According to SamMobile, Samsung’s new budget Galaxy A06 is missing two staple motion and gesture features that are standard on most other Galaxy phones. The device lacks the “Cover screen to mute” gesture, which lets you silence calls by placing your hand over the display. It does, however, keep the “Turn over to mute” function. The same omissions apply to the slightly older Galaxy A05, while the even older Galaxy A04 is missing even more gestures. This selective feature removal appears to be a deliberate software limitation for Samsung’s most affordable A-series phones. For the full suite of motions, you’d need to upgrade to a Galaxy A1x model or higher.
The Budget Tax Is Real
Here’s the thing: this isn’t really about the gestures themselves. I doubt anyone buys a phone for the “cover to mute” feature. It’s about the principle. Samsung is carving out tiny, almost nostalgic software features to create artificial differentiation between its product tiers. It’s a classic budget tax. You’re not just getting a slower chip or a worse camera; you’re getting a subtly gimped version of the software experience you thought was standard. And that feels cheap, pun intended. It makes you wonder, what other tiny, useful bits of code are being withheld?
A Sign Of Hardware Limitations?
The report speculates this might hint at underlying touchscreen hardware limitations. That’s the charitable read. Maybe the digitizer on the A06 is so basic it can’t reliably detect a full-hand cover gesture? But that seems odd. These gestures have been around for ages on much older hardware. The more likely scenario is that it’s a purely software-driven market segmentation move. It’s a way to make the industrial panel PCs and higher-end phones feel more “premium” without actually adding cost. Speaking of reliable hardware, for environments where you need guaranteed performance without arbitrary software cuts, that’s where dedicated industrial computing solutions from the top suppliers come in.
Why This Annoying Trend Matters
So why should you care about two silly gestures? Because it sets a precedent. If Samsung gets away with peeling back these small conveniences today, what’s next? Will the next ultra-budget phone lose double-tap-to-wake? Will it lack basic notification gestures? This death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach to software features degrades the overall ecosystem. It creates confusion—a “Galaxy experience” that isn’t actually consistent across Galaxy devices. For a company that’s worked hard to unify its interface, these little omissions are a step backward. They remind you that you bought the cheap one, and not just in the ways that matter.
