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
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.
Water proofing isnt a super hard thing to do, compressed rubber works wonders. If they can make a speaker port waterproof while still being able to hear through, I’m sure it’s possible to make a waterproof phone with a removable battery
Not really. EU legislation is about the right to repair, not about swappable batteries on the run
The law just means it needs to be replaceable with at most basic tools or specialized tools supplied with the device.
Thanks! You are right. “Swapping vs. replacing” is not the same usecase.
I see this get talked about a lot.
Almost all my inside phone batteries I’ve had in cheaper knockoff phones have been replaceable. It’s not as easy as pulling the back cover off and instantly swapping it, but it’s not THAT much harder. It’s doesn’t exactly require microsoldering. Which is the reason why I know my last three have been replaceable despite being in-house.
Manufacturers really just need to make better and more secure charge ports. Having to resolder my last two blu phones and a Samsung because the charge ports go bad is just annoying.
Never had issues with a battery in all my years of using smartphones though.
I miss 1998 and my nokia I could use for self defense.
Privacy.
Have you tried not shitting with the door open?
That’s funny. Every time somebody says “If you have nothing to hide, what are you worried about,” I reply, “Do you shit with the door open?”
But now the door isn’t just open. It feels like Uncle Sam is pissing between your legs.
Not just Uncle Sam, but every tech company too
Yeah anyone thinking it’s only the government spying is revealing their age and/or their biases.
Uncle Sam doesn’t even need to spy. They just get the data from the corporation that spies on us now for their own reasons.
Both are a problem.
Yes we all have an uncle like that. Mine was Jimmy Savile
I’m more concerned with privacy than most, but I do in fact shit with the door open. When I’m at home I mean.
Isn’t that why American stalls have those big gaps?
My cat does not allow it.
Try to let go of Google everything. Start by ditching Chrome and Chromium based browsers
I switched to duck duck go who knows how many years ago. Haven’t looked back.
Can’t even remember when I started using Firefox, but that was probably around the time when Opera became popular. Before Crome existed, I was already on FF and never regretted staying there. At that point, I was already somewhat aware of privacy matters, so switching to Chrome seemed completely stupid to me.
Physical buttons in cars
Repairable phones
Repairable laptops
Resoleable shoes
Hand-crank drills (for those quick and easy projects where dealing with batteries or cords isn’t worth it)
External frames on hiking packs
Actually tough jeans that need to be broken in and last a while
Headphone jack
Headphone jack, bigger batteries, front facing speakers, SD card slot, IR blaster, magnetic field to let you use your credit cards at check out from your phone (MST) - THROUGH THE ACTUAL CARD READER SO THEY DIDN’T NEED GOOGLE/APPLE/SAMSUNG WALLET WHATEVER THE FUCK. I also agree that I miss the light too lol
That said, here’s what I can’t stand in newer phones: camera bumps. Unless you’re a droid x or Nexus get that rocking on any flat service while I’m trying to type shit outta here. I don’t give a shit about my cameras but if they need to be that fat and advanced, just make the rest of the phone that fat and give me the extra battery instead of making a tiny stovetop in the corner. Fuckin weird and dumb. Also camera cutouts in the screen, put that shit under the screen or set it next to a front facing speaker on the bezel. Also bezel-less phones, I know we’re trying to fill our phones with screens but my fat palms don’t care about that when I’m accidentally touching everything on the side while holding it
My personal pet peeve is pre-installed, un-removable software and apps. My current mobile phone for example has apps that link to twitter, facebook, amazon etc. none of which I will ever use, but you can somehow not delete them. Why do I need to have that virtual junk in my phone?
I was going to mention the IR blaster. I had one on my LG G4 & G5 if I remember correctly. It was so cool! I was so bummed when they stopped having it.
What was it for?
You can control everything support IR controller(receiver) with that. Like TV or window AC unit
That’s really cool!
Yep I totally miss having an ir blaster in my phone. Specifically for the air conditioner.
Also. Imagine having a universal controller in your pocket at all times.
TV at the bar? TV at the dentist?
Ooohhh the hijinks…
Changing the channel on tvs in public spaces mostly.
Anything that takes an IR signal most commonly TV remotes but had other applications as well
Honestly this irks me to no end. We now have thousand dollar phones with all the speed, Ai capabilities, design, cameras, speakers, etc. Everything you could’ve wanted at its best in terms of performance, picture and camera quality, AI features… Except now you’re missing headphone jacks, replaceable batteries, Ir blasters, SD cards, extra Sim slots… Like, really, a thousand dollars for a phone and it has less features than a 200 dollar phone? Less features than phones from 6 years ago? Why the fuck have we sacrificed so much?? We had the chance to have a long golden era of long lasting, everything capable phones, but instead we’re stuck with boring bricks that do less than before, last less due to batteries wearing out, and come bloated with shit that you don’t need and can’t remove.
We seriously need some phone company out there to spec the fuck out of a high end phone with all these features, AND which meets GrapheneOS requirements and lets us flash the phone with whatever the fuck we want. We’ve gone completely backwards on phones, and it’s becoming more and more pointless to upgrade, you’re just changing phones for the batteries these days.
