Unpopular opinion, but phones these days don’t really need more buttons, but less. We have a huge touch screen after all, let’s take better advantage of it!
“Action button” - Android phones have had a long press of power button be the assistant button since Android 12, just set your “assistant” as whatever action you want (e.g. with Tasker).
Sleep/wake button - can be the power button for now, but also don’t forget double-tap on the home screen/lock screen/status bar.
Power off/on - virtual button since Android 12, physical button for turning on. In case of emergency, I guess hold down for longer or do something like triple-tap.
Volume keys - every video app should use onscreen gestures, same could be applied for music. In other contexts, statusbar or side swiping gesture could suffice, plus a notification shade slider like some OEMs already provide.
Honestly on screen gesture controls suck ass. Also its pretty dumb for the solution to be “remap your power/volume button.” An obvious problem that touch screens lack (for the moment) is tactile feel.
My S23 Ultra does this now. It no longer has the bixby button, but the power button can be remapped. I have it now so that double clicking the power button opens my camera app, but long pressing it shuts off my phone.
I’d still like an extra button and/or squeeze function like the early pixels had. The big thing for me on the ultra while you’re in the camera app would be a shutter button like some of Sony Xperia phones have. Being able to double tap the shutter button for the camera could open the power button to open another app or function, also wouldn’t mind seeing a triple tap function added to the button as well.
Many Android phones already have had buttons and more. My phone has an assistant button which I wish would become a shutter button when I open the camera, and do something else when I double tap. But it’s not programmable sadly.
Now that Apple has done it, maybe it will make a comeback on Android…
At least I have really useful ports like a headphone jack and SD card slot. iPhone doesn’t have that yet… Lol
Headphone jack and sd card slot? You must have an old phone, wait till you buy a new one lol. It’s annoying af how many manufacturers have removed this
I bought it new actually. Last December. Sony Xperia 10iii. In the meantime the 10v just came out a month ago.
I specifically bought Sony because it has a headphone jack and SD card slot.
But I know what you mean. It’s so hard to find anything above €450 the has a headphone jack. Only the Sony Xperia’s and the Asus ZenFone as far as I’m aware.
I wouldn’t say 50% but definitely more expensive. I don’t think they have the mass manufacturing that the Chinese companies have so their components and build costs are probably higher.
Yeah, just have a Motorola😝 I mean it’s in lineage on my old Motorola, anyway I have an OnePlus phone now and miss it dearly, this and twist for camera, changing songs by holding volume buttons etc
Man this so much!! I switched to a Galaxy (because it was part of the free deal with the phone network) from my Motorola and was baffled it wasn’t a default Android feature. It was easily one of the top 5 handiest features. I know I can’t get a third party app that can still do the that but it’s just not the same knowing how spot on and nifty Motorola did.
Huh? In the exact same place on this Pixel and my last three Pixels is the Power button, Double tapping the Power Button on my Android phone opens the camera. Press and hold to talk to Assistant. Hold a long time to open Emergency and eventually call 911 automatically. It’s been a option for a long time. It would be nice if Google made these use assignable actions but they already exist.
The power button on my wife’s old phone (Pixel 3, I think) started to flip it’s shit and we got woken up by police knocking on our door because of it one time.
I know basically nothing about the Action Button, but fwiw, iPhones use the power button in a similar manner already. Double press opens Apple Pay, press and hold for Siri.
This is what I don’t get. Well obviously they want to push usage of their own services, but shortcut stuff like this should always be customisable. To a degree I even understand it for assistant, but why would you want to push the usage stats of the camera app? Android has been about choice for such a long time, but they have been fucking this up for so many years now, letting Apple get the points here.
Samsung XCover’s have that button. I have never used it for anything and just disabled it as it was just annoying. That little mute switch that apples have though is fantastic used that all the time, when I had an iPhone for work.
My Samsung Galaxy S10 has already: The bixby button which opens my calendar (no root necessary) The powerbutton pressed twice: opens the camera. The volume down button: takes a picture.
iPhone once more is just missing options and settings
Samsung and Google were literally ahead with a Bixby button and the Edge Squeeze. Too bad they didn’t make it more functional than just an assistant macro. I had a rooted 2 XL and I still miss squeeze for flashlight.
I always was sad to see people bashing the Bixby buttons existence. I never used Bixby ever but it was so useful as a macro button. Now they took the button away.
