Next is making one phone with all the bells and whistles and locking them behind subscriptions

They'll fucking sell the phone and box separately

I am never buying an expensive Smartphone again. Just something that works for emergency calls and 2FA and lets me buy a ticket for public transport. I am not gaming on it, I rarely listen to music with it, I only have about 6 apps on it in total. Give me a long lasting battery and let me replace it. The only thing that I need is a big screen, because I am handicapped and have bad eyesight and it is easier to see and use the software if it isn't too small, otherwise I would prefer a smaller size and I give a f*ck how slim or thick the phone is or how water proof, non of my phones ever got even a tiny bit wet. In the 7 years I own my current phone I have taken about 50 pictures and 48 got deleted shortly after. I also do not need a lot of storage.

You can still remove the micro sd, it's just hidden now.

"Cut a hole in your screen"

So we still don't grasp how this works, huh?

While I'm all about options because everyone has different use cases, I've found that over the years as these features have been removed, I haven't really missed them

Most of these gripes are solved by simply not buying the flagship and instead purchasing the $200 unlocked version.

Now the battery, that's the one that pisses me off the most. But at this point we've been doing it for 10 years.

Making them increasingly difficult to hold ("but design!" They cry) so you "accidently" have to buy a new one again.

1. If this hasn't been done already, being able to unlock the bootloader
2. Adding "AI" integrated into the OS with vague benefits even though the processing is done on the cloud (like Windows) just so the OEM can spy on you better
3. Forced volume limiters: The phone won't let you stay at max volume for more than 5 minutes a day, even if connected to a BT device set at substantially under max volume
4. Making it take more clicks to disable Internet, Bluetooth, other connected features
5. DRM built into Android itself
6. Being able to sideload
7. Ads within the OS

All of these are already on their way to being implemented:

1. Already the case with the vast majority of phones
2. Pixels already have this. Samsung is focusing on this in 2024. Several Chinese OEMs already have some version of this.
3. This was an idea Google attempted to implement in Android 14. Seems like it didn't go through that year, but there's always this year.
4. Google already made it harder to do this in Android 12. Apple also does this with the toggles only disabling WiFi/BT until tomorrow. Other OEMs are good for now.
5. After widespread disdain for Google's Web Environment Integrity BS, Google is quietly pivoting to this stupid change.
6. Google is now making it harder to do this on all Android phones. Now, you can only sideload apps targeting an Android version at most 8 behind the current one. This disables lots of little FOSS projects that were light on system resources.
7. Most Chinese OEMs already do this, although you can usually turn it off. Samsung used to do this, but backpedaled. Also bloatware exists.

Who even used IR?

Unstoppable full screen ads you have to watch before you can answer a call or view a text on your own phone