those pastel colors are less stressful for the eyes than the previous grey/blue.
I know it’s not everyone’s taste but I really like it.
I have to respectfully disagree here. I would like to be able to choose what that color is. I HATE when I use a picture of my orange cat for a background and all my apps are brown.
If there’s some way to override it and choose your own color, I haven’t found it.
You can choose it, get a different colored cat
You can choose from several colors, not just your background colors.
Go to Wallpaper & Style > Basic colors. (on a Pixel; it might be slightly different on other phones)
Look into the app Repainter. It isn’t free and needs root or Shizuku access but does the trick.
Hey man, I know it’s been 3 months and idk why I’m only just now seeing this, but you’re a lifesaver. Thanks for the tip. It worked!
Didn’t know some see it as a gimmick. It’s very good
Over on /r/Android there was a very vocal crowd that saw it not only as a gimmick but actively detested it. In their opinion an UI is only good when it has an AMOLED black background (and 0 px padding between UI elements, but that’s a different topic).
I love it, glad Jerboa uses it
Nokia N95 flipping both up and down. I really liked those music player buttons when flipping it down
I loved this phone, was my first ‘smart’ phone
Mine too. And it worked so smooth it didn’t even feel like a “smart” phone. That was peak Nokia
Power button fingerprint sensors. I had one on my S10e, and I loved it - with the way I held the phone, my thumb naturally rested on the power button, so it was pretty much auto-unlocked.
Now they seem to have fallen by the wayside in favor of in-screen sensors - which are cool, but ever-so-slightly more cumbersome. Ah well, still better than facial recognition.
This is why I loved the fingerprint sensor on the back of my pixel. I would be able to unlock it while taking it out of my pocket.
Samsung is using them still on the Folds. I’ve got one on my Fold 4. Love it.
I had a Flip 4 and an S10e before and I have a S23 now and I wish still had the side key fingerprint, the inscreen scanner often misreads my thumb for some reason.
IR blasters. They were nice as a little pocket universal remote.
The air gestures that Samsung put in the S5. It was a gimmick, but a useful one, since you could use it to control things without having to fiddle with the screen.
Also the screen-off gestures on the Oneplus 5. It was great for turning the torch on or opening apps without having to faff about as much with the screen.
I used to work in a call center that had some TVs placed sporadically throughout the call floor. It was up to the manager what they wanted to have play on the TV of their row. Some would play the generic company slideshow that showed random stats and quotes and corporate rah rah BS, but others were fine with normal TV like EPSN or whatever. My manager was the head of the department and said he was fine with us putting whatever we wanted on the TVs. Unfortunately, me and the people around me couldn’t see our row’s TV from our desk, but we could see the TV of the row next to us; however, that manager was a complete power-tripping asshole and only wanted the company slide-show.
I would always use the IR blaster on my phone to change the TV to ESPN when his back was turned and see how long it took him to notice. Whenever he did notice, he’d walk around super mad trying to figure out who did it but he never suspected me. Eventually he just gave up and just let the TVs stay on ESPN.
And that’s the story of how I used the IR blaster on my phone to slowly bully the asshole manager into being slightly less of an asshole.
Tablet computers. My thoughts on the first iPad were that it does everything a laptop, an iPod, and a Kindle all do, but worse. Next thing I knew, they were everywhere. I think traditional laptops are making something of a comeback, though.
My wife has an iPad and after using it for a bit, yeah I get it.
Tablets are great for anything that doesn’t involve typing
I used my Surface Pro all through college, and that thing is amazing. I took all my notes with the pen in OneNote, but it also has has a full desktop OS, so you’re not missing any functionality. Mine is even powerful enough to run some basic CAD modelling, which was a treat for when I didn’t want to have to deal with finding an open computer lab
Democracy in the US.
It was never implemented properly. Way too prone to hacking.
Folding phones.
I was so skeptical at first, and even now it seems most people still are. It’s a complete game changer though. There’s almost nothing I can’t do on my phone anymore, due to the multitasking and the larger screen. I can comfortably use desktop websites when necessary for banking etc. I have watched many dozens of movies and tv shows on it. It’s just nicer for reading and browsing the web, and makes your phone feel so much more powerful to have the tablet form factor. I’ve actually been travelling for over a month with no laptop, just my Fold and a Steam deck.
I’m also appreciating having what is essentially a 5G-connected tablet where in the past I’ve always dismissed the LTE-connected ipads as a gimmick. It’s hard to justify paying extra for the device and then a monthly fee, but now that I have it I can definitely see the appeal of a tablet that just works anywhere you go. Except since it folds you can put it in your pocket too.
I’ve been considering getting one but I’ve read too many horror stories about them breaking
I’m on iOS. In 6-7 years I will have the chance to buy the iPhone 20 Pro Mega Butterfly - one of the first folding screens in a phone [with: insert apple technicality] at barely a 40% markup over the Android versions and with some fatal flaw that will be my fault for noticing. I’m just giddy with anticipation.
