Wait, are we really at the point where physical buttons are viewed as a revolutionary feature?
wait until they hear about headphone jacks!
It’s not the button that’s revolutionary. It’s how it’s used.
Smartphones are in such a sorry state that a single hardware button seems like a big deal.
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.
I have butt dialed 911 because of that. Total misfeature
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.
You can turn it off now. I think it’s the Feature called Crisis Alert in Safety and Emergency
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.
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.
I’m fairly certain that on some Android phones it is programmable. I could have sworn it was on my OnePlus 5, anyway.
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.
I was so in love with the first two pixels. The lines really not lived up to expectations.
so like Samsung had the Bixby button for half a decade now? No, thanks.
also, a mute button is pointless when we can just hold the volume down for a second.
The Bixby button sucked because for so long you couldn’t remap it to do anything else. And even when they finally relented at the end, they only allowed it to have the functions of press and hold or double tap to activate extra features, but single tap was always still reserved for Bixby.
Having a dedicated mute button is good when your default volume controls are for media volume. Not that it makes a difference for me because my phone is forever on vibrate, but I get the utility.
You could always just download an app to remap it with far more functionality. Used to love that feature.
I could?! The best I could find back then was to disable it.
Yeah, it was called BxActions iirc
I’m still using that on my s10+. Having the flashlight mapped and Bixby completely disabled is all I care about, and it works perfect. And I’m pretty sure you get full remap control if you spend the few bucks for it, but I haven’t needed to.
I had mine remapped as far back as the Note 4.
Yes, but you had to set up Bixby first which I refused to do, so just cut off the part of my phone case that pushed the button so I’d stop accidentally pressing it.
No? I had Bixby removed from the phone entirely.
I have a Note 8, they’ve now had it for a while where you can single tap to open an app or run a command. But if you choose to do that, double press opens Bixby. So sadly you get Bixby no matter what.
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The mute toggle on iPhone doesn’t mute media if you play something with it enabled, and you can still increase/decrease the volume of that, you just don’t get any notification sounds. So bit different than just turning the volume down for the whole device.
I keep mute enabled all the time because I get the notifications on my watch, and I forget it’s on because media still plays with sound. It’s actually really nice. One of the few things I actually like about iPhone.
This volume button pair is actually configurable on my phone, that’s why I brought it up. I can choose whether the buttons affect notifications or media by default, and when media is playing it’ll always change the media volume.
Yeah, it wasn’t used much so they removed it ig. But its apple so now its new and innovative and everything needs it! ffs
Gimme expandable storage and 3.5mm ports back first.deleted by creator
That’s just the lock/power button, I think. Press to lock or wake, double tap for camera, hold to turn off/restart.
The Bixby button was a bit different, and lived on the opposite side of the phone from the power button.
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Best feature in a phone is the Motorola shake flashlight
And the shake-twist camera
Yes! My colleague was astonished that I had this feature with my old Motorola. 😅
is there a way to get in lineageos or other roms?
Yes. Tasker or Macrodroid, both automation apps, will do this pretty easily, along with many other things.
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.
It is a good concept tbh. I even miss the physical ringer switch when Im on Android (unless it’s a OnePlus)
I hope the 16 has a headphone jack so that “everyone should steal this revolutionary new feature from apple” as well.
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.
It’s been like this for at least a few years using the stock Samsung OS.
You can do it on pixel too. I have it open assistant on long hold or double tap cam.
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.
So many people in this thread saying “who cares it’s just a button” without having any idea what it actually does.
Want the mute switch behavior? Well that’s the default thing the button does and you can use it without looking at it.
Want to program the button to do like literally anything? You can do that. For example:
- Launch the camera app, or any other app
- Control your smart home accessories
- Toggle Do Not Disturb, or another focus mode
- Run a command on a remote server via ssh
- Start recording audio in case you’re around cops doing cop stuff
- Or anything else you can program in with a Shortcut
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.
Being able to remap keys is very important, but the thing is that this is basic functionality since forever.
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
No, no you don’t understand!! My Samsung galaxy 3 did that decades ago, although it’s not the same!!!
RIP onepluses alert slider, loved it
They ditched the alert slider? When? I’m on a OnePlus 6, and have been considering installing LineageOS on it to give it a few more years of life. The alert slider is one of the reasons why I don’t want to give it up just yet.
No, they still have the alert slider. It wasn’t on the OnePlus 10, but they brought it back on the 11 and it looks like it will be included on the upcoming 12.
Weird that they left it off the OnePlus 10 and brought it back for the next generation. I’m glad they did, though. I still think I’ll stick with my OnePlus 6 for a bit, if I can keep it running.
I recently got lineageos on my old 6t and it is a bit buggy, specifically WiFi
The slider was probably the feature that I liked least about my OnePlus phones, and it was actually a factor in me deciding to not get a OnePlus phone again. Unlike the iPhone switch, which had an action that was perpendicular to the direction that my phone was moving when putting it into my pocket, the OnePlus phone’s slider was parallel to that movement. So the slider would change positions every time my phone would go into my pocket. I like my phone on vibrate 99.9% of the time, so I always needed it in the middle position, which was the hardest one to get it into. I always found myself wishing I could disable that feature, but I never found a way to.
Any time I’ve switched to android over the years that little switch is one of the biggest, yet smallest features on the iPhone that I end up really missing. It is so convenient, and now that it’s reprogrammable with different taps it will be even better.
It will be the think I probably miss the most when I eventually upgrade. The brilliance of the switch is that it is a switch - which means can be verified by feel or by sight to be in the silent position without needing to wake or even take you phone out of your pocket.
I never liked the physical switch because I would switch it on accident. I want my phone on vibrate 99.9% of the time, so the switch is kind of wasted space, which is why I like the idea of the programmable button better than the switch.
Android actually improved their silent/vibrate/ring switching a couple of years ago. You no longer need to go into the settings or even the quick settings. You just press one of the volume buttons, and a little pop-up comes up showing your volume level. On that pop-up, there’s a button to toggle the silent/vibrate/ring state. I think it’s easy enough, but you do need to have your screen on, which I could see defeating the purpose for people who use that feature a lot.
wdym, that switch isnt even out yet
The silence switch on the left side of the iPhone has been around for forever
Looking at my iPhone 11 Pro work gave me and it’s silent switch on the side. Lol
Definitely out already.
silent switch has been there since the 3g
now it’s an ‘action button’, not a silent switch iirc
Pixel 6a does this… calm yourself young one.
How much money do you all think Apple paid Will Sattelberg to write this ‘article’?
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.
Pressy was one https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressy_Button
That was it! Thank you!
I use double tap on the back to activate “Reachability” (screen slides down) on my iPhone, works somewhat okay
Not sure if you knew this already, but swiping down from just above the home bar thing at the bottom also activates Reachability