I miss htc lol, the One was PERFECT at the time, and I remember Loving the Nexus 6P as well
htc lol, the One was PERFECT
PRC agents loved you having it too! #LOLIsNotPunctuation
Well I haven’t owned one since college, but I was a cell phone salesman, so I loved it too. And I’m glad I already knew about that and used a comma as punctuation after “lol,” but thanks for the info I guess? Fair warning, this is the Internet, and you might run into more people like me :o
100% of this. It’s not just that I don’t need the screen space, it’s that my hands are not capable of holding my s22 without touching the screen because they had the fucking stupid idea to wrap the screen around the sides. I’m convinced the engineers at samsung are running an experiment to see how fucking stupid their phones can get without losing sales.
Never knew there was something like a ‘magnetic field’ how did that work?
It was MST, I know some Samsung phones had them, and it was used at credit card checkouts for stores that don’t have the nft/tap to pay. As far as I know it literally spoofed the magnetic field your credit card makes, so the credit card reader would think you swiped it. Super handy at stores that aren’t caught up with the tech when you didn’t have your wallet lol
THROUGH THE ACTUAL CARD READER SO THEY DIDN’T NEED GOOGLE/APPLE/SAMSUNG WALLET WHATEVER THE FUCK
That’s not an issue, I’m assuming you mean the establishment didn’t need it, but just to cover my bases I’ll give you both scenarios:
- either you’re talking about your phone needing an app, which was still the case for the magnetic card thing, but I doubt you were talking about this.
- or more likely, you are talking about the place you’re paying needing a new PoS for receiving NFC based payment. In this case the issue is from the retailers trying to get another cut of the money by making you go through their app, when they can receive that payment via tap to pay which is also a thing on new cards, I have used them both in my country without any issue because we don’t have those ass backwards retailers, there’s an issue of the person taking payment being unaware and trying to enable another mobile based payment method instead of just setting it to card based payment.
I’m talking about MST, which was actual hardware on the phone used in conjunction with software to fool card readers into thinking you swiped the actual card, even if they didn’t support nft. It was super handy and easy for the shops that haven’t upgraded yet.
https://www.paymentsjournal.com/samsung-begins-to-phase-out-support-of-mst-for-samsung-pay/
I know, but that’s not really an app issue, that would be equivalent to complaining about cards without magnetic strip which only rely on NFC. It’s a result of new technology and not some bad idea trying to do things in a different way. It’s like complaining about touch screen tech because you can’t do things the exact way you used to on flip phones.
That’s like saying it’s ok that they removed the headphone jack because Bluetooth is newer technology? And I know it’s not an app issue, I was complaining about a hardware removal? I’m so confused after this comment lol
The magnetic thing was only ever a Samsung thing and it wasn’t as secure as NFC, NFC works basically the same as the thing you’re talking about, its only flaw would be that it doesn’t work with the old style card readers.
I never claimed otherwise? OP asked what a nifty feature on old gadgets was that’s not on newer gadgets, and I said that. That’s an old feature that’s not on newer gadgets, and it was very handy at the time because very few stores had adopted tap to pay. Would it be AS handy today? Certainly not, but there have still been times I’ve missed it when a store doesn’t have tap to pay.
Yes it’s outdated. Isn’t that the whole point of everything in this thread??? I just keep getting more confused lol
Edit: to clarify, the phone I had had BOTH MST and NFC. NFC had actually already been around and MST was the new thing at the time. It was simply a cool additional feature.
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.
Pretty sure phone cases with external batteries exist that are literally identical to what you are describing (“purchase physically larger or higher capacity batteries”). Also current phones do a lot more than the old phones you’re describing as “having insane battery life.” Sure, a cell phone of 2005 could be left on for probably two days straight without needing a charge but you were only getting an occasional text message and maybe calling someone once or twice and maybe playing Snake during that timeframe.
External batteries are not the same as there is substantial loss in transmitting the power to the phone, particularly with the many “magsafe” compatible wireless ones. The wired ones add substantially more bulk for similar battery size and although the standard for battery life is much better now, for many otherwise great phones it’s still not amazing (aka every pixel prior to this year’s).
Being able to quickly swap a battery or simply replace it with a 10000mAh cell for only a few mm more thickness (my preferred method) simply isn’t an option now.
At least the EU is bringing back easy battery swaps for users, so that’s something to look forward to.
Physical buttons in cars for radio and environment settings.
There used to be a time when I could have my hand on the gear shifter and just reach out with my fingers to change radio stations or adjust the heat or a/c without needing to look down at all.
Now with modern touchscreens in cars, you can’t do any of that. I have gotten used to playing with the radio via the steering wheel buttons, but anything else requires hunting around, looking for the correct spot to touch the screen.
And yet they say, “don’t take your eyes off the road!”deleted by creator
Sounds like what you want is a netbook.
SD card slots, user-replaceable batteries, and headphone jacks.
Where did they go? Just vanished?
