The ability to use a custom launcher to work around a stupid decision doesn’t make the decision less stupid. Not being able to customize something to easily customizable by default is a stupid decision. I strongly feel that applies to the search bar placement and the default search engine.
Is the last one still useful if you enable the cookies filter under annoyances in uBlock?
You can get USB-C to HDMI adapters that serve this purpose. I bought one a while back for like $15 on Amazon along with a cheap HDMI switch, and will use it to flip a spare monitor to watch video sometimes when I’m not working especially hard.
I travel quite a bit, both for work and because I like going places. Often, internet is somewhere between unavailable and shitty. I keep a mess of music, movies, and tv shows synced/cached from Plex (which keeps fresh content via downloaded smart playlists that update as I watch episodes, etc.) and usually a couple of audiobooks in case I find myself making a long drive.
My comment mentioned why the SD card was removed. To paraphrase Linus, they’re the cheapest form of NAND storage and are extremely unreliable.
Your comment mentioned why you personally don’t like using SD cards, though I disagree that it’s a reason to remove the functionality completely, which is why I wouldn’t buy a phone without a slot. If you’re having such reliability issues, you should buy a higher quality SD card. They’re objectively more reliable than cloud storage though, should you ever go somewhere where network connectivity is an issue. And 128 GB is almost nothing, kinda proving my point that this is more of a use case point than an argument against the feature.
Also if they hadn’t removed the jack I doubt we would have seen as much progress with truly wireless earbuds.
Given that they’re still using Bluetooth, which is still terrible with any interference, low bandwidth, and has the same tedious connectivity problems it’s had for the past decade…I’d argue we have yet to see that progress where it matters.
the market has moved on.
If that were true, there wouldn’t be so many people vocally expressing why new products aren’t adequate without these basic features.
That’s not really a counter argument, you’re just complaining about people talking about hardware features they want in a thread about…hardware features we want.
A counter argument would elaborate on why these features aren’t relevant anymore, but you didn’t include that. A counter argument would offer superior alternatives that should be used instead of SD cards or 3.5mm jacks, but you didn’t include any of those. A counter argument would have addressed the initial arguments of cloud storage being an unnecessary expense and a wired jack being more reliable than Bluetooth, yet you didn’t do that either.
Every thread about hardware has at least one guy bitching that phones should still have 3.5mm jacks and expandable storage, but the guy whining about him is just as consistent. Congratulations, you’re a different layer of the exact problem you’re complaining about.
RE: OP, 3.5mm jack and SD card, of course.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/oxford-comma