Asklemmy

Unlockable bootloader, removable battery, headphone jack, being assembled with SCREWS rather than GLUE.

Removable battery is the big one. I had a phone where they only cost like $15, so I could take 2 of them on a trip and last a week w/o charging.

User-replaceable batteries.

IR Blasters!

I feel like I'm the only one who used them or cares that they were quietly phased out of phones.

You used to be able to use your phone as a universal remote. Being able to control my TV, sound system, ceiling fan, and lights all from my phone was so convenient! Plus if you were stuck in like a waiting room and they had ads or garbage like Fox News on, you could change the channel or turn it off completely. It was an incredibly useful feature to me, but I guess barely anyone else used since it was removed from phones without any complaints.

Except me. I'm complaining!

Headphone jack

Fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone. So you'd pick it up and your finger would naturally fall on the sensor, so that by the time you look at the screen, it's unlocked.

Headphone jack, dedicated fingerprint reader, removable battery, physical sim card trays

Edit: expandable storage

This may sound dumb... An old Samsung phone I had years ago, came with alarms that gradually faded in. The most memorable, started with the ocean, and the seagulls... Then there was a fog horn in the distance. Slowly the horn got closer, and closer... Until it was all you could hear, and your alarm was going off.

I've looked everywhere for the sound file... It must be Locked away in a basement at Samsung somewhere.

One day I'll find it

Physical keyboards.

• iris scanner
• Dedicated MicroSD card slot
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• Removable/user replacable battery
• Metal backs
• Front firing speakers

Charging once a week.

A battery which lasts up to a week.

3.5mm headphone jack.

3.5 jack

Notification LED.

Headphone jacks and the ability to expand available memory using SD cards.

I miss my smart watch waking me up outside of detected REM sleep.

On the Microsoft Band you could set a time window where the alarm would go off - say between 0700-0800. If you're in REM sleep at 0700, the alarm stays off until you naturally rouse, or 0800.

I've worked as a sleep scientist for 7 years, and the idea of not being woken out of REM is such a neat idea, and yet no other watch seems to do it.

Hardware keyboards on mobile phones

FM radio. Sometimes it was nice to listen to the radio on my phone.

Tactile buttons

Once I get my next phone, I'll miss the headphones jack.

Battery life, even with massive batteries, modern phones only last a day while older phones could last up to a week between charges.

Privacy

IR transmitter, removable batteries (but they will come back), the notification LED.

I loved how older versions of Android (and afaik iOS as well) could set the album cover of the currently played song as the lockscreen background.

It's a tiny and maybe completely unnecessary feature, but i loved it.

The IR blaster on my galaxy s6. Not the most used feature, but when the Air BnB didn’t have all the remotes it was a life saver.

Rear mounted fingerprint sensor 3.5mm Audio port

I refuse to use a phone without a headphone jack.

Removable batteries :(

Removable batteries

Batteries that lasted a week.

Multi-colored LED notification light - better yet the Nexus One trackball + multi-colored LED light in one.

Headphone jack is always nice. I don't use it anymore, if anything USB-C dongle is fine.

An indestructible phone. Nokia and Sony Ericsson had some phones that were stronger than a brick. This weak glass sucks.

Headphone jack and IR blaster

I like where phones are now for the most part, but the thing I miss the most is that magic moment of what leaps and bounds new technology/form factor/whatever was being incorporated into a new phone. Like when the iPhone was first announced or when Motorola announced (and marketed the hell out of) the original Droid - I can still hear the boot up sound.

I remember the debates and arguments had when the first 4+” phone was released and how it was “way too big” compared to the ideal sized 3.5” iPhone. The idea of swiping to type!? What a breakthrough! A fingerprint scanner to unlock your phone, that took like three or four tries some times and was met with skepticism by others.

Now I feel like, despite how monstrously capable are phones are now compared to even five years ago, there’s just not as much of a spark anymore. New phones are iterative and have been for a while. Bendable displays are sort of neat, but just doesn’t quite tap the same bit of magic for me.

I miss the IR blaster in the headphone Jack of my old s5 every day

I miss the times when different phones had character. Even phones of the same company looked completely different:

Now it’s just the same rectangle stretched different ways and maybe different color sides.

I missed how I could set an alarm and then shut my blackberry off overnight and the phone would turn itself back on in the morning to alarm

I had an htc one that could transmit IR signals meaning you could mess with TVs and other simple wireless electronics. You could also use the headphone wire as an actual radio antenna.

Active Edge, which LG originally came up with and that Google adopted with the Pixel 2. Of course they dropped it after a few devices.

It was basically a button/key press that you could configure to trigger actions by firmly applying pressure with you hands around the lower third of your phone. It gave a very satisfying haptic vibration response based on the amount of pressure you applied and you could even set the amount of pressure until it was triggered. It had something magickal about it.

If you're interested in the tech: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2017/10/19/google-pixel-2-teardown-ifixit/

I miss the gboard of 5 years ago when typo correction was spooky good.

I miss uploading my own songs to Google music.

I miss easily flashable bootloadera and roms.

I miss the three virtual navigation buttons.

I miss setting different notification dot colors for different apps.

I miss setting different notification sounds for different people.

Honestly, I miss my hardware keyboard and not giving up so much screen real estate while typing.

Headphone jack for sure. Like 90% of my phone usage is either listening to music or watching videos, so decent audio is like the only thing I care about lol.

Physical keyboard. I miss touch typing one handed.

The back fingerprint reader used to have gestures, so swiping down on it could for example open the notification shade. Was really good for not having greasy fingerprints on your screen

Nokia phones in 2000 could record your voice for any command you wanted. The voice command reliability of those phones is beyond superior to what is offered by today's voice assistants.

Physical keys that you had to type multiple times to get letters. I could write a whole text message with my hands in my pocket.

Yet another of Google's discontinued pet projects with tons of potential but that that they quickly lost interest in, my trusty (now officially unsupported) Pixel 4XL has a Soli Radar sensor that I'm going to miss when I finally break down and buy another phone.

It is so nice to be able to just wave generally in the direction of my phone to do stuff. I use it all the time when I'm driving to skip songs, or repeat the last song, or pause the music, etc. without taking my eyes off the road. It really is a shame to me that they threw a bunch of money at a legitimately cool project like that, and then seemingly just abandoned it entirely.

Add it to the list, I suppose.

Removable battery and LED notification lights.