Gimme half a button and make it snappy
The phone that ushered in the modern mobile age was a Nokia, but not the one you’re thinking of – not the Nokia 3210 (the one with Snake). The Nokia N95, a multimedia wonder, predated the iPhone by a year and offered more features than the iPhone would have for generations. Finally, the rumored iPhone 16 might bring back one of my favorite lost features, the same camera button as the N95 – and it would be the best thing that ever happened to iPhone photos.
If a camera button sounds simple, I swear it’s the biggest change that will come to smartphones this decade … forgetting AI, of course. This camera button will make all of your photos better, especially when you zoom. This new camera button is going to do more for smartphones than the invention of the Megapixel. It will be bigger than selfies. It’s the button I’ve been begging for.
The Nokia N95 had lots of buttons – lots of buttons. There were 13 buttons on the front of the Nokia N95, including Send and End, and a 4-way pad. You could also slide the phone one way to reveal a 12-key number pad, or you could slide it the other way to reveal media playback controls. The iPod was all the rage, so media playback keys were a standout feature. Those aren’t the buttons I’m talking about, though.
On the side of the Nokia N95 was a camera button, much like the Action Button on today’s iPhone 15 Pro. You could press and hold the button to activate the camera. Actually, the very first Nokia N95 had a sliding camera cover, and the camera turned on when you slid it open. It still had this awesome camera button, the same type of button you’ll find on any standalone camera today.
What makes a camera button awesome? If you press it just a little, the camera will focus first. Then, you squeeze harder to take your shot.
