To predict what Android phones will look like in 2026, I don’t look at last year’s phones. I look at the best phones of 2024. Phones usually have an 18-month development cycle, so this year’s new phones will be informed by the best phone from the latter half of 2024 – the iPhone 16 Pro. That iPhone brought us major innovation from Apple, and this is the year I’m hoping to see Android finally steal a huge feature that Apple screwed up.
The iPhone doesn’t change often, so adding or taking away a button is major. Big iPhone redesigns are usually five years apart, at least. The iPhone 4 refined the design. The iPhone X (ten) finally removed the Home button. Then, the iPhone 15 Pro changed the mute switch to an Action Button.
None of those changes got me as excited as the rumors in 2024. The iPhone 16 Pro introduced the Camera Control. I’d been hoping for a proper camera button on a phone for years – even decades. I’m sure a proper shutter button would be just the thing to improve phone photography.
Unfortunately, what Apple gave us in 2024 did not live up to my expectations. The Camera Control is a flop. I never use it – not on purpose. I press it by accident every day. If it worked the way I’d hoped, I’d use it often, but Apple failed to deliver a proper shutter button.
Here’s how the Camera Control button would work if Apple did it right
When you use a real camera, here’s how the shutter button works: First you hold that button down halfway, until you feel a bit of resistance. Pressing the button halfway tells your camera to focus. Then you squeeze the rest of the way to take the photo.
That’s how Apple’s Camera Control button should work. It doesn’t, so you don’t get the biggest benefit of a shutter button: stability.
Hands move and shake. Cameras take photos at speeds that are a tiny fraction of a second – 1/30th of a second is a relatively slow camera shutter speed – so a little movement isn’t noticeable. Pressing the camera button moves your phone more than a little.
Instead of a shutter button, we get… zoom controls? On an iPhone?!
Back to the iPhone 16 Pro. Rumors spoke of the Camera Control button months in advance, and I hoped it would be a proper shutter button – squeeze to focus, then press a bit more to take the photo. It was not even close to that. At launch, focus wasn’t one of the Camera Control’s features; it was added later. By then, I’d already given up on Apple’s failed button.
What does Camera Control do instead? Nothing I care about. It can zoom in and out, or adjust exposure settings, or switch between camera lenses. It can tweak the style in weird, Apple-specific ways that are hard to explain. All of those tools are useless pablum compared to having a real shutter button that helps steady my focus.
I have high hopes that Android phone makers will get this right. Google surprised us this year by adding MagSafe compatible magnets to its Google Pixel 10. I’d love to see them take further inspiration from Apple and steal the camera button, but do it right. I could also imagine OnePlus making a shutter button a key feature for an upcoming OnePlus 16, though we won’t see that phone until the end of 2026.
Samsung should bring back its storied phone and camera combo devices
I’m even more hopeful that Samsung will get on the camera button train, because Samsung knows how a phone and camera can work together. When Samsung had its own Camera division making standalone cameras (it still makes sensors and other camera parts), it made a combo device that slapped a real camera, with great zoom range, onto the back of a Galaxy S phone.
The first of these was the Samsung Galaxy Camera. It was big and clunky, but it was an incredibly innovative way to share digital photos in the early days of social networks. The follow-up was the Galaxy S4 Zoom. It was overpriced, but still a cool concept. It gave Galaxy owners a real zoom camera, with a big extending lens, to carry in our pockets.
Samsung knows how to combine a camera and a phone and do it right – better than Apple. I’d love to see a Galaxy S26 Ultra with a real shutter button – one that I can press halfway to focus and then squeeze to take my photo. I’d be even more excited to see a Galaxy S26 Zoom that brings back the combo concept, using today’s higher-quality Samsung Galaxy phones as a foundation.
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