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is there an LED????

WhySoSerious

WhySoSerious

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 30, 2007
1,460
97
Dallas, TX
is there an outside LED on the phone that will blink or indicate you have a missed call/text/vm/event?

from my memory, i don't think there is, which is stupid. because now you have to contantly turn on your phone to see if you missed a call or something.

this should be added on the next hardware version.
 
box33 said:
is there an outside LED on the phone that will blink or indicate you have a missed call/text/vm/event?

from my memory, i don't think there is, which is stupid. because now you have to contantly turn on your phone to see if you missed a call or something.

this should be added on the next hardware version.
Click to expand...

LED indicators are a design no-no. Too many devices have let these get out of hand and interrupt the elegance of a product. If you get a message and your phone is on vibrate or you miss a call it will vibrate and you'll know. If you didn't have the phone in your pocket then aren't you going to turn the thing on anyway? It has as much as 250 hours of standby time and you can leave it on and just wake it quickly as i do to check what kind of messages you do have in a second by looking at the main screen. The LED can't tell you what kind of messages you have anyway unless they clutter the design with several of them. That is something Apple refuses to do on their computers with the exception of the battery indicator. It also reduces space in the chassis and for a phone this slim every millimeter counts.

It really is not hard or time consuming at all to touch your screen to see what messages are waiting for you. Additional indicators would be redundant.
 
Avatar74 said:
LED indicators are a design no-no. Too many devices have let these get out of hand and interrupt the elegance of a product. If you get a message and your phone is on vibrate or you miss a call it will vibrate and you'll know. If you didn't have the phone in your pocket then aren't you going to turn the thing on anyway? It has as much as 250 hours of standby time and you can leave it on and just wake it quickly as i do to check what kind of messages you do have in a second byloiking at the main screen. The LED can't tell you what kind of messages you have anyway unless they clutter the design with several of them. That is something Apple refuses to do on their computers with the exception of the battery indicator. It also reduces space in the chassis and for a phone this slim every millimeter counts.

It really is not hard or time consuming at all to touch your screen to see what messages are waiting for you. Additional indicators would be redundant.
Click to expand...

i strongly disagree with you. ALL phones should have a small LED on the outside to indicate such missed events. it doesn't need to be different colors, but just a simple LED that may be off....then light up to say...GREEN...if you missed a call or text.

why in the hell would i want to have to keep turning my phone on every few minutes to see if i missed a call when it would be easier to just glance over at my phone (whether it be in another room or at my desk at work) to see if the LED is lit up?

just because the ringer is off, doesn't mean the phone is always on my person and i can sense/hear the vibrator. a lot of times, the phone just sits on my desk or nightstand and if i happen to pass by my phone, i look over to see if an LED is lit up...showing i missed a call/text.

since iphone doesn't do this...it's a pain in the arse to walk over and unlock it every time.

fix this apple....along with adding video RECORDING and doc EDITING.
 
For what its worth, you don't need to unlock it. The screen that invites you to "slide to unlock" will tell you about any messages or missed calls, so you just need to press the sleep/wake or home buttons.
 
Avatar74 said:
LED indicators are a design no-no. Too many devices have let these get out of hand and interrupt the elegance of a product. If you get a message and your phone is on vibrate or you miss a call it will vibrate and you'll know. If you didn't have the phone in your pocket then aren't you going to turn the thing on anyway? It has as much as 250 hours of standby time and you can leave it on and just wake it quickly as i do to check what kind of messages you do have in a second by looking at the main screen. The LED can't tell you what kind of messages you have anyway unless they clutter the design with several of them. That is something Apple refuses to do on their computers with the exception of the battery indicator. It also reduces space in the chassis and for a phone this slim every millimeter counts.

It really is not hard or time consuming at all to touch your screen to see what messages are waiting for you. Additional indicators would be redundant.
Click to expand...

couldn't disagree more.

i would prefer an optionally enabled simulated small led on the screen itself (maybe even just a few pixels).... if that is possible from a power management standpoint.
 
it really isnt that bad, all you have to do is click the top button and it tells you if you missed a call/txt you dont have to unlock it. By the way im typing fairly quickly on the phone :)
 
TheBusDriver said:
it really isnt that bad, all you have to do is click the top button and it tells you if you missed a call/txt you dont have to unlock it. By the way im typing fairly quickly on the phone :)
Click to expand...

true but sometimes i'm across the room and like looking for a blip to tell me i should get up off my ass :)

not a huge issue but i do miss it.

loving the phone so far
 
Yeah i totally agree, the iPhone should have this. It could even be integrated in such a way that it isn't even visible, like under the black plastic next to the earpiece of by the home button. Sort of how the iSight light on the Macbook Pros is hidden behind the aluminum and is only visible when it is lit. (Then it would be a 'design no-no'.

Fortunately it isn't that big of a deal to me, but it would be nice to see apple include this on future phones.
 
Although I appreciate the design concerns, it would be super cool to have an imac-esque white light of some kind to blink every so often when an event has occurred that you might be interested in.

(Slowly but surely getting used to the keyboard. Auto correct helping me out a lot...)
 
