Rootable modable phones, with a 3.5mm headphone jack, SD card slot, and an ultrasonic fingerprint reader cherry on top. Maybe some heart rate monitor sprinkles if you are so inclined. My S10 that I still use checks all of the boxes minus root. It feels like I have a sundae with all the high quality toppings I could want… but no proper ice cream. And I want the whole custom sundae, which these days seems impossible to find.
It’s important to remember that even if a company did that and the customers who said they wanted it all went and bought one it would still likely be a tremendous waste of the manufacturer’s money. And then there are all the people that say it’s important to them while they only use it to point at while shouting at iPhone users despite not using their phones any differently.
These still exist, for now at least. Just not any flagship phones. My Oneplus nord n30 has all of this (well idk if the fingerprint sensor is ultrasonic, it’s on the side and fast though). And I’m pretty sure a lot of Motorola phones have these as well. Only downside is not the best processors or cameras, but are good enough for me at least.
Ooh I’d have to say an IR blaster, before switching to an S23 Ultra, my Huawei P20 Pro had one and a notification light. Didn’t realise how much I used the IR blaster until it was gone.
Was really nice to be able to throw your phone on when you didn’t have access to a device with Bluetooth. At an Airbnb, in an older car, on the beach with a portable radio, etc.
I’m sad that popup front cameras didn’t catch on. I only remember 2 or 3 phones that had them. For me it’s the perfect compromise - this way you can make an end to end screen without the need for a notch, and since I very rarely use the front camera, I wouldn’t be too concerned about the durability of the popup mechanism. The only real downside I see is that it complicates waterproofing.
I mean the latest crop of phones aren’t that far off, we’ve got fingerprint sensors behind screens already and the front facing camera on my Pixel 7 is a pinhole at the top of the screen less than a centimetre across—which IMO just blends in.
iPhones are far too big and have too many huge cameras for me. Everything requires a subscription or some login to do anything. Applications and operating systems are updated at the whims of CEOs while the job of UX designers is de-prioritized. Software updates keep breaking established workflows. I can no longer rely on devices or apps to maintain a consistent experience from one year to the next. It’s just been years and years and years of disappointment and stress as technology changes for the worse.
All this is pushing me towards a more unplugged lifestyle. Which is a bit ironic given how it adds more complexity with the need to own and travel with more things. A bag of five ‘things’ that always work regardless of network connection is better than a little tablet that could crash or die or be updated at any moment and having a significant impact on your lifestyle.
There’s just no fucking zen anymore. I feel like I’m living inside a simulation built by the same people who brought us Windows 95.
One part about this you may be surprised about is that the random updates to software tend to be pushed by UX designers in my experience.
They want to do “something”, and that’s something often is changing something that currently works. Or pushing for design that goes against UI best practices because it’s their pet.
As a former UI I artist, I wholeheartedly disagree. The interfaces and operating systems that I’ve struggled with recently go against human interface guidelines. It’s more likely that middle management is creating projects to make themselves seem more relevant. Or, in the case with Apple, my assumption is that upper management is trying to push all their other devices towards synergy with Vision Pro - a product which has yet to hit market and find acceptance.
iPhones are far too big and have too many huge cameras for me.
It’s the same outside of the Apple ecosystem too. It’s as if everything is tied together. If I want a high end phone with nice build quality and a good, high resolution + high refresh rate display, I’m usually forced to also pay for 3-4 different cameras that I might never use. If I want to constrain myself to a more reasonable price, I’m limited to either a last year flagship or a current midrange model.
I kinda miss the simplicity of Windows 95. Pre-OSR2, the last version before the integration of Internet Explorer, one of the last few versions before the analytics era, where everything you do is collected, catalogued, compiled into data that drives further UX change (which A/B test did the best this week? Cool, now let’s change it up again). The last one where I could reasonably understand every process that was running. And it was even possible to shut almost every one of them off in the name of giving every CPU cycle to the processes that I wanted to run. (Back when 350 mhz was as good as I could get)
A real keyboard and general tactile-oriented inputs. Touchscreens are okay as a supplement like in the DS or Samsung devices that have a pen, but touch-centered everything has never stopped being a frustrating user experience. Even worse is the way companies have embraced it for business use as well. Heavy industrial machinery should not come equipped with unintuitive little interfaces that are clearly an afterthought at best.
The other thing is the general desktop metaphors, and file/folder structure. The way that Android, and so many apps, hide the file system from the end user just leads to more confusion when the user needs to use a file manager to track down where those apps have actually stored data only to (maybe) find them in the most pointlessly obscure locations.
