Since there is not an LED, what do you use for notification of urgent items?

That fact banners has been posted (and ignored) multiple times should tell those arguing against the LED that they should unsubscribe and leave them to it. You can't win they want their blinky little light and damn to high heaven they will fight to get it. Once they have ruined the smooth iPhone experience we all came to love they will move onto something else to destroy and make the same. Borg.... resistance is futile...you will be assimilated... you will be the same

unsubscribed


ps... am I the only one who thinks its weird that their iPhones are so important to them they cannot miss a call or text that its life or death each time... that given all that they actually put the thing down and walk away from it.

Zxxv said:

That fact banners has been posted (and ignored) multiple times should tell those arguing against the LED that they should unsubscribe and leave them to it. You can't win they want their blinky little light and damn to high heaven they will fight to get it. Once they have ruined the smooth iPhone experience we all came to love they will move onto something else to destroy and make the same. Borg.... resistance is futile...you will be assimilated... you will be the same

unsubscribed


ps... am I the only one who thinks its weird that their iPhones are so important to them they cannot miss a call or text that its life or death each time... that given all that they actually put the thing down and walk away from it.

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The led notification is an option to complement the existing notifications. You don't need to use it if you don't want to. On my note 3/4 it is totally invisible if it is not lit up.

The resistance to incorporating one in the iPhone is just mind boggling and irrational.

If this resistance is due to "cannot lose" mentality (...iphone doesn't have it so must make it not useful at all cost)...then that's really a pity.

mib1800 said:

It is not suppose to. It is used to complement existing notification.

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Then quite frankly, it doesn't do a very good job. And this is an interesting position change, considering the chief complaint - that urgent notifcations are lumped in with non-urgent ones - was batted down by the pro-LED lynch mob with "oh, but you can make it change colors!"

So now this ISN'T the answer to that problem?

Why are you over-complicating the LED lights by lumping in usage scenarios which the LED notification is not designed for?

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Oh, I'm sorry. I thought the LED was supposed to provide useful notification information. I guess this isn't the case? Because these "overcomplicated" scenarios are exactly how I expect to use my phone, and are well-served by iOS' existing notification schemes.

The main point is the LED gives you a continous and persistence notifications which the other kind cannot.

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And I'm saying the persistent notification is worse than useless if it can't effectively inform me only of the notifications that I might want to be persistently notified of, as opposed to the rest. If it can't do this, then it's just meaningless noise the majority of the time.

ditto..

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Much like a blinking LED, merely saying "ditto" without providing any context is fairly meaningless noise. Just saying. Might as well not say anything at all.

Once again the LED makes this step more efficient

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How? all it does its blink and say "pick me up! Something's happened! I don't know if it's important or not, but pick me up anyway and find out!"

So what's the point? Given the amount of information coming through my phone and tablet, "something happened" is a foregone conclusion, every time I want to pick up my phone. Might as well put an LED that blinks for the sake of blinking. It would be equally useful to me.

- that is you dont go and on the screen when it is not necessary.

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Only that's simply false. At the risk of repeating myself: there are times when an event occurs that is not immediately important to me and won't require that I unlock my phone and take action. An on-screen digest tells me this. An LED does not.

Not sure why it is so difficult to understand.

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I understand it. Maybe your LED light didn't remind you that I already sated I have used many smartphones with blinking LED notifiers, and found no positive value in it. It's of no use to me. If it is to you, great and I again hope Apple sees fit to throw you and your crowd a bone. Why you need me to proselytize to me and others about how great a meaningless blinking light is, is beyond me though.

Don't use it if you like to turn on your screen unnecessarily.

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I won't, because I see no point in having a light there to blink meaninglessly and unnecessarily, providing no useful information.

Hmmm...I got the impression you think that LED notification is the MOTHER of all notifications that can replace all other types of notification.

