Complaining that there is nothing new in smartphones? Here’s proof you don’t need these innovationsPhones08:34 | 14 May 2023

In recent years, mobile device manufacturers have been competing with each other on the quality of cameras and the energy efficiency of processors. And now there is not much innovation, and this is largely due to the economic situation in the world.

There are also technologies that have not become popular with buyers for various reasons.

3D Touch. This technology was introduced with the iPhone 6S. It allowed the user to perform various actions depending on the force of pressing the screen. To do this, Apple placed a special pressure sensor under the screen. The reason the innovation failed was because it did not specifically solve any user problems. Moreover, sometimes it was easier to just tap on the icon and choose the desired action, especially than pressing it further. In general, few buyers used this function.

iris scan. 7-8 years ago there were quite a lot of smartphones with a similar sensor. For example, these are models of the Samsung Galaxy Note or Lumia 950 series. In general, using this technology, the phone can be unlocked in the same way as Face ID. It is more difficult to simply scan the iris. The failure of innovation is due to the many limitations of this technology. For example, a certain distance between the eyes was required for the stable operation of the system, so the device had to be constantly zoomed in or out, and the scanning speed was not high.

heart rate measurement. This was done using special sensors or using a camera. For this, it was only necessary to install the application. No medical institution will use such technology. Therefore, it can serve only for entertainment purposes.

motion control. In 2019, Google recommended not touching the screen but waving your hands over the screen to control the device. This function was taken up by Pixel 4 series smartphones, the devices are equipped with a special sensor. But is such a sensor really necessary? After all, it is much easier to change everything with the help of finger gestures on the screen. In real life, almost none of the users used this technology, including the frequent glitches and false positives. In addition, this technology could not be put into use in most countries of the world.

smartphone shrink. For this, manufacturers have made the side edges of the devices sensitive. However, these edges were read not by touch, but by strong compression (Active Edger function). One of the reasons for failure is false positives. This sensor system can be easily replaced with widgets on the home screen. The second reason is bad marketing.

3D smartphones. There were smartphones in the market such as HTC Evo 3D and LG Optimus 3D. They can take pictures in 3D and display a three-dimensional image without special glasses. Thanks to this technology, screen resolutions have been reduced by half. At the same time, the user only had to look at the screen at a right angle for the 3D effect to work.

glyphs. They are not on the Nothing Phone and are just LEDs. They can be useful for those who want not to miss notifications in silent mode and who want to monitor the battery charge without touching the screen. However, this is only possible when the phone is placed face down. And so it will draw faster.