Yes, if you don't think the illumination from a home button would be sufficient, then a much brighter back light would be. But isn't that what the iWatch is for?
Here’s my take on this topic:
Use the LED as a notification light because… you know… IT’S ALREADY A LIGHT. You set your phone face up? Have it in your purse? Not on you at all times? Huh. Well, maybe that notification isn’t all that important to you, anyway. If it really matters, you’d keep your device on you. And if it doesn’t, why not try taking five dozen steps back and evaluating your life, which has become a miasma of instant gratification and undiagnosed ADD-like symptoms.
Use the LED as a notification light because… you know… IT’S ALREADY A LIGHT. You set your phone face up? Have it in your purse? Not on you at all times? Huh. Well, maybe that notification isn’t all that important to you, anyway. If it really matters, you’d keep your device on you. And if it doesn’t, why not try taking five dozen steps back and evaluating your life, which has become a miasma of instant gratification and undiagnosed ADD-like symptoms.
People and “technology” these days, geez.
Because something has the functionality, does not mean it is the best use in all cases. Having a notification light that faces down or away 99% of the time for the majority of users is not a logical use of existing functionality.
Being able to have the home button light instead of the entire screen is logical alternative as it saves energy, and is more desecrate. Very nice for meeting rooms.
Again, if the notification really matters, you’ll have the device on your person or be checking it with a frequency as to make the light redundant.
As the flash is on the back of the phone, it could hardly be an incorrect assessment, but a logical presumption.
Notifications do matter, but I also don't need the entire phone lighting up or me clicking the home screen every 15 seconds to receive them. My phone sits (face up) on my desk most of the day as I work, so this would be a nice UX for me.
If you are the person that has their phone in a pocket/purse most of the time, then you have some manual effort to checking for notifications anyway, so I can see any light being less convenient.
Use the LED as a notification light because… you know… IT’S ALREADY A LIGHT.
My boss has an Android phone that does this (actually as a silent ringer, not a notifier), and it's darned annoying/distracting. He even apologizes for it in meetings.
I think the most recent case design article I read on Samsung was that they were thinking of moving from plastic to metal (for the back panel).
These kinds of patent filings leave me with the feeling that in these types of design aspects that Apple is to Samsung as an Olympic sprinter is to a toddler who is taking its first step.
I know Samsung plays the spec game w/ megapixels and processor speed and screen resolution - but those demonstrate no outside-the-box thinking like these filings do. Apple is coming up with radically different and new ideas for how to approach aspects of device design and manufacture that seem like they wouldn't ever occur to Samsung. Hat's off.
Using ion implantation, the method alters an optical or chromatic property of the sapphire material at a subsurface layer, leaving a mark that is both easily readable and protected from the elements.
And it might allow for a cool subsurface glowing effect if sidelit.
Maybe for the rounded square on the home button.
Or, better yet, for the Apple logo on the back of the enclosure.
I think the most recent case design article I read on Samsung was that they were thinking of moving from plastic to metal (for the back panel).
These kinds of patent filings leave me with the feeling that in these types of design aspects that Apple is to Samsung as an Olympic sprinter is to a toddler who is taking its first step.
I know Samsung plays the spec game w/ megapixels and processor speed and screen resolution - but those demonstrate no outside-the-box thinking like these filings do. Apple is coming up with radically different and new ideas for how to approach aspects of device design and manufacture that seem like they wouldn't ever occur to Samsung. Hat's off.
That's because Samsung is being reactive, and tends to never actually know which direction Apple is going when they are unable to peek at the parts in-house. Even then, they have no idea what to make of things. Apple recently switched to 64bit, but not quad-core CPU. Samsung went to quadcore but stayed 32bit... because Android isn't 64bit. If you casually look around news sites, Android is "moving to 64bit by christmas" . Know what that means? More fragmentation.
If we use the PC industry as a barometer of what is to come, there will be 64bit OS's but developers will be unwilling to develop 64bit software so long as older OS's are 32bit (eg Windows XP.) So we have at least a 3 year window for 32bit OS's to cease sales, and a 10 year window before users finally throw away devices. Unlike the PC market, "Cell phone" users, at least in the US, are under the impression that 1000$ phones are free to them on two year contracts, and are thus have incentive to throw away their devices every 2 years, regardless of the device still being usable.