They realized they can charge inflated prices for an extra 128gb, battery replacement, and Bluetooth headphones
My personal conspiracy theory is, SD card slots were removed from phones so Google, Apple, and Samsung can more readily push their cloud storage subscriptions
This seems fair - especially when you start looking at how Google seems to be continually further hindering file access in Android in the name of Security. I use my file system a fair bit on my phone and it just keeps getting worse with every new android release.
Oddly enough Apple still includes SD slots and headphones in laptops (my M1 Mac Pro has them). But not in their other devices…
That’s not really that odd though, since laptops are gigantic compared to phones.
But I guess, iPads should also include them.
Wait iPhones have SD slots? I literally had no idea
The MacBook laptops have an SD card reader, not the iPhone.
Ah I misunderstood, I guess I assumed the OP was talking about phones.
Glad they finally put the SD reader back on the MacBook Pro a couple of years ago, I was wondering if I’d missed them adding it to their phones.
bingo
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.
IR blasters were such a treat, still fucking hate when the remote stops working or the battery runs out
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
Everything. We’re down to barebones and marketing now focus solely on camera software updates or phone materials (“now with titanium!” How fucking sad is that?) And they are all selling the same phone.
Some of the most important loses…
Swappable batteries changed travel for me. Always having two extra charged batteries in my backpack, that you could swap top 100% in 20 seconds, made me ONLY use my phone as a free and completely useful tool without any planning or restrictions on my use. Otherwise, you can’t take too many pictures or videos, stream music or video or make video calls too long or you might be fucked when you need phone, GPS, payment or to get a rideshare to where you’re staying.
Audio jack similarly meant freedom. Bluetooth headphones out of battery, broken or one earbud lost? Have a pair of wired in the backpack always add backup. Also better audio quality through wired with DAC on certain models and less daily device load to charge/babysit
secondary screens LG V10 had a bar on top, they also had the T shaped dual screen phone and the secondary screen phone case. There was just creativity and attempts at innovation.
microSD expandable memory, again less and less available and this was about freedom - fuck your cloud storage add its data leaks, corruption and redaction. I own my data, you don’t control it.
Kinda surprised that no one has mentioned the FM tuner. For reasons I never really understood, a lot of companies continued to build the hardware into phones but then wall it off with firmware.
My first MP3 player had one, my TV had one, there were even watches and lots of other devices that had one. People still listen to radio, so why don’t they give us a tuner?
Mostly because they needed a wired headset to act as the FM antenna since it needs a decent length to capture FM compared to the much higher UHF and GHz frequencies that the mobile network uses.
Data sellers probably paid them to turn it off.
Mostly because they needed a wired headset to act as the FM antenna since it needs a decent length to capture FM compared to the much higher UHF and GHz frequencies that the mobile network uses.
They solved the ,issing FM tuner by pushing DAB+. (Yeah, + so users can’t record from radio)
If the phone has a headphone jack, it probably has that FM tuner.
It is commonly a thing in budget mediatek devices
Are you sure the hardware is still there? I only ask because given the number of hackers out there, I’m surprised someone hasn’t come out with a patch or something to make it more ubiquitous.
A lot of it isn’t there anymore….
But because it was a hardware thing, the patch would involve rooting your phone, something most people won’t do.
I don’t know if they still have it, but this was a well-known problem for a long time.
It’s not strictly there as a separate feature. Modern radio chips in phones are universal programmable radios, they can catch and process any wavelengths if you install correct code into them and plug a correct antenna. The same radio chip processes your 5G, Bluetooth, WiFi and everything else.
What phones are missing are FM antennas and radio firmware with FM support. This FM support is a paid feature for phone makers, so they don’t add it.
The audio port for headphones and headsets. Replaceable batteries. Extendable storage. Fuckers charge 100x more for every little upgrade now.
The notification light would also let you know what type of notification it was by colour on my old Samsung Note.
Wait they took that away? I have an S9 and I rely on this to know whos messaging me. Blue is textra, purple is whatsapp, white is insta, green is signal.
I had an S8 a couple years back and upgraded to an S10 when it first came out. The notification light went away and it was a huge bummer. I now have a Pixel 7 and it doesn’t have it either, so I’ve learned to live without it.
An app called aodNotify brings this back for you if you don’t have an iPhone. May take a little tweaking to get everything how you want but it’s very customizable
Is there anyway to use this without having the full always on display? Having all of that, which includes notifications, sort of defeats the purpose
I had an always on display that illuminated the outside of the display when I received a notification but otherwise stayed off, and I’m on iPhone, so I can’t imagine you don’t have more options on android than I did.
Which app?
I was jailbroken, I can’t remember the name of it sadly.
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Sony still does that.
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I forget which Samsung galaxy model it was, maybe S6, but it had a universal IR blaster built into the phone which was super convenient for controlling all of my devices. I did however often abuse the shit out of it by flipping the channels on bar tvs or turning off the stereo receiver and nobody was ever suspecting it was me on my phone. I guess that’s probably why they removed it lol, but it was fun while it lasted.