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Actually, it's quite the opposite: I KNOW the LED is NOT the mother of ANY notifications, and doesn't do its alleged job well at all. I've said this many times in many ways, but apparently you seem unable to parse this piece of information. How very telling.

OK. Fine. Maybe "superior" is a wrong choice of word. Let me modify that to "More".

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I wouldn't even go that far, but if you feel that your blinky-light Android is the king of accessibility, I won't disabuse you of perceived exceptionalism, if it's really that important to you.

neteng101 said:

People living in the past who can't get rid of their old habits might similarly find themselves slowly lagging behind their more advanced co-workers and they'll likely be the ones left behind for promotions and first ones out the door during layoffs.

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I agree, in the past we had no LEDs on our phones. Our phones were tethered to the wall. In the future, our phones are mobile and offer multiple forms of alerting us of messages. Having to check your screen is like having to play back your answering machine to see if you have a message.

s15119 said:

A useful feature that millions of people don't need and Apple doesn't offer.

The End.

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Seems s15119 wants to live in the past as well. You guys keep enjoying checking your screens for messages. For now I'll use my smart watch and continue to petition Apple to be reasonable and offer and LED alert.

----------

Zxxv said:

Once they have ruined the smooth iPhone experience we all came to love they will move onto something else to destroy and make the same.

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How does adding an LED....that you can't see when it's not lit and could be disabled...ruin the smooth iPhone experience?

Geckotek said:

I agree, in the past we had no LEDs on our phones. Our phones were tethered to the wall. In the future, our phones are mobile and offer multiple forms of alerting us of messages. Having to check your screen is like having to play back your answering machine to see if you have a message.

Click to expand...

Having to look at a blinking LED light is like looking at the answering machine and trying to determine what the actual message is.
See, and answering machine usually says "You have X messages" when you push the button. That's slightly more advanced than you LED, which tells me nothing about the messages - quantity or quality.

I don't know if myLED ever made it to production, but I thought about buying one for the wifey at the time.

mercuryjones said:

Having to look at a blinking LED light is like looking at the answering machine and trying to determine what the actual message is.
See, and answering machine usually says "You have X messages" when you push the button. That's slightly more advanced than you LED, which tells me nothing about the messages - quantity or quality.

Click to expand...

your phones screen being black tells you nothing.

mercuryjones said:

Having to look at a blinking LED light is like looking at the answering machine and trying to determine what the actual message is.
See, and answering machine usually says "You have X messages" when you push the button. That's slightly more advanced than you LED, which tells me nothing about the messages - quantity or quality.

Click to expand...

You can use the Light Flow app to fully customize any notification for any app including, color, how long it stays lit, the fast it blinks, etc. So just by the color alone, I can tell which app needs my attention.

I'm very surprised Apple hasn't implemented this in the home button. I think it would look really cool and be useful.

opfreak said:

your phones screen being black tells you nothing.

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countmacula said:

Wow. Watch out anyone who wants LED notification. You're going to be fired soon!

Let me make this simple. LED notification has a function.

Go out of room leaving phone on desk. Message comes while phone out of sight out of range of hearing. Come back into room.

1. [No LED notification] check -> receive message
2. [No LED notification] no check -> message missed (until next check)
3. [LED notification] alerted to message -> can respond straight away

As I said, LED notification could be an important function in some professional environments, and are useful for a lot of people. Apple just doesn't have it because traffic lights on a phone aren't simple. They don't fit into Apple's philosophy somehow, because despite being useful, they're too much clutter. Apple are upmarket. Apple has cool lines. Apple is design austerity. And doesn't need dasblinkenlights like a Christmas tree.

But Apple now comes in gold, and rose-gold for the watch. Which is extremely tacky.

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I get that some people think the LED notification is some great feature but this seems like a poor example of it being needed.

I have my settings to alert 3x for an incoming message. I would have to be far away from my phone for over 15-20 minutes to totally miss the incoming message. Then if I ever am away from my phone for several minutes in another room the first thing I do when I get back to it is turn on the screen to check for missed alerts. Also if it were actually something urgent I'm sure the person would send several messages or repeated calls. Meaning I'd have to be away from the phone even longer to totally miss everything.

