A lot of fans haven't taken kindly to the fact that Samsung has removed the Bluetooth features from the Galaxy S25 Ultra's S Pen. They enabled the use of the S Pen for gestures, as a clicker for the camera, etc. The feature was good, but if you're someone who's angry at the decision to remove them, can you honestly remember the last time you used them?
It's also likely that this reaction has been a bit overblown. There's an important distinction between between Air Commands and Air Actions. Air Commands is a pop-up menu that appears when the S Pen is taken out and offers easy access to apps and functions. This feature is still here. It's only Air Actions that have got the axe on the latest flagship.
Everything else that we know and love about the S Pen is still here. It writes and draws on the display as beautifully as ever. Nothing is changing with respect to how you actually use the S Pen for what it's really meant to do. The only difference is that those Bluetooth features, which a lot of users weren't using in the first time, are no longer available.
The S Pen Bluetooth features had very few users
Samsung hasn't made this decision blindly. Fewer than 0.5% of users were taking advantage of the S Pen's Bluetooth functionality. This means that if Samsung sold 15 million Galaxy S24 Ultra units last year, some 75,000 people were using it. A far smaller fraction might actually be using the features with any real consistency. For a company that operates at the scale Samsung does, this simply isn't worth the headache to continue supporting.
There's a nuance that's often lost in the online discourse among tech enthusiasts: the vast majority of the public isn't as emotionally invested in these things. The online wrath brigade was much angrier when Samsung removed the IR blaster from its phones, the microSD card slot, or the 3.5mm headphone jack.
None of those decisions, flayed as controversial and even as a miscalculation on Samsung's part, made any difference to its sales. Even those who cried out when those things were cut have gone on to buy Samsung phones one after the other.
It's important to be honest when criticizing such decisions. The simple fact is that the numbers don't lie. Samsung developed the S Pen's Bluetooth features with a certain idea. A few years down the line, it has become evident that while the execution was good, the vast majority of customers aren't using it. So why keep it?
I'd much rather praise MX boss TM Roh's decision to go ahead and remove the S Pen's Bluetooth features. This has allowed for improvements elsewhere, particularly the thickness and weight of the device. It also likely reduced Samsung's component costs for the device, possibly preventing a rumored price increase.
Roh has focused highly on extracting the maximum potential out of the hardware and software on Samsung's devices. He referenced as much during our interview in South Korea. The goal at MX under his leadership has been to deliver enhanced user experiences with a greater viability for the business. The strategy is working so far.
If I can just be uncharacteristically harsh for a moment, it's time for the fans to stop crying about the Galaxy S25 Ultra's S Pen. I would pick a thinner and lighter Ultra over features that only 0.5% of customers use every single day, and so will most of the people who buy the phone this year.
I understand that many will disagree with my views here. But sometimes, it's important to not stay chained to the past. Progress requires a move forward, an embrace of the unknown. You don't achieve true greatness by resting on one's laurels. Samsung can't just think it has made the perfect phone and no longer push itself. It must make decisions that are good for the future of its business, and this one most definitely is.
