Here are the silliest Android phone features of all time

I adore it when Android manufacturers get artistic. Generally, an concept out of left discipline will work out completely, like bringing again the flip cellphone with a foldable show or utilizing a bio-resin for defense as an alternative of normal plastic or glass. Different occasions, it’s not fairly the identical stroke of genius — however generally, that’s simply as memorable. And but, these missteps are simply as vital as a result of generally they result in one thing significantly better. Listed below are just a few of the silliest options to launch on an Android cellphone.

Oh, and if I’m trustworthy, Apple’s Camera Control impressed this record. At first, I assumed it might be little greater than a button you would use to set off the shutter, however we’ve since came upon that it does fairly a bit extra. I used to be too far down the rabbit gap of foolish Android options by the point we obtained all the small print on the Digital camera Management, although, so listed here are the fruits of my labor anyway.

It’s humorous — I might have had my alternative of modular cellphone attachments to make this record, with each LG and Motorola giving it a shot. Heck, even CMF by Nothing jumped into the modular realm not too way back. Nonetheless, I’ve to name the equipment launched with the LG G5, dubbed Mates, sillier. My reasoning is that a minimum of Motorola made its Moto Mods suitable with multiple machine throughout their lifetime. You possibly can connect issues like an exterior JBL speaker, a projector, and even an exterior 5G antenna (to provide you a way of when the Moto Mods launched) to 4 generations of the Motorola Moto Z.

With the LG G5 Mates, nevertheless, it’s the other. They have been designed to work with the LG G5 and solely the G5, that means you would spend some huge cash on equipment that had no futureproofing. Now, I don’t essentially suppose the concept behind the Mates equipment is a nasty one — it appears fairly cool to swap out the items of your cellphone so as to add a greater digital camera grip, improve your cellphone’s DAC and amp with Bang & Olufsen tuning, or connect a VR headset lengthy earlier than they have been cool. However, after they’re designed to suit the precise physique of 1 particular cellphone, after which LG adopts a brand new design the very subsequent 12 months, you look fairly foolish.

What finally occurred to the LG Mates is that the corporate went from a intelligent, modular design with the G5 to a unibody building for the G6, selecting water safety and wi-fi charging over swappable equipment after only one 12 months. And but, we’ve barely scraped the floor of foolish concepts to come back out of LG in the previous couple of years.

Google, like LG, is an enormous fan of its personal creativity. Over time, we’ve had a number of short-lived Pixel features, just like the black-and-white panda Pixel 2 XL and the deepest notch your eyes have ever seen on the Pixel 3 XL. We additionally had a 12 months when Google determined that short-range radar was the way forward for interacting together with your cellphone, so it crammed a Soli sensor into the highest bezel of the Pixel 4 sequence. It was the end result of 5 years of labor and was designed to allow you to skip songs, silence cellphone calls, and snooze your alarms with nothing greater than a lazy wave.

The issue was that it by no means labored fairly proper. Certain, we had different complaints concerning the Pixel 4 sequence, like its horrible battery life, however the truth that Google’s Movement Sense gestures by no means actually obtained off the bottom makes the Soli sensor one in all Android’s silliest. Google did its greatest to roll out updates that may repair its performance, too, however they by no means actually took maintain, prompting the corporate to ditch its grand concept when the Pixel 5 rolled round.

That’s to not say that every part Google put within the Pixel 4’s chunky prime bezel was unhealthy, although, because it additionally housed IR-based face unlock, which is as near an Android model of Apple’s Face ID as we’ve gotten over time. It relied on a pair of infrared sensors to map the depth of your face, providing a way more safe strategy to unlock your cellphone than the camera-based facial recognition that Samsung and a number of other others used on the time. Sadly, IR-based face unlock made method about the identical time because the bigger Soli interface, primarily to shrink that prime bezel.

And now, from one palm-based characteristic to a different — unsurprisingly, again to LG. That’s proper, we’re speaking about Hand ID, an infrared-based palm-mapping characteristic that arrived on LG’s final G-series flagship, the G8 ThinQ. Basically, the G8 ThinQ would use a time-of-flight sensor and an IR digital camera to make a map of the distinctive veins in your hand, appearing like an enormous fingerprint that you would use to unlock your cellphone and set off gestures.

