Here are the silliest Android phone features of all time

I
love
it
when
Android
brands
get
creative.
Sometimes,
an
idea
out
of
left
field
will
work
out
perfectly,
like
bringing
back
the
flip
phone
with
a
foldable
display
or
using
a
bio-resin
for
protection
instead
of
standard
plastic
or
glass.
Other
times,
it’s
not
quite
the
same
stroke
of
genius
—
but
sometimes,
that’s
just
as
memorable.
And
yet,
those
missteps
are
just
as
significant
because
sometimes
they
lead
to
something
much
better.
Here
are
a
few
of
the
silliest
features
to
launch
on
an
Android
phone.

Oh,
and
if
I’m
honest,
Apple’s

Camera
Control
inspired
this
list.
At
first,
I
thought
it
would
be
little
more
than
a
button
you
could
use
to
trigger
the
shutter,
but
we’ve
since
found
out
that
it
does
quite
a
bit
more.
I
was
too
far
down
the
rabbit
hole
of
silly
Android
features
by
the
time
we
got
all
the
details
on
the
Camera
Control,
though,
so
here
are
the
fruits
of
my
labor
anyway.

It’s
funny
—
I
could
have
had
my
choice
of
modular
phone
attachments
to
make
this
list,
with
both
LG
and
Motorola
giving
it
a
shot.
Heck,
even

CMF
by
Nothing
jumped
into
the
modular
realm
not
too
long
ago.
However,
I
have
to
call
the
accessories
launched
with
the
LG
G5,
dubbed
Friends,
sillier.
My
reasoning
is
that
at
least
Motorola
made
its
Moto
Mods
compatible
with
more
than
one
device
during
their
lifetime.
You
could
attach
things
like
an
external
JBL
speaker,
a
projector,
and
even
an
external
5G
antenna
(to
give
you
a
sense
of
when
the
Moto
Mods
launched)
to
four
generations
of
the
Motorola
Moto
Z.

With
the
LG
G5
Friends,
however,
it’s
the
opposite.
They
were
designed
to
work
with
the
LG
G5
and
only
the
G5,
meaning
you
could
spend
a
lot
of
money
on
accessories
that
had
no
futureproofing.
Now,
I
don’t
necessarily
think
the
idea
behind
the
Friends
accessories
is
a
bad
one
—
it
seems
pretty
cool
to
swap
out
the
pieces
of
your
phone
to
add
a
better
camera
grip,
upgrade
your
phone’s
DAC
and
amp
with
Bang
&
Olufsen
tuning,
or
attach
a

VR
headset
long
before
they
were
cool.
But,
when
they’re
designed
to
fit
the
exact
body
of
one
specific
phone,
and
then
LG
adopts
a
new
design
the
very
next
year,
you
look
pretty
silly.

What
ultimately
happened
to
the
LG
Friends
is
that
the
company
went
from
a
clever,
modular
design
with
the
G5
to
a
unibody
construction
for
the
G6,
choosing
water
protection
and
wireless
charging
over
swappable
accessories
after
just
one
year.
And
yet,
we’ve
barely
scraped
the
surface
of
silly
ideas
to
come
out
of
LG
in
the
last
few
years.

Google,
like
LG,
is
a
big
fan
of
its
own
creativity.
Over
the
years,
we’ve
had
several
short-lived

Pixel
features,
like
the
black-and-white
panda
Pixel
2
XL
and
the
deepest
notch
your
eyes
have
ever
seen
on
the
Pixel
3
XL.
We
also
had
a
year
when
Google
decided
that
short-range
radar
was
the
future
of
interacting
with
your
phone,
so
it
crammed
a
Soli
sensor
into
the
top
bezel
of
the
Pixel
4
series.
It
was
the
culmination
of
five
years
of
work
and
was
designed
to
let
you
skip
songs,
silence
phone
calls,
and
snooze
your
alarms
with
nothing
more
than
a
lazy
wave.

The
problem
was
that
it
never
worked
quite
right.
Sure,
we
had
other
complaints
about
the
Pixel
4
series,
like
its
terrible
battery
life,
but
the
fact
that
Google’s
Motion
Sense
gestures
never
really
got
off
the
ground
makes
the
Soli
sensor
one
of
Android’s
silliest.
Google
did
its
best
to
roll
out
updates
that
would
fix
its
functionality,
too,
but
they
never
really
took
hold,
prompting
the
company
to
ditch
its
grand
idea
when
the
Pixel
5
rolled
around.