Phones made of new materials but not new hardware or software don't really give customers a reason to upgrade. The mobile phone upgrade process kinda went like this:
a) Analog Suitcase phones
b) Analog Car Phones
c) Analog handheld (1990's)
c) Digital (fractured into CDMA and TDMA, late 90's)
d) Digital that can do text messaging and ringtones
e) Digital that has color screens and polyphonic midi (around 2003)
f) GSM "2G or 2.5G or 3G" depending on how blatant the carrier was willing to lie to you
g) GSM Camera phones, picture messaging/multimedia messaging
h) First generation "smartphones" (Windows Mobile, Treo, Blackberry) around 2005/2006
i) Second generation smartphones (iPhone) 2007, which is more like a computer, and doesn't require "mobile" versions of sites to use.
From that point forward the iPhone has always been a little behind the curve in technical specs. (The iPhone 4 introduced a 5 megapixel camera, the iPhone 3G introduced UMTS, both of these features were available on the Nokia N95 which was released in early 2007)
I don't know about anyone else, but the only incentive I have to replace a phone is when a new technology (eg UMTS, LTE) or a reasonable improvement in battery life (which hasn't happened in any model since the iPhone 4) necessitates replacement. As it is I haven't replaced my 2007 phone because it still works, but it's not supported any more, Google had some apps for it a few years ago, but now they don't work anymore. So it's getting to the point where it's only useful as a phone and camera. Once the map application gives up, I'll have to replace it. Hopefully by then there is is a reasonable sized iPhone that I can justify the cost of.
They talk about illuminated buttons and buttons with markings... so if we were going to have an illuminated button for notifications... and if we didn't want something on the back like the LED... then why not an illuminated sleep/wake or volume button?
If you can see the front, you can see the screen, and the notifications show up there already.
There were notification lights on the front of phones for years. The reason was so a tiny light would blink periodically to indicate you have a new message or whatever.
Otherwise... you have to wake up the entire screen to check missed messages.
Yes... you see notifications on the iPhone screen immediately as they come in. But if you were away from the phone.... you don't see them.
That's where a tiny blinking light would come in handy.
There were notification lights on the front of phones for years. The reason was so a tiny light would blink periodically to indicate you have a new message or whatever.
Otherwise... you have to wake up the entire screen to check missed messages.
Yes... you see notifications on the iPhone screen immediately as they come in. But if you were away from the phone.... you don't see them.
That's where a tiny blinking light would come in handy.
OK, I see you aren't looking for simple visual solution but wanting a very specific option. Do you think this is a big issue for people that Apple will include it even though they didn't add it in 2007 when that (and profiles) were common? Do you think that the Home Button is a good place for it even if that means getting rid of Touch ID?
From my PoV, if I'm leaving my desk I'm not leaving my phone anywhere. It's in my pocket or in my hand when I'm not home or in my car. At work, if I do have to, say, charge it up at my desk and I leave for a meeting for an hour I'll just tap the Home Button or wait for my phone to vibrate again.
I have nothing against a light on the front of the device — so long as it's not affecting Touch ID usage — but I have to think it's probably not going to happen if it hasn't at 8 years.
PS: You do know you can have vibration and audible alert for Messages repeat 10x at 2 minute intervals, right?
OK, I see you aren't looking for simple visual solution but wanting a very specific option. Do you think this is a big issue for people that Apple will include it even though they didn't add it in 2007 when that (and profiles) were common? Do you think that the Home Button is a good place for it even if that means getting rid of Touch ID?
From my PoV, if I'm leaving my desk I'm not leaving my phone anywhere. It's in my pocket or in my hand when I'm not home or in my car. At work, if I do have to, say, charge it up at my desk and I leave for a meeting for an hour I'll just tap the Home Button or wait for my phone to vibrate again.
I have nothing against a light on the front of the device — so long as it's not affecting Touch ID usage — but I have to think it's probably not going to happen if it hasn't at 8 years.
PS: You do know you can have vibration and audible alert for Messages repeat 10x at 2 minute intervals, right?
Understood.
But I hope you realize that front notification lights do have a purpose. There are use cases for them.
Yes... the iPhone has never had them... and I don't think they ever will. I'm fine with that.
I was just suggesting that if Apple were to make a button light up... it would be cool to have a notification light on the front.
But no... I won't give up TouchID for that!
I never expected this love-affair with the back camera flash functioning as a notification light. Yes it's there... but it seems to an idea that Apple haphazardly added to iOS.
Comments
Yes, if you don't think the illumination from a home button would be sufficient, then a much brighter back light would be. But isn't that what the iWatch is for?
