The "X had this in year Y before" thread

[Hendrix7]

This thread is for documenting the times companies try to sell something as innovative that others did long ago but it was abandoned and forgotten about, as well as the times companies waited way too long to finally implement a well-overdue feature.

Note: I am not opposed to vendors copying features from others. Copying is not theft. In fact, I often wish companies copied from each other sooner. For example, I wish Samsung finally copied the continuous light option in photo mode from Xiaomi.

What matters to the buyer is who makes the best product in the end, regardless of what was copied. But vendors try to pass some features off as their original ideas while they aren't. Especially Apple, which is hypocritical given their patent infringement lawsuits against Samsung in the early 2010s.

Examples:

• iOS 26 liquid glass (2025): Microsoft did this in 2007 with Windows Vista.
• "Look to scroll" on the Apple Vision Pro: Samsung had this in 2013 (Galaxy S4 smart scroll).
• iOS 7 flat design (2013): Microsoft did this in 2010 on Windows Phone 7. But iOS 7 icons still had gradients, not completely solid colours.
• Google Pixel 2 (2017) voice command selfie (source in attachment, mirror, but I couldn't find the English version): Samsung had this in 2012 on the Galaxy S3 (source).
• iPhone 6s (2015) 4K video recording: Samsung had this two years earlier on the Note 3, but Samsung missed the opportunity to advertise it. All they did was passingly mention it on stage at the keynote. Apple of course didn't miss out on advertising it.
• iPhone XR and XS video recording with stereo audio (2018): Samsung and Sony had this since 2012 (Galaxy S3 and Xperia S) but of course didn't advertise it. Apple mentioned it on their keynote so people started actually paying attention it it.
• iPhone X (2017) with Augumented Reality camera with dinosaurs walking inside the scene (source, 3:07): Sony had this on the Xperia Z2 (2014) in the "AR effects" mode (source).
• iPhone 15 action button: Samsung had this on the Galaxy Xcover 4 in 2017.

I am guessing Air View (S4, Note 3, S5), also known as Floating Touch (Xperia Sola) will eventually make a comeback. It enabled things like previewing parts of a video by hovering over the seek bar or simulating a hovering mouse in a web browser or revealing tooltips with more details. It seemed very futuristic and outstanding back in the early 2010s, not like something that would be abandoned and forgotten about by 2015.

[I hereby release this post into the public domain, CC0 1.0.]

 

[EllieCat]

Any AI thing such as Apple Intelligence, Gemini, CoPilot, and any chat bot that literally copy and pastes from websites via web crawlers. Most annoying feature ever.

 

[simplepinoi177]

I'll try looking later for actual sources speaking about it and actual dates, but I know that there was swipe typing a long time before iphone had implemented it in their native keyboard....
And I was always curious how close airdropping feature came out/released before (or after for all I know) to quick share (originally nearby share, IIRC)....

So i'll go do these and report back here...

 

[Hendrix7]

swipe typing a long time before iphone had implemented it in their native keyboard....

The S4 had this in 2013. Earlier Samsung smartphones might have had it, but not sure.



Samsung had exFAT support since at least the S4 (2013), something stock Android only supports it since around 2020, though I guess it has something to do with licensing. Microsoft only open-sourced exFAT in 2019. exFAT is a file system that supports file sizes in excess of 4 GiB, a limitation of FAT32.



iPhone 14 Pro, 15 Pro, 16, 17 have "always-on display" (source).

You know the drill...

Samsung and LG had this since 2016! (Samsung Galaxy S7, LG G5)

 

[Hendrix7]

iPhone 17 dual capture (capture front and back camera simultaneously):

The Samsung Galaxy S4 had this in 2013.

Samsung Galaxy S4 review: Supernova

The Samsung Galaxy S4 brings the second resolution bump in the family (after the S II and S III, which were both 8MP shooters). The 13MP camera captures...

www.gsmarena.com

 

[Hendrix7]

Earlier Samsung phones punished the user for using them while charging by slowing down charging significantly.

No Fast Charging with Screen On!?

Looks like the Galaxy s8 doesn't quick charge if your using it while its charging! http://wccftech.com/galaxy-s8-fast-charge-display-off/ While using it I have noticed a message pop up warning about the battery discharging faster then it can...

xdaforums.com

PSA: Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ will not fast charge if the screen is on

It appears that the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ won't fast charge if the screen is on, and this has been the case since the Galaxy S6.

www.sammobile.com

This is not thermal throttling, but it always slowed down, even when it was cold. It was completely arbitrary. Yes, Samsung phones also have thermal throttling but that is separate from the charging slowdown when the screen is on.