Sadly, just like the Pixel 4’s Soli sensor, LG’s Air Movement and Hand ID by no means caught on fairly like they have been presupposed to. In spite of everything, you’re already holding your cellphone with one hand, so it’s typically simpler to make use of the opposite to faucet or swipe on the show than to wave it round six or eight inches away such as you’re casting a spell at Hogwarts. I bear in mind just a few hand-based gestures fondly, like the flexibility to flash your palm to set off a three-second digital camera timer, however these didn’t require the superior ToF sensor or IR digital camera.

It seems that Android manufacturers wish to get artistic relating to their smartphone displays, too — for higher or worse. Generally, issues work brilliantly, just like the return of foldable telephones I discussed above. Different occasions, it’s just about a catastrophe, like when Pink put a holographic show into its debut Hydrogen One. I imply, it ought to come as no shock {that a} high-end digital camera firm needed to include a characteristic that would showcase its digital camera capabilities, however it’s protected to say that it didn’t work fairly proper this time round.

Basically, the staff at Pink labored with an organization known as Leia to place a further plate behind the LCD within the Hydrogen One. This plate would enable it to direct the sunshine popping out of every pixel to provide your eyes the phantasm of depth from a flat show. It was a intelligent method, too, utilizing 4 photos relatively than the usual two in order that the ultimate product would have extra motion than a conventional 3D picture.

Sadly, the Pink Hydrogen One’s show is among the silliest on an Android cellphone as a result of it merely didn’t work as typically because it ought to have. Interacting with the fundamentals like your own home display screen, net browser, and most apps gave you a normal 2D expertise, with 3D mode solely kicking in for just a few supported apps. Additionally, Pink’s four-way impact made loads of folks dizzy when it launched, including an excessive amount of blur to the display screen and making your eyes work a bit too laborious to focus.

After which, we by no means obtained a Pink Hydrogen Two.

Though Samsung has largely stayed away from gimmicks in recent times — to the purpose the place we’re begging for some innovation — that wasn’t all the time the case. Actually, Samsung used to let its thoughts run wild with issues like a full-blown zoom digital camera on the again of the Galaxy S4 Zoom, which might have additionally made this record. It additionally jumped on the curved cellphone development lengthy earlier than it introduced again foldable telephones within the type of the Galaxy Z sequence when it created the Galaxy Spherical.

Launched over a decade in the past, the Galaxy Spherical was Samsung’s reply to the LG G Flex, a cellphone that curved from prime to backside, virtually like a banana. Samsung’s concept, nevertheless, was to bend the cellphone from left to proper, appearing extra just like the world’s shallowest taco shell. In spite of everything, this form would match extra naturally into your hand and sit extra comfortably in your pocket than LG’s method. The bend was additionally designed to assist cut back display screen glare by redirecting the sunshine relatively than bouncing it proper again into your eyes.

On prime of that, Samsung developed just a few gestures that it hoped would incentivize customers to rock the Galaxy Spherical’s curved display screen backwards and forwards. The primary one was a straightforward strategy to examine on data in your lock display screen, dubbed Fast Look. It allowed you to push down both aspect of the show for just a few seconds, after which level it might present your date, time, and messages earlier than disappearing as you let go. It was a neat concept however could possibly be replicated by merely urgent the house button as an alternative. Samsung additionally added music controls to its native participant on the Galaxy Spherical, permitting you to skip ahead or backward by urgent the cellphone proper or left.

Sadly, the Galaxy Spherical by no means actually caught round as a result of its curved show was changed by some of the frequent — however nonetheless silliest — Android options of all time.

Sure, that’s proper — waterfall shows could be one of many silliest options ever to take the Android world by storm. And sure, I do know that at one level, they have been designed round intelligent options just like the Edge Panels on Samsung Galaxy units, however for essentially the most half, waterfall shows appeared extra like a strategy to make a cellphone seem as skinny as humanly doable. I can perceive wanting to take action, because it made units just like the Motorola Edge Plus (2023) — which had a quad-curved show — look razor-thin, however it additionally makes among the greatest Android telephones virtually unimaginable to carry comfortably, not to mention shield with the case.

