Smartphones in recent years have changed and abandoned some features: physical keyboard, removable battery front speakers
Smartphones have been on the crest of the wave for a decade now, ever since Steve Jobs introduced the world to the first iPhone model on January 9, 2007. Smart phones have changed profoundly in both design and size: ever larger screens and increasingly advanced functionality.
Smartphones have lost some of their features over the years. For example, few will remember that the first touch phones had a physical keyboard. While other smartphones had a trackpad that was used to navigate within the mobile operating system and make calls. Features that may seem obsolete now, but in the early years of the spread of smartphones were quite revolutionary. In addition, for some years now, another feature that was very common on cell phones has disappeared: the removable battery. The unibody design, with the body made entirely of aluminum has “killed” the removable battery.
Physical keyboard
It may seem strange, but the first smartphone models had a physical keyboard. The reason is quite simple. Besides the fact that the screen of early smartphones was very small, in most cases it was not capacitive. However, the physical keyboard was short-lived and was soon eliminated from smartphones. Although Blackberry reintroduced it in the KeyONE, the latest smartphone presented by the Canadian company.
Trackpad
In addition to the physical keyboard, the first smart phones also had a trakcpad or trackball, that is, a ball that allowed you to navigate within the sections of the mobile operating system. Again, the feature disappeared pretty quickly.
Front-facing speakers
The first company to introduce front-facing speakers was HTC in 2013 on the One M7, and Motorola and Huawei also adopted the same feature for the Nexus 6. But in recent months, companies are putting speakers on the bottom of smartphones. And the reason is quite simple: with screens taking up an ever-increasing percentage of the front of the smartphone, there’s no more room for speakers.
Removable Battery
One of the last companies to use a removable battery on a top of the range device was LG with the G5. And it was far from a success. Most phones nowadays don’t have a removable battery anymore: companies have adopted the unibody design, with the body made of a single piece of metal that is forged in the factory. And it’s the removable battery that has suffered.
Also, to make smartphones water and dust resistant, the smartphone must not have any openings or removable parts on the body.
3.5mm audio jack
The 3.5mm audio jack is still present on many devices. But it will disappear in the future. Apple has already adopted alternative solutions (wireless headphones), while on Android smartphones it will gradually be replaced by the USB Type-C port. The audio jack has always been present on smartphones and is destined to disappear to make room for hardware components that need more space, primarily the battery.