To predict what Android phones will be like in 2026, I don't look at last year's phones. I look at the best phones of 2024. Phones typically have an 18-month development cycle, so this year's new phones will be based on the best phone of the second half of 2024: the iPhone 16 Pro. That iPhone brought us great innovation from Apple, and this is the year I hope Android finally steals a huge feature that Apple ruined.
The iPhone doesn't change frequently, so adding or removing a button is important. Major iPhone redesigns are usually at least five years apart. The iPhone 4 perfected 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 excited me as much as the rumors of 2024. The iPhone 16 Pro introduced camera control. I had been waiting for years, even decades, to have a proper camera button on a phone. I'm sure a proper shutter button would be great for improving phone photography.
Unfortunately, what Apple gave us in 2024 didn't live up to my expectations. Camera control is a failure. I never use it, not on purpose. I press it by accident every day. If it worked as expected, I'd use it frequently, but Apple failed to offer a proper shutter button.
This is how the Camera Control button would work if Apple did it right
When you use a real camera, this is how the shutter button works: First, hold the button halfway, until you feel a little resistance. Pressing the button halfway should cause the camera to focus. Then you press the rest of the way to take the photo.
This is how Apple's camera control button should work. It doesn't, so you don't get the biggest benefit of a shutter button: stability.
The hands move and shake. Cameras take photographs at speeds that are a small fraction of a second: 1/30 of a second is relatively slow shutter speed of the camera, so a small movement is not noticeable. Pressing the camera button makes your phone move more than a little.
Instead of a shutter button, we have…zoom controls? On an iPhone?
Back to the iPhone 16 Pro. Rumors were talking about the camera control button for months in advance, and I was hoping it would be a proper shutter button: press to focus, then press a little harder to take the photo. It wasn't even close to that. At launch, focus was not one of the camera control functions; was added later. By then, I had given up on the failed Apple button.
What does Camera Control do instead? Nothing that matters to me. You can zoom in and out, adjust exposure settings, or switch between camera lenses. You can modify the style in strange, Apple-specific ways that are hard to explain. All those tools are useless compared to having an actual shutter button that helps stabilize my focus.
I have high hopes that Android phone makers 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 more inspiration from Apple and steal the camera button, but do it right. I could also imagine OnePlus making the shutter button a key feature for an upcoming OnePlus 16, although we won't see that phone until late 2026.
Samsung should bring back its historic phone and camera combo devices
I'm even more hopeful that Samsung will jump on the camera button bandwagon, because Samsung knows how a phone and a camera can work together. When Samsung had its own camera division that made standalone cameras (it still makes sensors and other camera parts), it created a combo device that put a real camera, with a large zoom range, on 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 media. The follow-up was the Galaxy S4 Zoom. It was overpriced, but it was still a cool concept. It gave Galaxy owners a true zoom camera, with a large extendable lens, to carry in our pockets.
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Samsung knows how to combine a camera and a phone and do it well, better than Apple. I'd love to see a Galaxy S26 Ultra with an actual shutter button, one you can half-press to focus and then squeeze to take the photo. I'd be even more excited to see a Galaxy S26 Zoom that brings back the combined concept, using today's higher-quality Samsung Galaxy phones as a base.