Certain, it was straightforward to wrap your hand round these slim sides, pinching the body throughout the pads of your hand, however that was additionally the issue. Any strain on the show itself would end in unintended presses galore. I can now not rely the variety of occasions I unintentionally stopped the playback of an Instagram Reel or made an unintended transfer in Warhammer 40,000 Tacticus as a result of I wasn’t holding my cellphone good — it merely occurred on a regular basis.

Fortunately, our nationwide nightmare appears to be ending — a minimum of on the Android telephones I take advantage of most. Each Google and Samsung have shifted away from waterfall shows with their respective Pixel 8 and Galaxy S24 sequence, adopting flat replacements with thicker, extra comfy aspect rails that aren’t vulnerable to unintended faucets and presses. There are many waterfall shows nonetheless on the market, just like the one on the OnePlus 12 or the namesake panel on the Motorola Edge Plus, however I’m a lot happier to see flat panels come again on extra than simply the iPhone.

If not for Apple’s Digital camera Management, this might have virtually definitely been the characteristic that impressed a have a look at different quirky Android options. Sure, it’s Google’s temperature sensor — a brand-new characteristic from the Pixel 8 Professional that simply by no means made a lot sense. On one hand, it appeared like a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a fast strategy to examine the temperature of absolutely anything round you. Alternatively, although, it launched with out the approval to examine human temperatures, which is significant for a medical-adjacent sensor.

Sadly, whenever you take away human temperatures from the equation, the temperature sensor appears foolish. It may possibly let you know how heat your tub is or if it’s worthwhile to put your espresso within the microwave to heat it again up, however you are able to do each issues just by utilizing your hand. I additionally don’t love holding my Pixel 8 Professional (or Pixel 9 Professional; sure, Google saved the sensor for one more 12 months) to a scorching pan on my range to inform me it’s able to cook dinner.

Fortunately, although, FDA approval to take human temperatures lastly reached the temperature sensor about 4 months after the Pixel 8 Professional launched. It would make the sensor a bit extra helpful if in case you have children to ship again to highschool every morning, however for me, a dad to 2 cats who don’t go to highschool, I’ve but to discover a useful situation.

To date, all of my picks for the silliest Android options of all time have been simply that — options. They’ve been smaller components of in any other case normal-ish telephones that made me and my colleagues scratch our heads only a bit. This time, although, we have now to speak about your entire LG Wing. No single characteristic on the Wing is the silliest; it’s the entire cellphone. Bold? Sure. Unimaginable to persuade mainstream customers to purchase? Additionally sure. After we reviewed the LG Wing, we mentioned we have been enthusiastic about its eventual sequel — a cellphone that by no means got here.

What makes the Wing so foolish, you ask? Properly, have a look at it. LG determined to resurrect the swivel cellphone, however this time, it did so with a second, sq. show you would solely entry whenever you flipped the first show sideways. Certain, it had its moments — separating the YouTube controls from the video you have been watching was form of helpful, as seen above, however the quirky design additionally meant that the Wing wanted a pop-up selfie digital camera, including one other transferring half to a cellphone that was already centered round transferring components.

Below the hood, the Wing was just a little underwhelming, too. It carried a Snapdragon 765G that may have been high quality for the typical person, however the Wing wasn’t meant for common customers. It additionally solely packed a 4,000mAh battery with 25W wired charging, which isn’t quite a bit when it’s a must to energy two shows more often than not. Combine in that the Wing’s cameras have been bang-average for stills (however good for movies due to a gimbal mode), and it’s robust to see how anybody was able to fork over $1,000 for this experiment.

And but, I discover myself wishing that extra folks did simply that. I needed extra folks to purchase in on LG’s quirkiness as a result of, by the tip, it was the one model leaning in and on the lookout for methods to make its Android choices distinctive. It definitely deserves its place because the most-represented model on this record of foolish Android options, and I nonetheless form of miss trying ahead to LG launching a brand new off-the-wall smartphone. Perhaps in the future, somebody will decide up that mantle and turn out to be the quirky Android hero I’m ready for.