They were a good indicator for notifications that are missed when you were away from phone.
Their absence encourages you to check your phone more often, which means you’ll unlock it and look at some content more often, which means as revenue for someone.
You just wrinkled my brain right now.
Being honest I think the opposite of this is more likely true. Seeing a flashing indicator for all the notifications my phone “thinks” are important is going to make me more likely to constantly check my phone. Barring that I check when I want to. And with the new passive display modes I can glance and decide whether to even unlock or not.
passive display
This is the real answer for OP. Those lights were replaced. Maybe OP (and maybe me as well, I haven’t really thought about it) would prefer to still have the notification LED, but to the hardware manufacturers they replaced those with something “cooler”.
It’s a nice conspiracy theory. But unlikely. Who gets the additional review?
For some random hardware producer I don’t see how that would be favourable.
In Apple’s case it’s a subtle encouragement to buy their watch.
I don’t believe the iPhone ever had an LED notification light. The iPhone existed well before the watch did, as well.
I shouldn’t have doubted Apple’s campaign for minimalism > functionality
It never did, indeed. However, there’s an accessibility function to use the flashlight like an old school LED.
Genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if this was the truth. The tactics these companies employ are both putridly-covert, yet brilliantly executed - especially so if it also saves a few cents.
I hate how correct you are about this.
Higher end Smartphones have anyway always on displays. And the led needs screenspace - which should be maximized. That’s why the notch on phones etc. was introduced.
Yeah, it’s basically just this. AODs took over for notification lights.
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I still think it’s a terrible compromise. I actually looke specifically for a phone without one and ended up with a Sony Xperia. Sure, the front isn’t 100% screen and I have tiny bars above and below the screen, but who cares?
The led can just be put in the speaker grill though, I think my old HTC did this.
This is true, and my last phone with a notification LED was like this, but I found that having the light recessed made it a lot harder to see from across the room since you’re dependending quite a bit on viewing angle.
Yes, but this has issues, too. Because dust clogs up the grills and suddenly the led is badly visible.
I have one of the Galaxy Notes that has both LED light and Always On, and you just made me realize I pay attention to the Always On display more than even noticing the LED light.
I gotta say, sometimes I miss my fully customized LED on my blackberry back in the day. It could be in the bottom of a gym bag and I’d still know if I missed a Google Talk message (green) or a Facebook alert (dark blue) or an email (light blue), etc etc etc.
I had a Galaxy Nexus with a custom ROM and was able to set the led to any color I wanted per app. It was awesome.
I had a cool LED on my old Sony which pulsed to the beat of music playing. It also covered the whole of the bottom of the phone and also showed when the phone was upside down. It was well cool.
Did it go through multiple colors when you had notifications from different apps at the same time?
Yes, being able to set different colors to show up depending on the app is so cool. Still an option in LineageOS with a section for Notification LED.
My Nexus one did
I don’t understand how Blackberry managed to drive itself into the ground like it did. I need a modern BB 9900 ASAP.
Still have one on my sony xperia 5 iii (and no notch, micro sd, headphone jack, zoom camera)
Sony Xperia user here, I recommend your Next phone should be a Sony. Not only does it still have notification LEDs, it also has an SD card slot and a headphone jack…and a 5500mah battery. Will never go back to Samsung again
Same. I love my Xperia, and never realized how much I missed the notification LED.
How long does Sony support their hardware with OS updates? Do they lock down the ability to run custom roms?
I left Samsung because their flagship phones lost support after a couple of years and they made it harder and harder to load custom ROMs.
I move to apple mostly because it is the easiest to support my kids on and they support the phones for what seems like forever, making my hand me down phones much more valuable for much longer. I’d consider jumping back to android if I could expect a phone to be useful and up to date for 4ish years.
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With OLED, your entire screen is an array of possible LED notifications :)
It doesn’t illuminate the same though ☹️ . Have a new phone with no LED and an old OnePlus phone I use as a back up with a dedicated LED.
Packaging design, cost, manufacturing complexity, reliability. LEDs require a breach on the case for the lens. This requires a couple components plus sealing plus testing. Affects IP seal rating.
Every physical breach of the case is a reliability, sealing, dust, water, etc issue. Those are the things they fail on phones, after screens and batteries.
The PCB now has LEDs on the edge thdr need special assembly care like the three buttons do.
Most people put protective cases on phones so edges aren’t available.
The top is all screen. The bottom sees the desk/table.
Haptics, screen, vibration do so much the loss of the LEDs is pretty minimal.
Don’t be surprised if the power and up/down buttons go away sometime soon.
Headphone jacks are a huge problem as is USB and speakers.