That’s
not
to
say
that
everything
Google
put
in
the
Pixel
4’s
chunky
top
bezel
was
bad,
though,
as
it
also
housed
IR-based
face
unlock,
which
is
as
close
to
an
Android
version
of
Apple’s
Face
ID
as
we’ve
gotten
over
the
years.
It
relied
on
a
pair
of
infrared
sensors
to
map
the
depth
of
your
face,
offering
a
much
more
secure
way
to
unlock
your
phone
than
the
camera-based
facial
recognition
that
Samsung
and
several
others
used
at
the
time.
Unfortunately,
IR-based
face
unlock
made
way
about
the
same
time
as
the
larger
Soli
interface,
mainly
to
shrink
that
top
bezel.

And
now,
from
one
palm-based
feature
to
another
—
unsurprisingly,
back
to
LG.
That’s
right,
we’re
talking
about
Hand
ID,
an
infrared-based
palm-mapping
feature
that
arrived
on
LG’s
last
G-series
flagship,
the
G8
ThinQ.
Essentially,
the
G8
ThinQ
would
use
a
time-of-flight
sensor
and
an
IR
camera
to
make
a
map
of
the
unique
veins
in
your
hand,
acting
like
a
giant
fingerprint
that
you
could
use
to
unlock
your
phone
and
trigger
gestures.

Unfortunately,
like
the
Pixel
4’s
Soli
sensor,
LG’s
Air
Motion
and
Hand
ID
never
caught
on
quite
like
they
were
supposed
to.
After
all,
you’re
already
holding
your
phone
with
one
hand,
so
it’s
often
easier
to
use
the
other
to
tap
or
swipe
on
the
display
than
to
wave
it
around
six
or
eight
inches
away
like
you’re
casting
a
spell
at
Hogwarts.
I
remember
a
few
hand-based
gestures
fondly,
like
the
ability
to
flash
your
palm
to
trigger
a
three-second
camera
timer,
but
those
didn’t
require
the
advanced
ToF
sensor
or
IR
camera.

It
turns
out
that
Android
brands
like
to
get
creative
when
it
comes
to
their

smartphone
displays,
too
—
for
better
or
worse.
Sometimes,
things
work
brilliantly,
like
the
return
of
foldable
phones
I
mentioned
above.
Other
times,
it’s
pretty
much
a
disaster,
like
when
Red
put
a
holographic
display
into
its
debut
Hydrogen
One.
I
mean,
it
should
come
as
no
surprise
that
a
high-end
camera
company
wanted
to
incorporate
a
feature
that
could
show
off
its
camera
capabilities,
but
it’s
safe
to
say
that
it
didn’t
work
quite
right
this
time
around.

Essentially,
the
team
at
Red
worked
with
a
company
called
Leia
to
put
an
additional
plate
behind
the
LCD
in
the
Hydrogen
One.
This
plate
would
allow
it
to
direct
the
light
coming
out
of
each
pixel
to
give
your
eyes
the
illusion
of
depth
from
a
flat
display.
It
was
a
clever
approach,
too,
using
four
images
rather
than
the
standard
two
so
that
the
final
product
would
have
more
movement
than
a
traditional
3D
image.

Unfortunately,
the
Red
Hydrogen
One’s
display
is
one
of
the
silliest
on
an
Android
phone
because
it
simply
didn’t
work
as
often
as
it
should
have.
Interacting
with
the
basics
like
your
home
screen,
web
browser,
and
most
apps
gave
you
a
standard
2D
experience,
with
3D
mode
only
kicking
in
for
a
few
supported
apps.
Also,
Red’s
four-way
effect
made
plenty
of
people
dizzy
when
it
launched,
adding
too
much
blur
to
the
screen
and
making
your
eyes
work
a
bit
too
hard
to
focus.

And
then,
we
never
got
a
Red
Hydrogen
Two.

