Since the iPhone 4, apple has removed the volume rocker in favour of separate buttons

shenfrey said:

This has made the iPhone look nicer and easier to use as you can easily press the buttons and even use one as a shutter button. So my question is, why is - from my experiences - the iPhone the only phone to do this? Even the 'all mighty' galaxy SIII has a volume rocker, after the iPhone it just feels old fashioned. What's the deal?

Thanks guys

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well it's not all that good, they can get stuck, have this "2- stage click" where if you merely touch the button and don't push it in you can hear/feel it getting pushed in. On the iPhone 5 this is where the phone will suffer bends because of how little metal is there.

I'm guessing it was just a design choice. Anyways I prefer it, just feels more solid to me. To each their own I guess

YOU think it looks nicer, others (Samsung, HTC etc) do not. I'm not quite sure what kind of response you're expecting to get.

You said "even the all mighty GSIII has a volume rocker" as if that's the standard that makes phones great or not.

Personally, I would prefer the volume rocker from the 3GS and earlier; it was a lot easier to change the volume when the phone was in my pocket. And I almost never use the volume rocker to take pics.
Lastly, I don't care about any "aesthetic" advantages separate buttons have in comparison to a rocker because I don't spend any time looking at the side of my phone.

I get the feeling that if apple stuck to the volume rocker, and other manufacturers separated their buttons, you'd be in here creating a thread asking why the other OEMS aren't doing what apple is doing.

Glad the rocker is gone...mine and my friends rockers fell of the 3GS

The rocker to me was old design tech. Separating the buttons properly and making them look nice (iPhone 4+) is merely aesthetic but highly appreciated.

One of the benefits of a rocker design is that you can use it without looking at the device.

When you've got buttons that feel identical, you can't tell them apart without finding some other reference point (like the Silent switch).