In the spirit of Festivus, I am airing of grievances for the smartphone world. Gather round the Festivus pole! To paraphrase the impeccable Frank Costanza, ‘I got a lotta problems with you phones, and now you’re going to hear about it!’ While I’m sure there will be time later for the feats of strength benchmark tests, now I want to discuss the ways my loved ones have disappointed me over the past year.
You think I’m going to drone on and on about AI? Don’t worry, I’ll get to it. It will be a Festivus miracle when I finally see AI features that make a smartphone worth buying. I’d settle for AI that doesn’t tell me my son sold the family dog every time he texts updates about football practice.
These are my biggest problems with some of the best phones I saw this year, and just like I tell my own family, if I didn’t love these phones I wouldn’t spend so much time criticizing every way they aren’t perfect.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold I really want… in Korea and China only?!
Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 6 has a flaw: Z Fold phones are simply too narrow when closed. The front screen looks awkward and some apps don’t fit right. I hoped Samsung would fix the problem with the Galaxy Z Fold 6, but the new phone was only a bit wider than previous Galaxys Z Fold. The problem persisted, while the OnePlus Open and Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold showed how a foldable tablet is supposed to look.
Then Samsung fixed the problem! It launched a Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition with a bigger display up front and a proper aspect ratio. It also got a big 200-megapixel camera upgrade, but I don’t care about that because I forgive foldable phones for their camera foibles.
But wait, the new Galaxy Z Fold 6 Special Edition phone is only on sale in Korea and China!? Okay, so those countries actually spend money on foldable phones. Sorry US, UK, and Australia readers, maybe if you’d just dropped a few grand on a Samsung foldable last year, you’d have the correct Galaxy Fold model this year. I hope the Galaxy Z Fold 7 doesn’t disappoint.
The iPhone 16 Camera Control isn’t a shutter button
I was very excited about the new Camera Control on the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro models. I’ve been hoping two-stage shutter buttons would make a comeback (every Windows Phone had one!), because it makes shooting much easier when you want a steady focus and a sharper shot.
Then the Camera Control showed up and it was nothing like what we’d seen before. It was so much more than just a shutter button with focus lock. I really like the Control! And I love that every iPhone 16 model gets a Camera Control. I think there’s a lot of potential.
I just have one big problem: it doesn’t do the thing I wanted. I wanted a button that has a halfway stopping point – a two-stage shutter that you can press a little bit, then press harder. You can do that with the Camera Control, but there’s no real stopping point, you get haptic feedback from the iPhone when you get there. I’m not very good at stopping my finger at precisely the right point without some physical resistance.
Also, the focus lock feature wasn’t available at launch, it took a few months to arrive, and by the time it did, the Camera Control became known for its Apple Intelligence powers more than its camera convenience. Maybe that was the point all along? Hopefully when Samsung inevitably copies this button, it will offer a proper two-stage shutter button like I wanted.
I can’t buy a Xiaomi 14 Ultra. Or a Huawei. Why?!
There’s a camera phone that haunts my dreams: the Xiaomi 14 Ultra. It might be the best camera phone on the market right now, but not my market. You can get a Xiaomi phone in plenty of other English-speaking countries. But the US doesn’t have an official retail channel, and I wouldn’t buy an import model because I won’t get full network or warranty support.
So, I borrowed a Xiaomi 14 Ultra from our UK team, and its cameras are jaw-dropping. I took photos that were light years ahead of what some of our favorite US camera phones can produce, especially shooting macro photos, portraits, and enhanced zoom shots. The level of control is amazing, with the best aperture control I’ve seen on a smartphone.
I’ve never gotten a satisfying answer explaining why I can’t buy Xiaomi phones. For that matter, why can’t I buy any cool Huawei phones, like the Huawei Mate XT?! I have heard from industry analysts that there is a political reason more than a technological impediment. In any case, it’s clear the US market is missing out on something good.
Stereotypes from generative AI, now on your smartphone
There are so many problems with generative AI that it’s tough to nail down my favorite bugbear. Is it rampant and blatant copyright infringement? Supervillainous levels of energy consumption? I think my favorite generative AI problem to whine about is the way AI image generators usually create images that adhere to racist, sexist, ableist… pretty much any stereotype you can imagine, and probably a few we haven’t defined.
That isn’t a bug, it’s a feature because of the way they were trained, and it’s now a feature on your smartphone. Google and Samsung have avoided the worst problems by limiting AI wallpaper features. But when I reviewed the Motorola Razr Plus 2024, the results I got from the image generator presented a strong pattern of Antisemitic and misogynist stereotypes. It was shocking.
This is not acceptable. These AI image generators are not useful enough to justify the danger. Why do I need a problematic wallpaper app on my phone? When did it become acceptable for electronics companies to foist offensive features on users? I’m guessing it’s when we decided we weren’t going to buy those foldable phones.
When AI works properly, I’ll be excited to use it. Until then, I don’t need it, just like I wouldn’t need a text messaging app that can’t send text messages, or a web browser that goes to the wrong URL. AI features don’t work, and that is the end of that.
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philip.berne@futurenet.com (Philip Berne)