Recent Samsung phones (since roughly 2020) are thankfully able to charge fast with the screen on.

OnePlus had this in 2016! And they didn't miss out on the opportunity to mock Samsung for it:

OnePlus 3 - How Fast is the Dash Car Charger?
​

Other chinese phone makers such as Xiaomi and UleFone also had this long before Samsung.

On Samsung, this behaviour could be overridden with root access, by setting the value inside a siop_level file to 100.

This taught me to be thankful for fast charging with screen on instead of taking it for granted. No more "either use or charge fast".



Stock Android 6 introduced a well-overdue flashlight shortcut in the control center.

But when did others have it?

Wait for it... wait for it...

Symbian OS had this in 2009!

Some Nokia phones like the E72 (released in 2009) let you quickly turn on the torch from anywhere by holding down the space bar.

iOS added this to their control center in 2013 (iOS 7), making it one of the not many things iOS had before Android besides proprietary Apple stuff like Air Play (compare that to what Android had first). Samsung first implemented it on their S6 running Android 5.0 Lollipop, though earlier Samsung phones did not get it with any subsequent updates.

Samsung phones before that let the user add a home screen widget for the flash light, but it is far more practical to have it in the control center. In the control center, it does not require you to leave the app you are currently using.

[I hereby release this post into the public domain, CC0 1.0, excluding quotes.]

 

[Hendrix7]

It took Samsung until the 2020s to finally let the user turn the lamp on and off while recording a video, not just before it (source, 6:11, see upper left corner of camera interface).

But Apple still doesn't. While the iPhone 17 isn't in stores yet as of writing, the camera interface is visible in this commercial, with no lamp option. Shameful.

Perhaps Apple considers it "clutter" or "feature creep" - it isn't, it's highly useful.

The Google Pixel 10 Pro and Xiaomi Redmi Note 15 Pro embarrassingly lack this feature too. They put so much effort into building outstanding cameras but miss out on such simple things.

Sony had this in 2014! The Xperia Z2 already let you turn the light on and off while recording a video!

[I hereby release this post into the public domain, CC0 1.0, excluding quotes.]

 

[Hendrix7]

External storage formatting​

iOS 18 added the ability to format external storage (source). Android could do this since at least the 2.x era (I don't know the exact version), meaning around 2010, but obviously only in FAT until they added exFAT support in 2020, except vendors like Samsung that added exFAT earlier.

However, iOS allows the user to manually choose a file system! It's one of those rare instances where iOS gives the user more control than Android. Android seems to pick exFAT for drives above 32 GB in size and FAT32 below 32 GB, but there is no built-in way to manually pick the file system. I haven't tested the threshold to FAT16 yet, but it probably is 2 or 4 GB.

Physical camera buttons​

A physical camera button can resemble the point-and-shoot experience from a dedicated camera, as well as quickly launch the camera.

The iPhone 16 and 17 feature a physical camera button with a built-in touch pad for gestures (source).

While they seem to be the first ones to combine a touch pad with a physical shutter button, physical camera buttons have existed on phones for many years, even predating on-screen touch buttons, such as on the Samsung Omnia series (late 2000s), where they were the only way to take photos at all. Samsung unfortunately abandoned physical camera buttons with a few exceptions on outdoor smartphones (Xcover series) and camera-phone hybrids (S4 Zoom, K Zoom). The ones on the Omnia series and S4 Zoom, K Zoom are two-level, resembling the point-and-shoot experience of dedicated digital cameras.

Sony featured a physical shutter button on pretty much all of their smartphones since the Xperia Z1 from 2013 (not the same as Xperia Z, which came earlier the same year). Those are two-level too. Some Chinese smartphone vendors such as UleFone also implemented it on many of their phones, but I am not sure if they are two-level.

A touch-pad camera button was actually rumored for the S5 in 2014 (droid-life, SamMobile), but Samsung never acted upon it.

Launching camera from the lock screen​

For fairness, we also need to address the things iOS had well in advance. One of those things is the ability to quickly launch the camera from the lock screen without having to unlock the phone first, to avoid missing out on moments.

Apple seems to first have implemented this in iOS 5.1 in early 2012, first rolled out to the iPhone 4S (source). Samsung added a camera shortcut on the S3, but it only worked if no PIN or password was set, except with modifications that require root access (source).

The first time Samsung had a lockscreen camera launcher out of the box that worked with PIN/password protection was on the S5 in 2014, running Android 4.4.2. The S4 and Note 3 got this feature subsequently in 2015 with the Android 5.0 Lollipop update (source).

[I hereby release this post into the public domain, CC0 1.0.]