Although
Samsung
has
mostly
stayed
away
from
gimmicks
in
recent
years
—
to
the
point
where
we’re
begging
for
some
innovation
—
that
wasn’t
always
the
case.
In
fact,
Samsung
used
to
let
its
mind
run
wild
with
things
like
a
full-blown
zoom
camera
on
the
back
of
the
Galaxy
S4
Zoom,
which
could
have
also
made
this
list.
It
also
jumped
on
the
curved
phone
trend
long
before
it
brought
back
foldable
phones
in
the
form
of
the
Galaxy
Z
series
when
it
created
the
Galaxy
Round.

Launched
over
a
decade
ago,
the
Galaxy
Round
was
Samsung’s
answer
to
the
LG
G
Flex,
a
phone
that
curved
from
top
to
bottom,
almost
like
a
banana.
Samsung’s
idea,
however,
was
to
bend
the
phone
from
left
to
right,
acting
more
like
the
world’s
shallowest
taco
shell.
After
all,
this
shape
would
fit
more
naturally
into
your
hand
and
sit
more
comfortably
in
your
pocket
than
LG’s
approach.
The
bend
was
also
designed
to
help
reduce
screen
glare
by
redirecting
the
light
rather
than
bouncing
it
right
back
into
your
eyes.

On
top
of
that,
Samsung
developed
a
few
gestures
that
it
hoped
would
incentivize
users
to
rock
the
Galaxy
Round’s
curved
screen
back
and
forth.
The
first
one
was
an
easy
way
to
check
on
information
on
your
lock
screen,
dubbed
Quick
Glance.
It
allowed
you
to
push
down
either
side
of
the
display
for
a
few
seconds,
after
which
point
it
would
show
your
date,
time,
and
messages
before
disappearing
as
you
let
go.
It
was
a
neat
idea
but
could
be
replicated
by
simply
pressing
the
home
button
instead.
Samsung
also
added
music
controls
to
its
native
player
on
the
Galaxy
Round,
allowing
you
to
skip
forward
or
backward
by
pressing
the
phone
right
or
left.

Unfortunately,
the
Galaxy
Round
never
really
stuck
around
because
its
curved
display
was
replaced
by
one
of
the
most
common
—
but
still
silliest
—
Android
features
of
all
time.

Yes,
that’s
right
—
waterfall
displays
might
be
one
of
the
silliest
features
ever
to
take
the
Android
world
by
storm.
And
yes,
I
know
that
at
one
point,
they
were
designed
around
clever
features
like
the
Edge
Panels
on
Samsung
Galaxy
devices,
but
for
the
most
part,
waterfall
displays
seemed
more
like
a
way
to
make
a
phone
appear
as
thin
as
humanly
possible.
I
can
understand
wanting
to
do
so,
as
it
made
devices
like
the

Motorola
Edge
Plus
(2023)
—
which
had
a
quad-curved
display
—
look
razor-thin,
but
it
also
makes
some
of
the
best
Android
phones
almost
impossible
to
hold
comfortably,
let
alone
protect
with
the
case.

Sure,
it
was
easy
to
wrap
your
hand
around
those
slim
sides,
pinching
the
frame
within
the
pads
of
your
hand,
but
that
was
also
the
problem.
Any
pressure
on
the
display
itself
would
result
in
accidental
presses
galore.
I
can
no
longer
count
the
number
of
times
I
accidentally
stopped
the
playback
of
an
Instagram
Reel
or
made
an
unintended
move
in
Warhammer
40,000
Tacticus
because
I
wasn’t
holding
my
phone
just
right
—
it
simply
happened
all
the
time.

Thankfully,
our
national
nightmare
seems
to
be
ending
—
at
least
on
the
Android
phones
I
use
most.
Both
Google
and
Samsung
have
shifted
away
from
waterfall
displays
with
their
respective
Pixel
8
and
Galaxy
S24
series,
adopting
flat
replacements
with
thicker,
more
comfortable
side
rails
that
aren’t
prone
to
accidental
taps
and
presses.
There
are
plenty
of
waterfall
displays
still
out
there,
like
the
one
on
the

OnePlus
12
or
the
namesake
panel
on
the
Motorola
Edge
Plus,
but
I’m
much
happier
to
see
flat
panels
come
back
on
more
than
just
the
iPhone.

