patrick.net

More than a hundred smartphone models now have at least some infrared capability, though some can only send but not receive.

The smartphone press seem to confuse sensors (which receive) with emitters (which send), and the emitters are often called "blasters" in the same dramatic language that they use to sensationalize other features (e.g. cameras are now called "shooters", presumably to grab the reader's attention). I presume the phone for AF would have both a shooter and a blaster.

Among current and announced phones with IR capability, the best may be the LG G3 (reportedly with removable battery), or the HTC One M8 (battery is built in). Amazon will reportedly announce a phone next month, features TBD.

infrared = useless

SFace says

infrared = useless

That's absurd. I use it every day. Literally billions of products use infrared every day. Just because you can't actually see infrared doesn't make it useless.

the only use (for a smartphone) is a TV remote. And even then, it sucks compared to an actual remote. That is why it is useless and not absurd. It's actually absurd that an app/smartphone can do a better job than an actual remote, it won't.

An IR blaster is a useless feature.

SFace says

an app/smartphone can do a better job than an actual remote,

My 8-year old PDA has an app that does a better job than most remotes, and that's with its 8yo processor and limited memory. It has a colorful backlit touch screen and it can store hundreds of remotes in one device. It also has IrDA communication, which I used to use when there were more devices that supported it. In addition, the ability to work in infrared opens up a whole spectrum (so to speak) of possibilities including infrared photography and temperature measurement. Seriously I don't understand how you can fail to appreciate the utility of infrared, it's almost as absurd as saying color vision is useless.

Android Police and The Verge have interesting articles on this topic. The American LG G3 seems disappointing compared to international versions, perhaps due to deals cut with American cellular carriers that tend to cripple features that would undermine carrier revenue models. I would like to see the LG G Pro 2, but it seems unavailable despite having been announced months ago. Perhaps related to Android's omission of native infrared reception, LG seems to have removed that feature from the G3 and G Pro 2, even though it worked in the G2.

TV Be Gone (TM):

There ought to be an app for that.

curious2 says

Android Police and The Verge have interesting articles on this topic. The American LG G3 seems disappointing compared to international versions, perhaps due to deals cut with American cellular carriers that tend to cripple features that would undermine carrier revenue models. I would like to see the LG G Pro 2, but it seems unavailable despite having been announced months ago. Perhaps related to Android's omission of native infrared reception, LG seems to have removed that feature from the G3 and G Pro 2, even though it worked in the G2.

Russians had greater choices during the Cold war.

They really did. The products we buy or see at the stores only have the features that litigation allowed.

Our innovation and tech abilities have been grossly crippled by all of this.

If Google can't allow companies innovate with Android. Then they should just open source it AGAIN, and step aside. Android an OS that started out as an open source project, and they got thousands of Java devleopers world wide to contribute to the code. But now there's so much that Android can do, but is disabled by hard coded flags with in the code. Such as the ability to record and play 24bit audio. Android has had the ability to do so since 3.2, but most hardware wasn't available to even do so until 4.2.

All of the Advanced Android KitKat devices currently on the market, S4, S5, M1, L2 ect could actually play 24bit audio but the Android code still hard code prevents the devices from doing so.

I really have to wonder, if this is fixing the Pandora's box that Windows XP opened up. While buyers and sellers of $50,000 complex audio systems were telling everyone.

"Well NO! You can't record on a Windows box, it just wont work. You need Protools, a $30,000 DAW console, and Apple running the most advanced hardware and most up to date OS."

But what happened was 80% of the hits recorded in the last decade were produced on a Windows XP box, and a crappy Behringer ADAC.

CaptainShuddup says

The products we buy or see at the stores only have the features that....

support the revenue models of the cellular carriers, who are the primary customers. The FIRE economy has burned through everything, so even phones are bought primarily on credit and financed by carriers, and that affects the designs.

For example, according to GSM Arena, the European LG G3 includes an FM radio, but the American version will not. The American cellular carriers are bundling streaming music services to take over the Spotify/Pandora/Rhapsody market, and selling unlimited data packages, and they don't want customers listening to FM radio for free. AT&T financed the development of the iPhone, and Apple made a fortune by focusing the development on only those features that make the most revenue for the manufacturer and its carrier partners. Google employs a small team to develop Android, and the developers can only respond to feature requests from carriers, they don't have time to build for customers; thus, Android can send IR to support Samsung's WatchOn app (which generates revenue), but can't receive IR.

BTW, Samsung locked their European phones so that customers would need to activate them in Europe before bringing them to America, and that happened specifically to prevent American customers from importing European phones. It's like with Obamacare stopping Americans from importing Rx drugs. From the perspective of your government and the corporations that control it, you are a captive market, and customers must not be allowed to import from other places that haven't been taken over by the same companies.

Update: as of March 2015, the LG G3 D855 seems the best available, though its proprietary infrared remote app is limited to around 24x28 buttons, and Android lacks a worthy successor to Novii Remote.

Update: it looks like LG's G4 may have the same infrared send&receive capabilities as the G3.

Unfortunately though, LG hides that light under a bushel of marketing blunders, as usual. For example, the website touts the plastic back design's "METAL CRAFT", because metal seems fashionable for some reason and if you close your eyes you can fool yourself into imagining the plastic back might (in poor light) bear some slight resemblance to metal. Fake slogans like "METAL CRAFT" waste an opportunity to present the advantages of plastic (light weight, bend resistance, impact absorption, low cost, easy to replace). Commercial press coverage of smartphones is of a piece with the superficial and slanted coverage of real estate, with a heavy emphasis on marketing: after gushing about superficial design details, CNet reported that LG "plans to spend 50 percent to 60 percent more on marketing to promote the G4. That's a hefty improvement for LG...." Increasing spending on something that has nothing to do with the quality of the product is an "improvement" only from the POV of the revenue recipients; the customer ends up paying extra and is therefore worse off.

Previous LG marketing disasters include a promotion for the G2 that involved wasting helium on balloons that contained coupons for free phones: people shot at the balloons in order to get the coupons, and 20 were injured. The G3 campaign said "simple is the new smart," meaning if you're smart you'll buy Apple because it's the simplest, and if you buy LG you're stupid because phones with more features are less simple. Now they're going to spend at least 50% more to market the leather backs, and they don't even mention the distinguishing features that make their phones better than the competition (infrared send&receive, FM radio). It's no wonder they sell a fraction as many phones as their more successful competitors, despite making better phones: the marketing department practically sabotages the engineering department.

I have infrared on my 2 year old G2. It's a great feature that I use almost daily.

Call it Crazy says

What, are we getting too fat and lazy that we can't put down our smartphone and pick up the TV remote to change channels??

Is that becoming too much work for the average American??

Do you realize how hard it is to find a remote, and then turn on the TV? Thank God someone thought of the Apple Watch. And my wife told me that apple Watch is useless, just as she told me how useless every other gadget I have bought was.

I think is the most impressive thing that Apple does better than any other hardware company on the market, is market their product. They can create an underspec'd, overpriced product falls apart faster than you can say 'proprietary' and the customers keep coming back for more.

In all eternity there has never been a greater invention than the smartphone.