When I accidentally download a file on my phone, I actually have no idea where it went, it just kind of vanishes into the aether after the notification disappears
One thing I always liked about Blackberries aside from the physical keyboard was the scroll wheel. People joke about them but they worked really well and smoothly (before the actual ball got replaced with a bullshit push sensor round about 2009 or so) and you could dial in on a specific pixel easily - something you just can’t do with a touchscreen - which made the tiny screens a lot more practical than they otherwise would have been.
My personal conspiracy theory is, SD card slots were removed from phones so Google, Apple, and Samsung can more readily push their cloud storage subscriptions
This seems fair - especially when you start looking at how Google seems to be continually further hindering file access in Android in the name of Security. I use my file system a fair bit on my phone and it just keeps getting worse with every new android release.
There are several advantages to not having them: without all the extra parts needed to support these features you can make the phone thinner (thickness is traditionally a key marketing point for smartphones) and cheaper to make.
Additionally, it seems that a lot of people no longer need these features, making them prime candidates for exclusion: Bluetooth headphones have become very common, internal storages have become large enough, and people buy a new phone often enough nowadays that battery wear is not as much of an issue.
Of course, if you are one of the people who still do want these features you’re pretty much out of luck. Which sucks.
The idea that people don’t need headphone jack seems pretty weird. Phones removed the 3.5mm jack, so people had to buy Bluetooth headphones, because now there is just 1 port on the phone.
And now, because of this change, you’re looking back and saying that that’s a not needed feature.
I mean, I love my bluetooth headphones but also bluetooth sucks. Anyone who says bluetooth is a reliable spec we should longterm trust our ability to connect audio devices together with is horrifically deceiving themselves. Bluetooth is an absolute train wreck of a technical spec, and it can be further broken at any point because it is just software that can be “updated” with “new features” that break backwards compatibility.
To call bluetooth a replacement of the 3.5mm jack which has a stunning, decades long established compatibility with other devices is a slap to the face of consumers even if most of those consumers don’t use their 3.5mm jack anywhere as much as bluetooth audio. The point is there is NO good reason that device makers had to take away the option of a 3.5mm jack other than to take away an alternative option. How much does it cost to stick an audio jack in a phone? Does it add like… what $1.25 to the cost of the phone all totaled? People are way to willing to believe tech companies removing features is an innocuous side effect of progress rather than a constant probing to see what bullshit they can get away with in order to introduce monetizable friction into the experience of using a device.
Also just to transfer pictures to a laptop for editing and to clear space for taking more pics on the phone. I know cloud exists, but I want to control my own data.
There are several advantages to not having them: without all the extra parts needed to support these features you can make the phone thinner (thickness is traditionally a key marketing point for smartphones)
I’d be pretty happy with a phone that’s 1.5x thicker than normal if it has a 6000-7000 mAh battery.
without all the extra parts needed to support these features you can make the phone thinner
I don’t think the 3.5mm jack is the limiting spec on how thick phones are. The latest iphone (15) without the jack is 7.8mm thick, while my phone that has one is 7.9mm. The 15 pro is 8.3mm. Thickness may have been a selling point in the past but I don’t think people care anymore bc essentially everything’s pretty thin these days–size concerns are way more focused on length/width.
Bluetooth headphones were very much useable when we had headphone jacks. Now your only option is overpriced Bluetooth devices that will not last.
Internal storage on your phone is not that big. What they want to do is sell you cloud storage. iPhone 15 Pro, to get 1TB of internal storage is $1500. The cheapest Samsung is ‘Galaxy S22 Ultra, 1TB’ @ $1600. And the Google Pixel 8, your looking at $1200. Each option basically costs about $500 for that 1TB option. But I could buy a 1.5TB card for $150 on Amazon…
Phone’s being thinner is the dumbest marketing point. It’s counterproductive to everything you want the phone to have. Like a decent sized battery, proper cooling, and features… And make it so that the phone isn’t flimsy. To say that people no longer needed these features is also just dumb. You know who decided people no longer need these features, someone in Apple’s marketing department who realized you could sell $150 headphones instead of giving away quality $20 headphones.
You need to realize that the reason people keep buying new phones isn’t because of the new features (which there are none) it’s because their phone now sucks because it’s aging out because they can’t replace anything. Imagine being able to recycle the battery instead of creating just a bunch of e-waste every couple of years.
without all the extra parts needed to support these features you can make the phone thinner
The Galaxy S4 from 2013 has a removable battery, headphone jack, and sd card slot. Its no thicker then a modern smartphone.
cheaper to make
I’d rather pay more for something that lasts me longer. If users can replace their own batteries easily and expand their storage, they can hold on to the device for longer. That way they’ll buy less phones and won’t care that the product was minorly more expensive.
