«Everything was better back then.» I don’t actually like this sentence. As we all know, change is the only constant. But for smartphones? An obituary for all the curious, practical or simply funny features we’ve lost along the way.
Countless new smartphones are released every year. Keynotes, presentations and showcases take place every month. Every manufacturer promises they’ve «reinvented the wheel» with every new generation of phones. The reality looks somewhat different – most of the time, it’s just some new specs, tiny updates and new software.
Opinion
Apple, Google and Samsung – stop releasing a new phone every year!
by Lorenz Keller
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a nerd, I get excited about every new smartphone release. But the fun features seem to always get lost in renewal mania. Samsung’s taken away Bluetooth functionality from the S-Pen, Apple’s removed the headphone jack from the iPhone.
There’s usually a plausible reason when functions are sidelined such as better alternative options, the technology takes up too much space or simply isn’t used. So let’s take a look back at the ideas, features and fun gimmicks that we had to leave behind.
Apple’s «Force Touch»
It was such an intuitive feature: your phone reacted differently depending on how hard you pressed on the display. Combined with the always phenomenal haptic feedback that iPhones are known for, Apple’s Force Touch was a real highlight. It’s the only feature that really got me contemplating whether I should switch to an iPhone.
Yes, today there’s «Haptic Touch». But it’s just not the same: the new feature measures time, the old one pressure. You’ll accidentally activate the flashlight on the lock screen if you touch the button for too long. But have you ever accidentally pressed too hard?
Admittedly, an extra layer of technology under the display takes up space. Source: Apple
At least the technology still lives on today in Apple’s MacBooks. When you press the trackpad on a MacBook, nothing actually clicks. It just detects the pressure and responds with haptic feedback. Just like they attempted with the Force Touch for a few years.
Insider tip: if you still have an iPhone 6S with Force Touch, you can even use it as a Kitchen scale.
HTC’s «BoomSound»
As a smartphone manufacturer, HTC actually deserves its very own farewell speech. The first HTC One captured the hearts of the Android community in 2013. The hype only lasted a few years. Know anyone that still has an HTC mobile phone? The HTC feature I specifically miss is BoomSound.
Two fully-fledged loudspeakers. On a mobile phone!? Source: HTC
BoomSound wasn’t exactly a mind-blowing innovation, it was simply a piece of really well-developed technology. Two big loudspeakers were installed on the front side of a smartphone. They even had sound tuning from Beats Audio. As you’d expect, the sound was powerful. If you turned it horizontally, the phone emitted full stereo sound.
Perhaps my rose-tinted nostalgia glasses are deceiving me, but I dare say that even today, no phone speaker can keep up with HTC’s flagships from over ten years ago.
Samsung’s «Air View»
Okay admittedly, this might be one of the most obscure and forgotten phone features on this list. Samsung’s Air View was only available on the Galaxy S4, Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 3.
While Apple’s displays could be operated by pressing harder, Air View allowed Samsung’s displays to be operated without pressing them.
To be honest, I still don’t fully understand how Air View worked on a technical level. But it was definitely useful. Using capacitive sensing, you could preview images or notifications by simply pointing your finger at them. Similar to hovering over an element with your mouse on a PC without actually clicking on it. Today, you need a Samsung with a matching stylus.
Another «I operate my phone without touching it» feature: Google’s Project Soli was basically Air View on steroids. In fact, there was only one smartphone generation that supported this feature: the Google Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL.
A radar chip in a phone is a bit overkill, to be honest. Source: Google Research
Project Soli relies on radar technology to detect your hand before you touch the phone. This then allowed various gestures, such as media control and stopping an alarm by waving and swiping.
Even though there was only one single phone with the feature, Google still uses Soli today, just in other devices. In my kitchen, for example, I have a Nest Hub (2nd Gen), which has one of these radar chips. You can’t do an awful lot with it – I can pause music and stop the timer – but at least I feel like a Jedi when I wave at the device from a distance of two metres and it immediately responds.
The IR blaster
Look, all the features listed so far were gimmicks, non-essentials. But the infrared blaster at the top of the phone? I miss that. Every day.
Actually, it was almost irresponsible to give my teenage self so much power. What… I can simulate every conceivable remote control with my phone and control every device in my surroundings? Just like that?
No school projector, no shop window TV, absolutely nothing was safe if I was around!
Jokes aside, having a universal remote control integrated into your phone can be incredibly practical. Be it a lost remote control for the air conditioning or dead batteries on the TV remote: on more occasions than not, I was able to solve problems by simply pointing my phone at them and pressing a virtual button.
The IR blaster on my S4 and I have been through a lot. Source: Dayan Pfammatter
I know, I know – every cubic millimetre of space is crucial in modern smartphones. But I’d give up a few per cent of the battery for the IR blaster if I had the choice.
It’s not all downhill
Was everything better back then? Maybe. Is innovation dead? Definitely not. Even if every new smartphone seems marginally different to the previous, phones continue to evolve year after year. And that adds up. The energy density of many smartphone batteries is higher than ever before thanks to silicon-carbon technology. Samsung has anti-glare displays, maybe soon with a built-in privacy filter (link in German). MagSafe (and PixelSnap) are perhaps my favourite smartphone features of this decade. Some phones are thin, some fold like this, others fold like this.
Many features have gone, many good ones are yet to come. But the era of playful features? That’s what I miss.
I've been fascinated by all things keys, displays and speakers for basically as long as I can remember. As a journalist specialising in technology and society, I strive to create order in the jungle of tech jargon and confusing spec sheets.