I hate that everything useful is being thrown out the window for “water proofing.” Fuck that, people need to quit being so lazy and careless with their shit.
And I’m calling bullshit on the dust thing. I’m not saying it’s a negligible consideration, but it’s not something they need to start gelding features for. That’s just a horseshit excuse to effectuate planned obsolescence and sell you overpriced accessories.
I still use an 8 year old phone with a tool-free replaceable battery, headphone jack, and microSD slot. I live in the country, there’s dust everywhere and it would be dead by now if dust was such a problem.
I’m not necessarily agreeing with all what I wrote. It’s just that I’m familiar with product dev and manufacturing issues.
I like physical controls. I’m not so happy with everything on the screen even recognizing the advantages.
Look I live in a place where we get sideways torrential rain. Often. I need my phone to be waterproof enough to survive my commute to work on a bad day
It helps if you’re wearing clothes.
This defense of feature removal always conveniently ignores the phones that manage to accomplish fantastic ingress ratings even with headphone jacks, SD cards, etc.
It’s not because of water/dust. It’s purely cost cutting.
Yup cost is probably the single highest priority. But it is also true those are the things that fail most often. It is certainly true that they could be made reliable but it would cost more. And most people most of the time buy things that are “cheaper”. So basically we’re fucked.
That’s not quite true: other parts fail more often. I’ve never once had a headphone jack or micro SD card slot on a phone break on me. I’ve had headphone jacks on other devices break, but pretty rarely. On other audio equipment, 1/4" jacks break all the time, but headphones jacks just aren’t subject to that kind of force. I don’t remember anyone I know personally having issues with those things. LED’s are incredibly robust as long as you don’t put too much current through them or invert the polarity. And you wouldn’t want that much current for a mere indicator anyways.
The part most likely to break is the screen. Next is the battery, which doesn’t break but rather wears. Next is the charging port (depends on the standard, but this is less of a concern recently with USB-C, Lighting, and wireless charging). Next is physical buttons (power, volume, etc). Then you start getting to the point of headphone jacks and micro SD cards. It’s hard to find solid academic research, and a lot of this varies over time and by make and model, but a quick search turns up a bunch of articles from cell phone repair places that back this up.
Also worth mentioning that the CPU, RAM, and updates, along with the ever-increasing demands of apps a d websites, means phones that were powerhouses 10 years ago are barely able to do anything today even if the hardware is in pristine condition. That’s a whole other problem, and others have pointed out the waste and evils of intent obsolescence. Related to headphone jacks, SD cards, and indicator LED’s: that further invalidates the reliability and longevity arguments because those parts are going to last way longer than the main parts of the phone would anyways.
My guess it is cheaper to do software features rather than a physical led … cutting costs at every corner
Every phone has an LED for the camera flash.
On the front though?
*Huh mine does, I never use the selfie camera. Anyone else seeing spots?
How is that relevant to the OP’s question?
One of my old LGs would flash an LED based on conditions and I could include the camera flash as an option. I assume he is implying that since every phone with a camera has a flash, that it could be strobed.
They could make it blink with software to notify you.
My phone (galaxy z fold 4) has this feature built in, it’s under accessibility. I believe iphones can do it too.
For the fold 4, do you know if there is there a way to customize a color for each specific app?
Color? Like of the LED? There isn’t it’s just the camera flash
iPhone = Settings / Accessibility / Audio Visual “LED Flash for Alerts” (at the bottom)
I didn’t know I miss those LED notifications until now. Thanks :(
The whole front of modern phone is a display, there’s simply no space for a notification LED.
Yet they’ve managed to fit speaker openings at each end. They could do it, just would cost a little bit more.
Off topic a little but I stop most of my messaging app to notify me. And my life is so much more peaceful. I told everyone when they connect with me on any messaging app that it’ll take time for me to answer. I’ll read it when I remember to read it, which I do like once or twice a day. They adapt to that and if it’s really important they’ll call.
I forgot all about notification LEDs when I got a smartwatch
This. I was surprised when I moved to using a fitbit (got one for super cheap) and even that was able to show me my notifications from my phone. I also recently changed my phone to a z flip 4 which has a screen when its closed that shows me my notifs.
Gotta admit, I spend a lot less time on my phone when I can tell what notifications are important without opening or looking at my phone.
I get so many trash notifications it would just be on all the time and I’d turn it off.
I’m guessing that with everything they cram into those things nowadays, every last nook and cranny is valuable space to be used.
A little blinken light is probably not high on the list of features competing for that space.iPhones use the camera flash LED for this exact function, no reason Android phones can’t do the same.