Bluetooth headphones have become very common
And have flooded landfills with batteries. Wired headphones don’t have batteries that will degrade or need charging.
internal storages have become large enough
Not really. I have a 64gb phone and need an sd card to store my music. If I wanted more storage I would literally have to buy a different device. I’d rather just have an sd card slot.
people buy a new phone often enough nowadays that battery wear is not as much of an issue
battery wear is part of the reason people trash their otherwise working phones. People buying phones more often is a symptom of not having right to repair.
people buy a new phone often enough nowadays that battery wear is not as much of an issue
battery wear is part of the reason people trash their otherwise working phones. People buying phones more often is a symptom of not having right to repair.
Also, buying an extra battery and charger meant you could carry a fully charged battery in your pocket and if you were out hiking or something, you could just swap batteries instead of needing a power bank and a whole bunch of charging time.
I honestly would if I could. A few times I’ve started the car and gotten a “handbrake error” which has left me stranded until the Google told me I need to take the key out of the ignition, lock the doors and wait for the car to go into low power mode then try again. Fuck automatic handbrakes.
Apart from that the car is pretty great though. Uses almost no fuel and has lasted forever, touch wood. 15 years old now and going strong.
Oh sorry, the oil filter is buried in the middle of the engine and the battery was an absolute nightmare to replace because it was also buried. Two things that should be easy peasy to sort out yourself.
But apart from that it’s been a great car. Honestly. :D
So I can use my pair of headphones for everything. They work in my phone, my DJ mixer, my computer, and the broadcast board at the radio station. They never have technical malfunctions, there is no interference, and never run out of power.
Bluetooth it’s oh so perfect, it sounds like god playing the music himself and nothing ever takes too long to pair. I threw away my vinyl and CDs to listen to Spotify on low setting like the musicians intended
There are no flights over 30 hours long, so it’s irrelevant. You also cannot listen to music non stop for so long and you can charge them while you sleep on your flight.
The four biggest advantages for a wired headphone when compared to Bluetooth are
Headphones are cheaper
No lag to receive audio
Headphones don’t need to be charged
Easier to connect/disconnect.
This doesn’t even touch the preference stuff, like some people prefer having a wire to avoid losing headphones, and others like wireless. Or quality, which is a can of worms I don’t want to even touch.
I can get over most of the modern crap, but I refuse to give up the 3.5mm port. Bluetooth headphones are too much of a downgrade, and adapter dongles are just something else to lose.
I liked the sd-card feature, too. But nowadays my android has 128 GB and I never got more data than 25% on it. Because I sync and remove everything to the cloud. Idk what I could put on a sd-card.
I download everything I consume, my podcasts, music, manga, and even some netflix and pocket articles, this + gachas becoming increasingly bigger now makes it so 128GB is not enough anymore when Genshin alone occupies 30% of that.
After system updates you effectively only have like 100GB of space for real.
Sony phones still have the SD card slot, also no notch, a headphone jack while still being water resistant and the RGB notification led, if you’re interested.
Pixel phones and I believe Samsung phones just light up the OLED display to let you know that there is notification. An independent LED was only necessary because screens would have to light up the whole display to indicate notification,but now we have better screens so that isn’t necessary.
I have a Samsung and have it set to light up the screen but it’s not the same as that LED. I used to be able to set the LED color for messages from certain people. Ex: Blue was a friend, Red was mom. The LED would also stay that color until I read the message where as the current screen color only lights up for a few seconds (unless there is a setting I’m missing).
Ad-Hoc wireless networking. I miss it, was useful back in the day if you needed to share files with multiple people without a wireless router at a location. Most laptops don’t support this anymore. To be fair, I’ve only really wanted to use it maybe twice in the last 10 years.
Existing. I feel every gadget has either become a phone app or an integrated sensor inside the phone (while losing precision because of not being a dedicated device).
The battery is always on the bottom while the notifications are in the middle or the top. It’s charged if the bottom portion (or the portion closest to the USB cable) has a green icon on it.
Personally I would rather have the screen off a lot of times for various reasons. Why should i have to have the entire display on instead of having tge ability to just have a little notification light?
With OLED and especially LTPO OLED that’s not exactly an issue though, since it’s only the icons that make up the active parts of the display, while the whole black area of the display is literally off.
Except that my screen isn’t an OLED and I don’t want to leave the display on. It’s too distracting, it needs to be off especially at work. A little dot isn’t too intrusive as a notification.
LCD fanboys have lost the mobile space. Pretty much all the mid-range to flagship phones have an OLED screen by now and we start to see OLED on laptops and desktop monitors as well. Don’t you think it’s time to move on at this point?
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