Here’s my take on this topic:
Use the LED as a notification light because… you know… IT’S ALREADY A LIGHT. You set your phone face up? Have it in your purse? Not on you at all times? Huh. Well, maybe that notification isn’t all that important to you, anyway. If it really matters, you’d keep your device on you. And if it doesn’t, why not try taking five dozen steps back and evaluating your life, which has become a miasma of instant gratification and undiagnosed ADD-like symptoms.
People and “technology” these days, geez.
Here’s my take on this topic:
Use the LED as a notification light because… you know… IT’S ALREADY A LIGHT. You set your phone face up? Have it in your purse? Not on you at all times? Huh. Well, maybe that notification isn’t all that important to you, anyway. If it really matters, you’d keep your device on you. And if it doesn’t, why not try taking five dozen steps back and evaluating your life, which has become a miasma of instant gratification and undiagnosed ADD-like symptoms.
People and “technology” these days, geez.
Because something has the functionality, does not mean it is the best use in all cases. Having a notification light that faces down or away 99% of the time for the majority of users is not a logical use of existing functionality.
Being able to have the home button light instead of the entire screen is logical alternative as it saves energy, and is more desecrate. Very nice for meeting rooms.
You lost me on the latter part of your rant
Having a notification light that faces down or away 99% of the time for the majority of users…
Seems like an incorrect assessment.
Again, if the notification really matters, you’ll have the device on your person or be checking it with a frequency as to make the light redundant.
Seems like an incorrect assessment.
Again, if the notification really matters, you’ll have the device on your person or be checking it with a frequency as to make the light redundant.
As the flash is on the back of the phone, it could hardly be an incorrect assessment, but a logical presumption.
Notifications do matter, but I also don't need the entire phone lighting up or me clicking the home screen every 15 seconds to receive them. My phone sits (face up) on my desk most of the day as I work, so this would be a nice UX for me.
If you are the person that has their phone in a pocket/purse most of the time, then you have some manual effort to checking for notifications anyway, so I can see any light being less convenient.
Why specifically the Home button? What is wrong with the LED light on the back being used for notifications?
Because most people don't place their phones facedown.
Use the LED as a notification light because… you know… IT’S ALREADY A LIGHT.
My boss has an Android phone that does this (actually as a silent ringer, not a notifier), and it's darned annoying/distracting. He even apologizes for it in meetings.
I think the most recent case design article I read on Samsung was that they were thinking of moving from plastic to metal (for the back panel).
These kinds of patent filings leave me with the feeling that in these types of design aspects that Apple is to Samsung as an Olympic sprinter is to a toddler who is taking its first step.
I know Samsung plays the spec game w/ megapixels and processor speed and screen resolution - but those demonstrate no outside-the-box thinking like these filings do. Apple is coming up with radically different and new ideas for how to approach aspects of device design and manufacture that seem like they wouldn't ever occur to Samsung. Hat's off.
It's on the BACK of the phone. Strike 1
No one wants a disco light when a subtle LED would do. The camera flash is very bright and very distracting. Strike 2
While I applaud Apple for adding that capability to the iPhone... it's not exactly the solution people were looking for. It was poorly thought out.
I want a notification light that I can simply see when I return to my desk... not something that lights up the whole room.
Other phones have had simple LED lights for notifications for year... my old Blackberry comes to mind.
Do you honestly think Apple's strobe light on the back of the phone is the ideal solution?
Using ion implantation, the method alters an optical or chromatic property of the sapphire material at a subsurface layer, leaving a mark that is both easily readable and protected from the elements.
And it might allow for a cool subsurface glowing effect if sidelit.
Maybe for the rounded square on the home button.
Or, better yet, for the Apple logo on the back of the enclosure.
Just a thought.
That's because Samsung is being reactive, and tends to never actually know which direction Apple is going when they are unable to peek at the parts in-house. Even then, they have no idea what to make of things. Apple recently switched to 64bit, but not quad-core CPU. Samsung went to quadcore but stayed 32bit... because Android isn't 64bit. If you casually look around news sites, Android is "moving to 64bit by christmas" . Know what that means? More fragmentation.
If we use the PC industry as a barometer of what is to come, there will be 64bit OS's but developers will be unwilling to develop 64bit software so long as older OS's are 32bit (eg Windows XP.) So we have at least a 3 year window for 32bit OS's to cease sales, and a 10 year window before users finally throw away devices. Unlike the PC market, "Cell phone" users, at least in the US, are under the impression that 1000$ phones are free to them on two year contracts, and are thus have incentive to throw away their devices every 2 years, regardless of the device still being usable.
