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HTC Launches 'U11' Squeezable Smartphone With Snapdragon 835 CPU, No Headphone Jack (theverge.com)
HTC has officially launched its newest flagship smartphone today, the U11. While it has competitive specifications for a flagship smartphone of 2017, such as a 5.5-inch, Quad HD display, and Snapdragon 835 processor with 4GB RAM, it has some unique features of its own. HTC is introducing a new way to interact with the U11 by letting you squeeze the sides of the device to perform different functions. The Verge reports: This new feature is called "Edge Sense," and it can be configured to do a variety of tasks with either short or long squeezes. You can set a short squeeze to open the camera and then take a picture when the camera app is open. A long squeeze can be configured to launch the Google voice assistant or toggle the flashlight on and off. In addition to Edge Sense, the U11 has a similar design to the U Ultra from earlier this year. That means it's metal and glass -- a departure from the all-aluminum unibody designs of past HTC phones -- with curved panels that blend into the metal frame and vibrant, pearlescent colors. That also means it lacks a 3.5mm headphone jack, instead relying on its USB Type-C port for charging, data transfer, and audio function. HTC says removing the headphone jack has a number of advantages, including allowing the company more room inside the phone for other components and making the design of the bottom edge smoother. It also allows for a better audio experience, as the included headphones have both audio tuning and active noise cancellation, without having to rely on a secondary battery. In addition to the headphones, HTC is including a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter for use with other headphones, which it didn't for the U Ultra.
So... every time I pull the phone out of my pocket, it's going to activate some feature? No thanks. P.S. Frist!
After one great (M8) and one good (M10) flagship HTC smartphone, no headphone jack kills the relationship.
a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack is basic equipment. Take a little note.
Deal breaker.
is just another phone I'm not going to consider buying.
Dear phone designers - stop. You're getting as bad as the programming UI guys. I don't WANT to have to learn a whole new way to interact with phone. I don't want to have to learn long presses versus short presses, hard versus soft. I don't want to learn all the different swiping. Palm swipe. Two finger swipe. 3 finger zig zag backward swipes.
Just, NO.
99% of the folks buying phones don't know how to take a screen shot, don't know swiping different directions on contacts does different things, and don't give a shit.
Simple is beautiful, and a good phone with a great camera and good battery life is going to sell. I don't want modular, I don't want "no sd card", I don't want magical levitation with eye-following hands-free masturbation. Just stop. Please.
Also note that I saw no mention of an FM tuner on this thing either. Generally, phones with tuners use headphone cords as antennas.
Yeah, why bother getting local music and information free over the air when you can stream it and burn through your monthly data in a few days?
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
My phone can already do that using its cutting edge button technology.
They're really, really running out of ideas for what to do with cellphones now, aren't they.
Which in a way is reassuring, it means the market is mature, like the PC market ten years ago, and there's no longer any need to upgrade every year or two because for the average user nothing new is being added any more.