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Lately, some companies have started to spice things up with new buttons dotted around their phones, and while some are great, dedicated AI buttons are not. After an extended period with the Motorola Razr Fold, I believe it’s high time Motorola (and others) killed off one of my least favorite smartphone trends.
Ryan Haines / Android AuthorityI’m not against extra buttons on smartphones. The Plus Key on recent OnePlus phones is a good example. It can’t be remapped to do anything I want, but there are plenty of options, like toggling sound profiles, the flashlight, and other quick tools.
The best example is from the iPhone, though. Apple replaced the alert slider with the Action Button on the iPhone 15 Pro, and after using it for a while, I loved it. In an unusual situation, Apple provides a plethora of options that allow users to do almost anything with the Action Button, largely thanks to its integration with the Shortcuts app. When I used an iPhone for a few months, I assigned a long-press of the button to toggle between ANC and transparency mode on my Beats earbuds. It was fantastic.
Motorola’s AI Key, by comparison, has no redeeming qualities. You can use either a double-press or a long-press, but either can be assigned to only one of Motorola’s AI features: Update me and Summarizes recent notifications, which I don’t find particularly useful, especially since Pixels and newer Galaxy phones do this in the notification shade automatically. The Moto AI shortcut summons Motorola’s assistant, which isn’t nearly as useful as Gemini. The only one of these options I could see someone using is “take notes,” which is a shortcut to making a voice memo. If that’s something you do often, great, but it doesn’t warrant a whole button.
Zac Kew-Denniss / Android AuthorityThe position of the AI Key is an issue as well, depending on what phone you have. On the Razr Fold, it lives on the opposite side of the volume keys when the device is open. Close it, however, and the AI key is right next to the volume buttons, which leads to almost constant accidental presses, and it’s so bad I’ve turned the AI Key off entirely. The only good thing I can say about this button placement is that the three buttons form a little pyramid, which is pleasing to the eye.
Motorola isn’t the only company guilty of putting useless AI buttons on its phones. Nothing is doing the same thing, and I fear other Android OEMs will do the same.
Ryan Haines / Android AuthorityIt pains me to praise Apple twice in the same article, but the iPhone’s Action Button is a perfect example of how to use an extra hardware button. Even the much-maligned Bixby Key of Samsung’s past had better customization than Motorola’s. The Bixby Key could be long-pressed or double-pressed, and while one of those had to be assigned to Bixby, the other could open any app you liked.
There are apps on the Play Store that let you remap buttons like this, but despite many of them claiming compatibility with the AI Key, I haven’t been able to get any of them to work with my Razr Fold. Your mileage may vary.
If Motorola, Nothing, and everyone else let us do whatever we wanted with these buttons, I’d love them. I don’t want to rule out the possibility of that happening. After all, that’s a feature that could easily be added with a software update. I’m not going to hold my breath, though.
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