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
Headphone jack.
Things in general used to be made to last / hard to break.
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.
Simplicity.
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.
Not a feature but I do miss phones having side bezels. You could firmly hold your phone and not disturb the content on your phone. I can barely use youtube now because i keep touching my screen apparently
For me it’s this (the color coded notification LED on phones) and while on the topic of phones I used to have a xiaomi phone several years ago that had an infrared face unlock feature so you could use face unlock in complete darkness. Haven’t had a phone with that before or after. It was awesome.
Suddenly I feel very happy (and a little bit smug) about my 2 year old Sony Xperia which both a notification LED, headphone jack and micro SD card slot.
But a replacable battery is sorely lacking…
I think I’ll go with the latest Fairphone when my current needs replacement, but I’m a bit worried about it’s lack of water resistance
In smartphones
- Replaceable batteries
- Headphone jack
- Software unlocked parts
- Root-able phones
In PCs
- No-RGB components that only prioritise performance
- No nonsense PC cases that are just a black box with awesome airflow
- GPUs that don’t need a mortgage
Buttons.
I loved the old Windows CE phones. You got a dpad, buttons on the front, and side buttons. All frequently used apps were instant at the button press. No nonsense of turning on phone, unlock, look carefully before clicking app on touch screen because you can’t physically feel the button.
Samsung blackjack Ii was the peak of cell phone innovation.
Full qwerty keyboard. I know I am a minority. I don’t need more screen estate, I need to be able to make notes in my diary whithout looking on the screen and not bumping into things while I am walking. I’ve tried the Uniherz offers, but the OS and the quality is really sub-par. I’ve jumped on the Astroslide train, but the manufacturing batches went south over the Covid and I don’t blame the Astro guys for not getting my device. Some US company did buy the BlackBerry licence and I was ready to pay any price for their phone - but they failed to manufacture anything. If only you could jailbreak BlackBerry Key 2 - I’d be carrying it proudly around till today. (written on Google Pixel 6 runnning Graphene with a collabsible pocket bluetooth keyboard - so I can type at least while I am not moving - best among terrible options).
for what it’s worth, you can make your phone’s flashlight serve the same purpose as those old notification lights. more harsh and no colors, but it’ll get your attention
Not really, because to see that, you have to put your phone with the screen down on the table. That both ruin the quiet mode function, and increases risk of wear of the screen glass from hard surfaces.
Plus it’s fucking distracting to see students’ phones blinking throughout the classroom
The rotary disc on phones!
Small Flagship Android Phones. Im just not a big fan of phones which doesnt fit into pockets :(
IR blaster for smartphones. I still have one on mine and I can use it for tons of stuff, not just as a TV remote.
I even worked for a company who made lots of IR based products (taps/faucets, accessibility stuff) and it was amazing how many people had to buy the dedicated remotes for these products for extra money.
When I asked them if their phone has an IR blaster, so they could just download a free app and use it instead. “I have an iPhone” was the most common answer.
There are small and cheap USB-C IR dongles around nowadays - generally USB-C has been a blessing for making additional hardware features available on smartphones.
My current phone does have IR - though I’m not really using it much since most of the existing Android software for that is horrible (broken, ad-infested, requires account and access to everything, …), and I have too many open projects to start another one for writing my own software for that.
IR blasters were such a treat, still fucking hate when the remote stops working or the battery runs out
Buy Xiaomi phones.
I do have a Xiaomi phone and as I mentioned I am actively using the IR blaster, but the majority of regular users will not even think about checking the specs when buying new tech.
They will just go for the latest iPhone or the current trending android bestseller.
Dont buy Xiaomi phones, the software is absolutely dogshit.
-sent from Xiaomi 12
Buy them for the hardware and change the rom.
Not possible in my case though, as it is necessary for me to use some apps that wont verify on custom roms.
I agree the software is bad. All my phones bought after nexus 4 was made by Xiaomi. They give option to unlock bootloader and flash custom rom.
Not all the phones get official lineage os support, but almost all snapdragon versions get custom rom support.
I gave my Redmi Note 4 to my mom, which is 6 years old and running latest OS with recent security patches. None of the other OEMs were supported upto this period (just give exception to Samsung Galaxy 2).
See if you can install LineageOS on it. Replaces all the dog shit and has opt in for the google services etc. if you value your privacy.
-sent from Xiaomi 11
That sadly isnt viable for me as i do all my banking and have all my government ID, including drivers license, which wont verify on unofficial OS’s 🤦
I don’t know about the ID and drivers license, but banking is no problem as you do not root the phones anymore. You can even use the google wallet if you want. I think the only thing not there is the google safetyNez verification, even tho you can install apps through the playstore. So I don’t know if the apps can determine if there on an official build or not.
Edit: Please take my words carefully as I’m only in the experimentation phase myself. All I really can say is: my banking app and PayPal work no problem
I have tried other roms, and nope those apps wont verify sadly.
Being able to use my phone as a remote control for TV’s that was so awesome. Could mess with TV’s at bars and never had to look for the remote lol
Aren’t notification LEDs somewhat obsolete now that we have always on displays? One advantage could be that they are less power hungry than keeping the screen / touch panel alive all the time. But in theory one could just create a permanent “notification LED” with an always on display, then it’s the same thing from a user’s perspective.
