Disappearing Tech
Essential
features in devices, that make life convenient for us, are vanishing fast
It’s
time to stop this disappearing tech madness. Boycott the brands doing this and
reward the ones that give you what you need.
No, not tech that can
make you invisible or make others disappear – I’m referring to technology that
is disappearing off devices. Critical features that are being taken off in the
name of progress that is crippling usage and utility for us all. We, the consumers
aren’t asking for these to be taken off, it’s the companies, their R&D
engineers and their marketing gurus taking these decisions based on obviously
flawed research. Here are some of the true losses that the world of tech has
gone through in the last few months.
Fingerprint
scanner
The days of a fingerprint
scanner (FPS) are numbered. Mark my words as this is going to happen. With the
home button gone, the logical placement for the scanner is now at the back of a
phone. Not as convenient, but it got the job done. Unfortunately most companies
seem to be fascinated by facial recognition as the new holy grail. Apple,
Samsung, Facebook and a dozen others are working on next-gen levels of
innovation in this field. It’s a serious case of barking up the wrong security
tree. It’s not going to be secure, its not that convenient too. Making a
digital payment, unlocking your phone without looking at it – are all much
easier with a fingerprint scanner than your ‘mug’. Unfortunately the better
technology of a FPS will soon be RIP.
The
home button
Phones will have no home
buttons. It’s now being made redundant at a ferocious pace. Look at what all we
could do with a home button. It brought us back to the safety of the home
screen, double press could achieve different things, long press could be used
to navigate or execute tasks faster, the fingerprint scanner lived right
beneath. All gone. Relegated to the dustbin. It didn’t start with the iPhone X
as many companies had already killed off the home button before. But now with
Apple making this the design of the future, it’s going to become the defacto
standard. The quest for more screen space in front has led to the death of the
most essential part of a phone.
MicroSD
slot
Other than greed, nothing
else is leading to the disappearance of this from our phones. Every single day
we use more and more storage on our phones. The videos are bigger, the pictures
have added more resolutions, we are taking more and more terrible selfies,
people send more WhatsApp multimedia files than ever before, everyone has the
biggest music collection known to mankind. And yet the control over what level
of storage we can have on our phones has been taken away and dictated by the
brands. There is absolutely no logic for this. It’s not about making a phone
thinner or any of the other flimsy excuses used by manufacturers. It’s greed
and it’s not a good sign!
3.5mm
jack
Yes, the 3.55 headphone
jack is really old school and yes it has it’s own problems and weaknesses.
Still it’s really good technology that still delivers. These excuses given by
brands that we have to kill it off for future higher standards is well,
hogwash. The future is supposed to be wireless, and frankly, wireless and bluetooth
audio isn’t a patch on the 3.5mm standard. Could we the money paying consumer
not be made a scapegoat? Put that damn 3.55mm headphone jack back, get your act
together and then come back with tech that actually is better.
There’s a lot more that
is going away that shouldn’t. Hybrid Dual slim slots are like a con man trick
that is killing off real dual SIM slots, the screen bezel is being carved away
making phones more delicate and prone to even more damage, proper buttons are
getting replaced by sensors and squeeze technology that just doesn’t work as
well as it should. It’s time to stop this disappearing tech madness. You are
the consumer. You pay the money. Boycott the brands that are making essential
tech disappear and reward the ones that give you what you need.
·
Rajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology,
NDTV, and the anchor of Gadget Guru, Cell Guru and Newsnet 3
HTBR22OCT17
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