I don't know anyone other than maybe old people who would be in the scenario you describe of leaving their $1000 device somewhere out of hearing range for 30+ minutes on a regular basis. Majority of iPhone users are glued to their devices and keep them in arm's reach.

Would it be to cute little novelty to have a flashing light? Yes. Is it actually an important feature? No. Its practical use is limited and that's probably why Apple hasn't bothered to include it yet. It's too niche. The demand isn't there as most people are turning on their screens all throughout the day anyway. Back in the Blackberry days it was more useful because their functionality was a lot more limited and people weren't constantly looking at their screens all day like they do now. Plus between all the apps with notifications we have, email, messages, calls, etc. the LED light would just be blinking constantly all day. Making it even more useless.

Also perhaps some of us are important enough in our daily lives that responding immediately is done when we are good and ready? All the notifications in the world are not going to rush me, let the Devils wait!! Haha

The most frustrating thing about being an iPhone user... Simple functions like this will be added but not before every other excuse is thrown out. First it was big screen phones now it's led notification... There is just simply ZERO reason to not include led notification as an optional thing. People who want it can use, people who don't want it can keep it off. It doesn't change the look of the phone from what I've seen so that argument is out the window.

iPhone people talk so much about how a lot of android features are useless. But they never seem to be able to admit that some of those features are useful and there for a reason.

But hey, iPhone 7 will have led so I guess it's time to play the waiting game again.

The-Real-Deal82 said:

Also perhaps some of us are important enough in our daily lives that responding immediately is done when we are good and ready? All the notifications in the world are not going to rush me, let the Devils wait!! Haha

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That's why I only set the LED to blink only for important notifications. There are some notifications that will make you regret dearly if you wait until "you are good and ready".

PNutts said:

I don't know if myLED ever made it to production, but I thought about buying one for the wifey at the time.

View attachment 513784

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Your wife will let you stick that in her? amazing. So she lights up when what happens?

stonyboys said:

The most frustrating thing about being an iPhone user... Simple functions like this will be added but not before every other excuse is thrown out. First it was big screen phones now it's led notification... There is just simply ZERO reason to not include led notification as an optional thing. People who want it can use, people who don't want it can keep it off. It doesn't change the look of the phone from what I've seen so that argument is out the window.



iPhone people talk so much about how a lot of android features are useless. But they never seem to be able to admit that some of those features are useful and there for a reason.



But hey, iPhone 7 will have led so I guess it's time to play the waiting game again.

Click to expand...

That has always been the way Apple works. They can't (and don't) do everything, and certain features you regard as quintessential may come later than sooner, or never come at all.

All I can say is - if you don't like it, and find led lights to be that much of a deal breaker, then stop using an iPhone and get an android phone that does.

At the end of the day, only you and you alone can decide what tradeoffs to make.

Might a well give this old argument up as until Apple addresses the notification system, the fan boys will be against it. Kinda reminds me of when people suggested that Apple make a bigger phone than the 4 and people got up in arms and swore they would never buy it! Now people can't even find the huge iPhone 6 Plus!

Times change

Abazigal said:

That has always been the way Apple works. They can't (and don't) do everything, and certain features you regard as quintessential may come later than sooner, or never come at all.

All I can say is - if you don't like it, and find led lights to be that much of a deal breaker, then stop using an iPhone and get an android phone that does.

At the end of the day, only you and you alone can decide what tradeoffs to make.

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I understand that and at this point in time it's worth the trade offs to stick with iPhone.

But we're not asking for "smart stay" here, we're not asking for some random feature 5% of people will use. An led notification is a simple hardware thing, IMHO it's on par with LTE. LTE is not necessary in any sense but it's a technology that almost everyone now takes advantage of.