Phones made of new materials but not new hardware or software don't really give customers a reason to upgrade. The mobile phone upgrade process kinda went like this:
a) Analog Suitcase phones
b) Analog Car Phones
c) Analog handheld (1990's)
c) Digital (fractured into CDMA and TDMA, late 90's)
d) Digital that can do text messaging and ringtones
e) Digital that has color screens and polyphonic midi (around 2003)
f) GSM "2G or 2.5G or 3G" depending on how blatant the carrier was willing to lie to you
g) GSM Camera phones, picture messaging/multimedia messaging
h) First generation "smartphones" (Windows Mobile, Treo, Blackberry) around 2005/2006
i) Second generation smartphones (iPhone) 2007, which is more like a computer, and doesn't require "mobile" versions of sites to use.
From that point forward the iPhone has always been a little behind the curve in technical specs. (The iPhone 4 introduced a 5 megapixel camera, the iPhone 3G introduced UMTS, both of these features were available on the Nokia N95 which was released in early 2007)
I don't know about anyone else, but the only incentive I have to replace a phone is when a new technology (eg UMTS, LTE) or a reasonable improvement in battery life (which hasn't happened in any model since the iPhone 4) necessitates replacement. As it is I haven't replaced my 2007 phone because it still works, but it's not supported any more, Google had some apps for it a few years ago, but now they don't work anymore. So it's getting to the point where it's only useful as a phone and camera. Once the map application gives up, I'll have to replace it. Hopefully by then there is is a reasonable sized iPhone that I can justify the cost of.
So?
If you can see the front, you can see the screen, and the notifications show up there already.
Because no LED has ever been able to change brightness¡
Do you honestly think that full brightness is the only option for that light?
The phone has sensors, it knows if it's face up or face down. Depending on what is facing up, the notification could appear in a particular place.
Plus, if the phone is face down it could be a private (DND) mode and/or not light the screen with the notification as it's be a waste of power.
They talk about illuminated buttons and buttons with markings... so if we were going to have an illuminated button for notifications... and if we didn't want something on the back like the LED... then why not an illuminated sleep/wake or volume button?
There were notification lights on the front of phones for years. The reason was so a tiny light would blink periodically to indicate you have a new message or whatever.
Otherwise... you have to wake up the entire screen to check missed messages.
Yes... you see notifications on the iPhone screen immediately as they come in. But if you were away from the phone.... you don't see them.
That's where a tiny blinking light would come in handy.
So you're saying make the camera flash LED on the back dimmer? That's the solution?
Yes... Apple took the only light they had and made it into a makeshift notification light. But it was hardly an ideal solution.
It was on the back of the phone.
OK, I see you aren't looking for simple visual solution but wanting a very specific option. Do you think this is a big issue for people that Apple will include it even though they didn't add it in 2007 when that (and profiles) were common? Do you think that the Home Button is a good place for it even if that means getting rid of Touch ID?
From my PoV, if I'm leaving my desk I'm not leaving my phone anywhere. It's in my pocket or in my hand when I'm not home or in my car. At work, if I do have to, say, charge it up at my desk and I leave for a meeting for an hour I'll just tap the Home Button or wait for my phone to vibrate again.
I have nothing against a light on the front of the device — so long as it's not affecting Touch ID usage — but I have to think it's probably not going to happen if it hasn't at 8 years.
PS: You do know you can have vibration and audible alert for Messages repeat 10x at 2 minute intervals, right?
I’m not sure if you’re joking.
Understood.
But I hope you realize that front notification lights do have a purpose. There are use cases for them.
Yes... the iPhone has never had them... and I don't think they ever will. I'm fine with that.
I was just suggesting that if Apple were to make a button light up... it would be cool to have a notification light on the front.
But no... I won't give up TouchID for that!
I never expected this love-affair with the back camera flash functioning as a notification light. Yes it's there... but it seems to an idea that Apple haphazardly added to iOS.
Here was my train of thought:
Notification LED... Yes or No?
If yes.... Front or Back?
I'm just trying to figure out why you think the BACK of the phone is the proper place to put a notification LED?
Yes... the iPhone already had an LED there... so why not. No harm done.
But that's not where I would put a notification LED if I was designing a phone from scratch.
This article talks about the possibility of illuminated buttons... there is a button on the front... so a notification light was my first thought.
That's all.
We probably won't EVER see this come to fruition anyway. Next rumor?
Third option: Why?
Back.
See:
IGZO screens from Sony and Intel-built ARM chips with custom audio hardware from Beats.