If
not
for
Apple’s
Camera
Control,
this
would
have
almost
certainly
been
the
feature
that
inspired
a
look
at
other
quirky
Android
features.
Yes,
it’s
Google’s

temperature
sensor
—
a
brand-new
feature
from
the
Pixel
8
Pro
that
just
never
made
much
sense.
On
one
hand,
it
seemed
like
a
response
to
the
COVID-19
pandemic,
a
quick
way
to
check
the
temperature
of
just
about
anything
around
you.
On
the
other
hand,
though,
it
launched
without
the
approval
to
check
human
temperatures,
which
is
vital
for
a
medical-adjacent
sensor.

Unfortunately,
when
you
remove
human
temperatures
from
the
equation,
the
temperature
sensor
looks
silly.
It
can
tell
you
how
warm
your
bath
is
or
if
you
need
to
put
your
coffee
in
the
microwave
to
warm
it
back
up,
but
you
can
do
both
things
simply
by
using
your
hand.
I
also
don’t
love
holding
my
Pixel
8
Pro
(or
Pixel
9
Pro;
yes,
Google
kept
the
sensor
for
another
year)
to
a
hot
pan
on
my
stove
to
tell
me
it’s
ready
to
cook.

Thankfully,
though,
FDA
approval
to
take
human
temperatures
finally
reached
the
temperature
sensor
about
four
months
after
the
Pixel
8
Pro
launched.
It
might
make
the
sensor
a
bit
more
useful
if
you
have
kids
to
send
back
to
school
each
morning,
but
for
me,
a
dad
to
two
cats
who
don’t
go
to
school,
I’ve
yet
to
find
a
helpful
scenario.

So
far,
all
of
my
picks
for
the
silliest
Android
features
of
all
time
have
been
just
that
—
features.
They’ve
been
smaller
parts
of
otherwise
normal-ish
phones
that
made
me
and
my
colleagues
scratch
our
heads
just
a
bit.
This
time,
though,
we
have
to
talk
about
the
entire

LG
Wing.
No
single
feature
on
the
Wing
is
the
silliest;
it’s
the
whole
phone.
Ambitious?
Yes.
Impossible
to
convince
mainstream
users
to
buy?
Also
yes.
When
we
reviewed
the
LG
Wing,
we
said
we
were
excited
about
its
eventual
sequel
—
a
phone
that
never
came.

What
makes
the
Wing
so
silly,
you
ask?
Well,
look
at
it.
LG
decided
to
resurrect
the
swivel
phone,
but
this
time,
it
did
so
with
a
second,
square
display
you
could
only
access
when
you
flipped
the
primary
display
sideways.
Sure,
it
had
its
moments
—
separating
the
YouTube
controls
from
the
video
you
were
watching
was
kind
of
handy,
as
seen
above,
but
the
quirky
design
also
meant
that
the
Wing
needed
a
pop-up
selfie
camera,
adding
another
moving
part
to
a
phone
that
was
already
centered
around
moving
parts.

Under
the
hood,
the
Wing
was
a
little
underwhelming,
too.
It
carried
a
Snapdragon
765G
that
would
have
been
fine
for
the
average
user,
but
the
Wing
wasn’t
meant
for
average
users.
It
also
only
packed
a
4,000mAh
battery
with
25W
wired
charging,
which
isn’t
a
lot
when
you
have
to
power
two
displays
most
of
the
time.
Mix
in
that
the
Wing’s
cameras
were
bang-average
for
stills
(but
good
for
videos
thanks
to
a
gimbal
mode),
and
it’s
tough
to
see
how
anyone
was
ready
to
fork
over
$1,000
for
this
experiment.

And
yet,
I
find
myself
wishing
that
more
people
did
just
that.
I
wanted
more
people
to
buy
in
on
LG’s
quirkiness
because,
by
the
end,
it
was
the
only
brand
leaning
in
and
looking
for
ways
to
make
its
Android
offerings
unique.
It
certainly
deserves
its
place
as
the
most-represented
brand
on
this
list
of
silly
Android
features,
and
I
still
kind
of
miss
looking
forward
to
LG
launching
a
new
off-the-wall
smartphone.
Maybe
one
day,
someone
will
pick
up
that
mantle
and
become
the
quirky
Android
hero
I’m
waiting
for.