Like I said I can go on and on but this is just life as an iPhone user. Very frustrating to know that 6s or 7 is gonna come out and add these very basic features. How long do we have to wait until we can customize the toggles in control centre? Again very very simple thing that even jailbreak developers can do... And maybe apple can figure it out by the time iOS 10 rolls around.

stonyboys said:

I understand that and at this point in time it's worth the trade offs to stick with iPhone.

But we're not asking for "smart stay" here, we're not asking for some random feature 5% of people will use. An led notification is a simple hardware thing, IMHO it's on par with LTE. LTE is not necessary in any sense but it's a technology that almost everyone now takes advantage of.

Like I said I can go on and on but this is just life as an iPhone user. Very frustrating to know that 6s or 7 is gonna come out and add these very basic features. How long do we have to wait until we can customize the toggles in control centre? Again very very simple thing that even jailbreak developers can do... And maybe apple can figure it out by the time iOS 10 rolls around.

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Today I learned that a LED blinky light is equal to LTE. This was an analogy that I'd never heard before.

Seriously? There is no way that a notification LED is anywhere close to LTE service.

mercuryjones said:

Today I learned that a LED blinky light is equal to LTE. This was an analogy that I'd never heard before.

Seriously? There is no way that a notification LED is anywhere close to LTE service.

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LTE is not necessary for a phone. Led notification is not necessary for a phone. They are both features. They are both incredibly useful for some and useless for others.

You can use vibrate/ring for notifications just like you can use normal 4G for internet access. How do you not understand this concept?

mercuryjones said:

Having to look at a blinking LED light is like looking at the answering machine and trying to determine what the actual message is.
See, and answering machine usually says "You have X messages" when you push the button. That's slightly more advanced than you LED, which tells me nothing about the messages - quantity or quality.

Click to expand...

On a "good" LED notification system you can look across the room and tell if you had an email, text, phone call and even an alarm. If set correctly you can even tell who called with limits. And for those who the LED disturbs, you can turn it off.

Okkkayyy...

iPhone Russ said:

I may be returning my IPhone 5 and keeping my Blackberry 9900 because there is not an LED. I’m a little in the dark now because there is not an LED to flash if something super important was occurring. I don't know if I am missing anything important without turning on the screen. Seems strange to have to reach for your phone and turn the screen on all the time. I don’t want to set it to chime 10 times until the action item is handled. Several million iPhone users can't be wrong. Since there is not an LED, what do you use for urgent alerts? Is there an app for this?

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Please tell me you're a doctor or some kind of professional where seconds actually matter.

I just check my phone every two minutes. It's super convenient.

stonyboys said:

LTE is not necessary for a phone. Led notification is not necessary for a phone. They are both features. They are both incredibly useful for some and useless for others.



You can use vibrate/ring for notifications just like you can use normal 4G for internet access. How do you not understand this concept?

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LTE improves the user experience more than a blinking LED concept. And for whatever it's worth, the Apple Watch released next year will bring notifications to your wrist (as do smart watches like the pebble). So I don't think LED will be coming to the iPhone anytime in the near foreseeable future.

Newtons Apple said:

On a "good" LED notification system you can look across the room and tell if you had an email, text, phone call and even an alarm. If set correctly you can even tell who called with limits. And for those who the LED disturbs, you can turn it off.

Click to expand...

Sounds like a lot of work to set up though...

I mean all this work and it only benefits you when you can't physically touch your phone but can visually see it. How often does this occur to make the hassle even worth it?

And if you turn it off, why have it? If you turn it on you're gonna have to turn it off every night.

What if you're watching a movie in the dark and the phone is in your peripheral just blinking nonstop.

Id rather just not have it and not worry about it.

It would irritate me more than help me.

Never mind the learning curve/memorization and setup hassle.

DollFaceDork said:

Same thing people did before cell phones existed.

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Sounds like you're an apple apologist

He brings up a great point

cynics said:

I just check my phone every two minutes. It's super convenient.

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Apple should address this