On my s22+ you can double tap the power button to open up the camera or any app that you’d like automatically.
Motorola shake flashlight was the best. Just a quick chop chop and you’d have a light
I now have a little flashlight button on my lock screen I can slide to turn on the flashlight. Not as convenient but way better than not having it there.
Actually youre right on the moto gesture. I used to have droid turbo and the only reason I rooted my 2 XL in the first place was because I missed chop chop. Double twist for camera was also great.
Reminds me of this thing I bought a long time ago, back when phones still had headphone jacks. It was a button that plugged into that, and you could program it to do whatever you wanted. It was neat, but often didn’t work too well. I wish I could remember what it was called.
Anyway, Pixels have the feature where you can tap the back of the phone and map that to an action, so we already kind of have that. Mine is mapped to the flashlight.
The author is under the impression that the button will be infinitely remappable. Given Apple's history, I expect it to be rather limited. I will sorely miss the mute switch which has both a tactile and visible position indicator which does not require waking the phone, or even having the phone on, to actuate (should you want to turn on your phone without getting bombarded with notification sounds).
I see a lot of people mentioning a mute switch...is that anything other than what it sounds like it does? Cus I've had volume buttons since the old Nokia brick days.
I mean TVs have volume buttons but also a mute. It's nice to be able to use volume to set a specific level but then also quickly toggle between that perfect level and silent.
It's not something you strictly need a physical button for, but the way they implemented it on old iPhones was nice. It was a physical switch rather than a button, and it looked different in the two positions--the slider under the switch was red on one side and black on the other. (or maybe silver, i forget, but it didn't stand out the way the red did.) So you could tell at a glance if it was muted as well without turning on the screen.
The new button seems like a step back from that to me, but if you don't use the silencing feature then a reprogrammable button is maybe more useful to you.
The iPhone has volume buttons as well but the mute switch was a way to quickly mute your notifications completely. Its honestly the one thing I miss about having an iPhone.
Sorry, in advance, for the long, descriptive post, but the value of a dedicate, slide mute switch is somewhat nuanced.
The mute switch on an iPhone is a physical slide switch. Without looking, you can feel if it's muted (back) or active (front) position. Alternately, you can see the condition as, when it's in the "mute" position, it has an exposed orange (painted) indicator. Neither of these verifications require that the phone be awake or to light up the screen. It can also be activated with the device off, so that if you turn the phone on in a quiet place you don't have to wait for the UI to become responsive (usually after start notifications have actuated, which occur before software buttons can be pressed to mute the phone). It is a single action to mute, compared to a 5 gesture sequence to silence the phones primary sounds (which can be ringtone OR playback volume, but not both) and an 6-8 gesture sequence (depending on the wake-status of the last used app) to silence the secondary phone sound. Note: I'm assuming that face unlock is active and you are staring at your phone obtrusively; entry of the unlock code would add 7-9 additional touch gestures.
While I agree that a button is nice, it still takes at least two actions - press the button and visually confirm its actuation puts it into the desired mode. There are times when you are unsure what mode the phone is in. On an iPhone, that is not visible from any screen until you either a) wake the phone and actuate a volume button (neither visual nor haptic feedback occurs when a volume button is pressed) or are logged into the phone (two minimum gestures plus face authorization) and use the action center (swipe function) to visually verify th volume position.
Now, you could easily argue that this is fucking terrible UI design, and I would 100% agree with you. I would, likewise agree, that most technical features on an iPhone are certifiably obtuse - ex: you cannot turn on your hotspot without entering the settings app; it's not even an action center icon option as it is on Android. I would add that it's also monumental dumbfuckery that your hotspot is the name of your phone and cannot be changed. Or that there is no function to alter the Prompt volume in the phone (ie. for GPS directions) unless the prompt audio is actively playing - difficult if the prompt volume is accidentally (or temporarily) set to zero. In 3rd party apps the prompt volume is several menus deep; for the OEM map application, it doesn't exist - there is literally no setting.
But, it remains - if you want to mute the alerts on your phone, the switch requires fewer actions and zero view of the device to actuate, and zero activation of the screen or login to verify it's condition. You may never need to discretely silence your phone or check that it is in silent mode without taking the phone out and unlocking it, but many of us find it quite useful.
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