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Has an iPhone 3GS user had this problem???

B

bradleydavid53

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 2, 2008
55
0
I have noticed that sometimes when i wake up my phone, that the screen is VERY dim. i always have my iphone 3gs brightness up to around 75% with auto brightness..

but- sometimes the lockscreen with be dim... even with full battery.. then i will think "thats weird" and turn it off (via the top sleep button) and turn it back on and it will be all the way bright.

Is this a new feature? or a fluke? IDK- has anyone experienced this??:apple:
 
Yeah, that happened to me a few times on mine that i just got replaced. Its obviously a bug, hopefully someone at apple fixes it.
 
Mine does this at time but resolves itself when I recycle the wake/sleep button. My first 3gs did it and the replacement I received for dust under the screen after 6 days does it too.
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A341 Safari/528.16)

moka said:
its not a bug, nor something wrong, its how it works.
Click to expand...

Orly? Can you explain, since you seem to know so much, why it doesn't behave like this all the time? Maybe you should check out some of the other threads discussing the oddities found in the 3GS' auto dimming.
 
Auto brightness doesn't operate continuously. When the 'phone is unlocked, a sensor samples the ambient lighting and adjusts the screen brightness accordingly. Therefore, if you switch on in dull or subdued lighting, the screen will always be that way. Conversely, if the 'phone starts up in bright light, the screen will remain bright.

A way to save a bit of battery power is to make the 'phone "think" it's working in darkened conditions, and therefore have reduced screen brightness, is to cover the lower part of the screen (where the lighting sensors are located) when starting up.
 
John T said:
Auto brightness doesn't operate continuously. When the 'phone is unlocked, a sensor samples the ambient lighting and adjusts the screen brightness accordingly. Therefore, if you switch on in dull or subdued lighting, the screen will always be that way. Conversely, if the 'phone starts up in bright light, the screen will remain bright.

A way to save a bit of battery power is to make the 'phone "think" it's working in darkened conditions, and therefore have reduced screen brightness, is to cover the lower part of the screen (where the lighting sensors are located) when starting up.
Click to expand...

i thought the lighting sensors were at the top by the proximity sensor?

Also mine has done this twice, i just put it into standby again and then it was fine
 
John T said:
Auto brightness doesn't operate continuously. When the 'phone is unlocked, a sensor samples the ambient lighting and adjusts the screen brightness accordingly. Therefore, if you switch on in dull or subdued lighting, the screen will always be that way. Conversely, if the 'phone starts up in bright light, the screen will remain bright.

A way to save a bit of battery power is to make the 'phone "think" it's working in darkened conditions, and therefore have reduced screen brightness, is to cover the lower part of the screen (where the lighting sensors are located) when starting up.
Click to expand...

It's definitely not normal, it's so dim that you can barely tell the screen is on.
 
I've noticed that sometimes when I wake my phone from sleep, the backlight doesn't turn on at all. I can barely see the screen is active. Once I enter in my password though, the backlight goes on normally. This has only happened a few times.

I'm assuming this is what you mean. The backlight is always a little more dim in really dark settings. Any brighter and it wastes battery and hurts your eyes.
 
This happens frequently with my 3GS but seems to go away after touching the screen or locking and unlocking....there were numerous threads on this early after the release

what I want to know is it still happening to those running 3.1?
 
John T said:
A way to save a bit of battery power is to make the 'phone "think" it's working in darkened conditions, and therefore have reduced screen brightness, is to cover the lower part of the screen (where the lighting sensors are located) when starting up.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't a more effective method of preserving battery life be just turning down the brightness instead of tricking the phone?
 
It happened to mine from the very first moment I got the phone. But when I went to AT&T to swap it out for a completely brand new one (since it was less than 30 days, less than 7 even) and they said no that I had to go to Apple. I wasn't very happy since it was brand new but I did and they swapped it out and it's been working great every since.
 
Never again

yea, i don't think i will ever buy another apple product again. I have 2 issues with the iphone 3gs on 2 phones. no wonder every year they have to come out with a new iphone. they can last for the term of the 2 year contract.:mad:
 
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