3rd Party VM Message Indicator

Does anyone know if Apple or a 3rd party has come out with a message indicator device for the IPhone. Similar types of devices exist for voicemail to let you know someone has called, but your voicemail messages reside with your telephone company's message store server. These devices may or maynot connect to a telephone (or iphone), but can be placed in different parts of your home or office to let you know a message is waiting in voicemail
 
A girl I used to date had a phone with a series of differnt colored lights on it. I hated thatdamn phone, it was randomly lighting up constantly. Purple, red, green lights going off in the middle of the night would wake me up every time. Finally had her leave it in the living room.

If the iPhone had one I would have found a way to black it out.
 
This is one of my biggest gripes with the iPhone. They could easily have had a led installed under the upper part of the phone, near the earpiece as someone earlier suggested. It would be virtually invisible, and Apple could have it as a user configurable option as to when/what it blinked for.

The omission of this feature, compounded with the lack of an option for a recurring alert is poor design in my opinion. I understand Apple's penchant for minimalism, but this is taking form over function to another level. I use to love walking into my office while glancing at my Blackberry sitting on the desk, and instantly knowing if I had missed a call/email/etc. If led's bother you so much, just set it to never blink within settings.
 
I have to agree that OPTIONAL repeating reminders and/or an external indicator is my biggest gripe by far. Way more important than copy/paste, 3G, or anything else I hear about from others. MMS support would be the next important thing to me (and no e-mail isn't the same thing).

I know we all want different things, but to me it all comes down to the fact that the iPhone shouldn't be missing basic phone features that every other phone has.
 
I'm another supporter of the LED. As a former blackberry user, I got used to the same thing. Being able to walk into my room after a shower and tell whether there was something waiting simply by glancing at my phone rather than having to pick it up. In addition, being the spring chicken that I am at 25, I tend to keep my music pretty loud in my car. When I had the blackberry sitting beside me in the door, even if I didn't hear the ring or alert the flashing LED would catch my eye. This is definitely something that could and SHOULD be added in the future. Hopefully via firmware.
 
rablat said:
What recently released phone has an LED indicator.
I though those died the day Ericsson merged with Sony.
Click to expand...


Well the Blackberry Pearl is a pretty new phone. I may be mistaken but I think all the newer Blackberries have them.
 
aross99 said:
I have to agree that OPTIONAL repeating reminders and/or an external indicator is my biggest gripe by far. Way more important than copy/paste, 3G, or anything else I hear about from others. MMS support would be the next important thing to me (and no e-mail isn't the same thing).

I know we all want different things, but to me it all comes down to the fact that the iPhone shouldn't be missing basic phone features that every other phone has.
Click to expand...

I'm in total agreement. A couple days after buying my phone, I called into AT&T and told them I had just received a "viewmymessage.com" message and was shocked when they told me MMS was not possible. I'm also a little disappointed in the lack of video recording, as my Razr that I've had for two years took video. I know it's nitpicking when looking at the big picture of how AWESOME this phone is, but it does make one wonder why such basic features were omitted in the initial release.

That being said, I love this phone and I don't have a single regret about buying it.
 
you just want a single led, thats pitiful, right now my treo is charging and its led is orange (a color i customized for charging) but come one dude, its not that great. if anything it should a bunch of em, one that can tell you battery, wifi signal, allerts. but once you get serious about it you find your only limiting its potential because the screen can do any of that, instead we should be programming an app that keeps the hole screen blank except for a little corner that you can have blink when yr texts come in. what iphones really need is infrared so they can be tv remotes too.
see post
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=5031001#post5031001
 
I love my iPhone and coming from several very nice Blackberry's I can say I don't miss anything EXCEPT the LED notification. It was very helpful to be able to glance at the phone and know if I needed to check anything. It would have been very nice to have this feature on the iPhone since the volume of the e-mail and SMS alerts is barley audible in a room with any kind of noise.

Maybe iPhone 2.0 will have one or a third party app will offer a solution.
 
I hope Apple doesn't add this to the next iPhone. If I wanted tacky LED's all over a phone I would be buying a Blackberry.
 
zenwhen said:
I hope Apple doesn't add this to the next iPhone. If I wanted tacky LED's all over a phone I would be buying a Blackberry.
Click to expand...
Right, because a discreetly placed led within the black shroud which would be near invisible when off, would totally mar the design. :rolleyes:

If you look reeeaaaly hard you can see the infrared light also. Perhaps Apple should remove that as well?
 
I think they should have just ONE LED under the earpiece used for alerts. It would be nice being able to just glance at my phone.
 
I think they should hide a single Blue LED underneath the square in the home button, invisible when its off, but pulses on and off when you have a message or a missed call. It would not take away from the elegance. If anything it would add substance while the phone is locked.
 
toneloco2881 said:
Right, because a discreetly placed led within the black shroud which would be near invisible when off, would totally mar the design. :rolleyes:

If you look reeeaaaly hard you can see the infrared light also. Perhaps Apple should remove that as well?
Click to expand...


It's all opinion. I happen to think it would be ugly. Keep your opinion. I will keep mine. :)
 
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