I miss the headphone jack so much.
That’s still a hard requirement for me, but I don’t mind using older “tech”.
Always on mic and forward facing camera
I had idiots argue with me you can easily pop out and replace batteries. There’s a reason why it’s a big selling point on the Fairphone.
We’ll add five cameras! And guess what, if even one camera fails, we’ll brick all five! Isn’t that great! More points of failure for everyone ❤️
No more touch screens! You press a button to turn it on and you watch/look at/read whatever we give you to watch/look at/read! But first, point the camera at your ID and bank cards.
>they took your bootloader unlocking >they took your sideloading(i think)I always wanted a phone with an IR blaster, especially after smartphones became a thing, so I could just use my phone as a universal remote for my TV and stereo.
I had one in the late 2010, besides pranks I didn’t use it much, not very convenient, it’s much faster to just grab the remote, than grab the phone, unlock it, find the app, launch it and find the button on the screen.
I would have used it to change the channel in waiting rooms where they locked out or disabled the controls on the TV and have it stuck on FOX.
I used to wrote mobile apps for a large cable company whose named rhymes with “bombast”. At one point I got the gig writing their TV guide-type app for Blackberry. Nobody else at the entire company had any idea of how to do it since none of the built-in controls for Blackberry development (called “fields”) could do anything like what was needed. I had a lot of experience with animation so I was able to do everything with custom-drawn graphics. I had a great time since I had zero interference from managers and I made the app do everything I always wanted a guide app to do. It could even change the channel for you on your own TV, not using IR (which Blackberrys did have) but sending the control signals through wifi to the Bombast servers. At one point, executives from RIM visited the office trying to convince large clients to continue developing apps for their platform; we showed them my app and they were blown away, saying “how is this even possible on a Blackberry?”
The punchline, of course, is that this was 2011 and Blackberry was plummeting rapidly to its doom. My guide was on the market for just a few months but nobody ever really downloaded Bombast apps (even for iPhone or Android – their numbers were essentially faked for a bunch of reasons) so it died. I did continue using it myself for my own TV until Bombast sunsetted the API it used. That was a sad day for me.
It is insane to me that today, in 2026, the channel guide on my parents’ cable box is so much fucking worse – and slower – of an experience than an app I wrote 15 years ago for mobile devices that were almost 10 years old themselves at that time.
I had one, as with everything that is a touch screen, not being able to use it accurately without staring at it makes the reality of using it a lot worse than the idea. Not saying it isn’t a decent backup but I would never want it as my main remote.
Literally
With wireless charging existing, I wouldn’t be surprised if they got rid of the USB port as well, and sold phones with no ports at all, just wireless everything.
I’ve been dipping my toes into entry-level audiophile stuff, and I know the 4.4 mm jack is unnecessary for most use cases, but still I think a dap/phone combo with that built in and open bootloader for custom roms would be pretty neat.
Edit: and before anyone comments, yes I know my best bet in that direction right now would be to get an LG V20, put LineageOS on it, and use a dongle. I have a dongle. Just saying, a thing with it built in would be fun.
Also, what can I do with all these lenses in cameras now?
The thing that frustrates me most about all the lenses is they don’t use them most of the time. I have a dedicated 3x zoom lens, but usually when I set my camera to 3x, it still uses the primary camera because it’s resolution is higher and the sensor size is greater. The phone realizes cropping the primary sensor with a digital zoom will get a better shot.
sure, i probably missed the buttons and battery, definetely the jack and microsd, maybe IR blaster (kinda useless but cool as TV remotes; that blew my mind when i was little), but really some things here are exaggerated
I miss the IR blaster so much. It was great to not only be able to control my own devices, but also be able to change TV’s in waiting rooms or gyms when they were stuck on shit like Fox News.
Smell-o-vision. If it became real I would send people videos of people farting as a joke.
They took your removable battery
So you’d have to buy a new phone instead of replacing it with a better battery off Amazon
They took your IR blaster
Not sure where this is or what it’s supposed to do
They took your microsd slot
So you’d have to pay for cloud storage
They took your headphone jack
So you’d have to buy wireless headphones
They took your buttons
Because they think they know what you want better than you do
They cut a hole in your screen
Because bigger screens sell
They added 5 cameras you don’t use
Because better cameras sell
The IR blaster lets you use your phone like a universal remote. I can control my TV, my air conditioner, and most importantly, some stores’ unsecured commercial displays with my phone.
They added 5 cameras because people use iPhones as social media machines and Apple knows it.
The IR blaster was an IR LED you coud use to turn your phone into a remote control. Also for direct data transfer, though that one was iffy.
There needs to be a second technological revolution.
