For me it’s the notification light you used to find on older phones, was particularly good to know if your phone was charged without picking it up
I too miss the LED notification light. If you have an amoled display, check this out:
Headphone Jack.
I miss buttons. This message was brought to you by fat thumbs.
Jebus, Simpsons really have done everything.
Hardware alarm so I could turn off my phone at night…
If you’re on Android, I think this still works. Try setting an alarm for 5 minutes from now and turn your phone off. It should turn back on for the alarm.
Edit: Just tried it and it worked on the native OnePlus clock app, but not on the Google clock.
Missed a class years ago with my first “smart” phone, I won’t take my chances again…
My pixel 4a died because it got bend a little bit and the display was broken. This dead fucker made hardware alarm for like 2 weeks. Saddest wakeups ever.
Only a few phones support that and only a few apps can use it
Swappable batteries in mobile phones.
It will most likely come back due to EU legislation.
Maybe, but swappable =/= replaceable, in my opinion. I could be wrong, but I’m not sure that EU legislation says that phone batteries should be swappable, only replaceable
“ Portable batteries incorporated in appliances shall be readily removable and replaceable by the end-user or by independent operators during the lifetime of the appliance, if the batteries have a shorter lifetime than the appliance, or at the latest at the end of the lifetime of the appliance. A battery is readily replaceable where, after its removal from an appliance, it can be substituted by a similar battery, without affecting the functioning or the performance of that appliance.”
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52020PC0798&qid=1703805580803
So we see here that batteries must be replaceable without affecting the function of the device. Yet waterproofing is important. What seems more likely to me is that batteries need to be replaceable without opening the entire device and therefore destroying liquid protections as per the proposed law. Easiest way to do that would be something similar to a SIM card tray where a hidden button is pressed to release the battery to swap it. The designers would have to go out of their way to make this process difficult, which the EU also doesn’t want, to avoid making them swappable. And that feature is attractive. Knowing Apple though, it’ll be harder on the base models or batteries will cost too much.
The snippet “if the batteries have a shorter lifetime than the appliance” worries me. Seems to me that modern engineers are capable of making their crap’s lifespan just barely shorter than the projected batty lifespan, and people might just be stupid enough to still buy it.
I mean, the disposable vape market is an extreme example, but somewhat relevant I think.
That being said, if the processor on the LG G5 had kept up with the market better, I don’t see how that couldn’t have been a starting point.
As for waterproofing, my GoPro stays waterproof but the side door opens to give access to the SD card, battery, etc, so it’s absolutely possible.
Not really. EU legislation is about the right to repair, not about swappable batteries on the run
How does one safely repair a lithium-ion battery without just swapping it for a working one?
It’s the difference between sitting down for 20 minutes unscrewing various components to get to the damaged battery you need to replace, vs. popping off the back cover and simply swapping out one dead battery for a charged one anytime you run out of power. The former is replaceable. The latter is swappable.
This. Like ten years ago, when Samsungs had swappable batteries, they were super proud of it. They would advertise it as a feature that Apple doesn’t have.
When I was at a festival, Samsung had an activation where you could tweet at them with your phone model and location and they would send someone with a full battery to trade you for yours. It was an amazing free service that I used so many times, and every time, the jealousy on the faces of all the iPhone people was palpable. Then one year, they quietly removed the swappability from their new phones.
Swappable batteries are such a huge feature that most people don’t even know that they want.
Recent phone do not have notification light? I am still using my phone from 2019 and it has it.
While the LED notification light was awesome, it is something that I don’t really need. I also don’t need a removal battery because my battery life has been extremely good and I’ll replace my phone before the battery goes bad. I don’t need wireless charging. My phone had that years ago but it’s kind of a gimmick, especially when a phone can charge up in about an hour and a half from dead. I don’t need a 3.5 mm headphone jack because I don’t use wired headphones, I have Bluetooth headphones but they rarely get used.
Snake, I spent way too much time on it.
By far replaceable batteries. You used to be able to purchase physically larger and higher capacity batteries to get insane battery life, but because they would include a larger rear plastic for the phone it would still look normal. Now we have to waste space and lose efficiency with external power banks.
At least the EU is bringing back easy battery swaps for users, so that’s something to look forward to.
Thank you European Union for creating a law mandating replaceable batteries.
I miss tether points. We have these super expensive, slippery devices and we have to stick something like a pop socket onto them to be able to get a good grip on them. I used to have these little dangly thumb loops that if I dropped my phone, it would just dangle there instead of slamming into the ground. It’s very minor, but I don’t understand why they don’t have them anymore.
I am sure it’s because phone companies don’t want to deal with designing, manufacturing, design defects, warranty claims if it fails, etc.
I do wonder if it can’t be done better with programmable magnets, locking one of those in place from the bottom of the device might be interesting.
You you mean electropermanent magnets?
Idk if that’s another name for them, but what I meant was polymagnets
Those use arrays of electropermanent magnets
A lot of cases have those still, plus industrial some phones have it built in
Oh damn I want one now. I’ve gone caseless since my last case disintegrated and I really prefer it this way now. But a tether would be a welcome addition.
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.
That’s like every brand nowadays.
My 2001 flip phone could schedule sms messages to be sent and it took smartphones a decade ish to add that feature.
A headphone jack, bluetooth sucks, it’s convenient but it sucks. It’s audio quality is bad, it’s latency is bad… it’s just all bad.
Id disagree about bluetooth these days. I have a pair of headset I use daily between my computer and phone. Quality is there, ive done side by side conparisons via 2.4ghz dongle, bluetooth and wired (headset supports all) and I cant hear a difference.
There may not be a difference when you’re sitting in front of a computer but Bluetooth quality can go way downhill if you’re trying to listen to earbuds while your phone is in your pocket or a bag or similar, especially if you’re moving around and/or there’s a lot of electronic interference in the area. My city commute is when I really miss wired listening.
Removable battery and optional modules like the LG G5 : VR headset, DAC, …
Dude, I miss the LG G5 and the V20. Had some pretty good ideas for the time. I liked how the V20 had a tiny always on display so the main display could power down. Although OLED dont have the power drain problem that LCD have when using AOD
Fuck modern features; gimme back my god damn 3.5mm audio port.
GSM Arena shows us 13 results if we search for
- recent (after 2022+)
- available or rumoured
- 3.5mm jack
- card slot
- removable battery
Sadly, nothing with the removable battery AND Qi charging, which is criminal. I’d give up the swappable battery, as long as it’s available, has qi charging and a 3.5mm port.
Except, what kinda spyware-encrusted knock-off disco is this?
I don’t understand why people love the 3.5mm port so much. Can you enlighten me?
I’ve always been a bluetooth lover, and maybe it’s my noob ears, but I can’t tell the diff between 3.5mm sound and bluetooth sound.
Bluetooth is compressed garbage
Are you seriously carrying a FLAC connection on your phone? Please…
It’s another things to charge and keep track of. Have a long flight and forgot to charge your phones? Too bad.
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.
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.
Not sure if an automatic transmission qualifies as a modern gadget, but I remember push starting my car back in the day when the battery died.
You know the original automatic trannys had the pump on the output shaft side, so they could be push started in D.
I freaked someone out one time by pop-starting a stick shift car on a hill. He had no idea what I was doing.
My car, which is 24 years old, is a stick shift, but everything else we’ve owned since then is automatic.
