Android phone makers are wasting no time in copying the iPhone 16 camera button

Oppo follows suit

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As ouriPhone 16 reviewwill tell you, all four models inApple’s 2024 iPhone series added a new Camera Control button, a touch-capacitive cut-out for easy camera settings access – and now Android phone makers are adding versions of their own.

In a post on Chinese social media siteWeibo(viaAndroid Authority), Oppo product manager Zhou Yibao confirmed that the upcoming Oppo Find X8 (due later this month) would have its own pressure-sensitive button for managing camera controls and zoom.

Of course, there’s no mention of the iPhone 16 in the post – and Yibao insists that the button design was locked in way back in November last year, with the intention of giving users more photography options (the button works underwater, for example).

We may never know exactly what inspired Oppo to add a camera button of its own, but it’s worth mentioning that the introduction of a button on Apple’s phones haslong been rumored. This isn’t something that would’ve surprised Oppo in September.

Something borrowed

There’s a long history of Android phones borrowing from the iPhone, and vice versa. You might remember when theiPhone Xlaunched in 2017 with its distinctive display notch, a whole host of Android phones quickly followed the same design path.

In the other direction, there’s no doubt that the additional customization options added toiOS 18this year are very similar to what’s already possible in the Androidoperating system. Apple isn’t above borrowing a few ideas either.

Ultimately, as long as thebest phonescontinue to get better across the board, we don’t mind too much which handset introduced which feature first – as long as we don’t end up with a situation where every phone looks and works the same.

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And we should also note that all iPhones and most Android phones have a ‘camera button’ of sorts already: if you haven’t discovered this trick yet, with the default camera app open on Android or iOS, you can tap either of the volume buttons to snap a picture.

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Dave is a freelance tech journalist who has been writing about gadgets, apps and the web for more than two decades. Based out of Stockport, England, on TechRadar you’ll find him covering news, features and reviews, particularly for phones, tablets and wearables. Working to ensure our breaking news coverage is the best in the business over weekends, David also has bylines at Gizmodo, T3, PopSci and a few other places besides, as well as being many years editing the likes of PC Explorer and The Hardware Handbook.

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