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I am so amused at the “HiLight” feature (lighting up colored LEDs for notifications so you can see them “at a glance” without looking at the screen). This is a

I am so amused at the “HiLight” feature (lighting up colored LEDs for notifications so you can see them “at a glance” without looking at the screen). This is a feature that was on the Android phones of old (including the original G1) and I loved it, but it got phased out in favor of “always on displays”… which apparently now we want less of! It’s funny how trends like this are a circle sometimes.

krackers 2mo ago
They had it as a hidden feature up till the nexus 5 or 6 I believe. Someone bothered to include hardware for an LED even if the stock software never supported it.
- ozyschmozy 2mo ago
  I remember my old nexus had it, and it was very customizable. I had it flash different colors for different chats. Definitely funny seeing this make its way back as if it's some new revolutionary feature
eufouria 2mo ago
This is precisely why I left Android. Google can't seem to decide on a direction and stick with it. Years of new features that inevitably ended up abandoned 2 versions later resulted in a constantly changing and unpredictable user experience. It was fun while I had free time in college and enjoyed flashing ROMs, but as I got busier with life this lack of refinement pushed me away. The RGB leds were one of my favorite features of early Android phones. I even backed a terrible Kickstarter campaign that synced those colors to an RGB wristband (this was before smartwatches were a thing).
- ValentineC 2mo ago
  > Google can't seem to decide on a direction and stick with it. Years of new features that inevitably ended up abandoned 2 versions later resulted in a constantly changing and unpredictable user experience. I'm guessing cultures that reward shipping new products (e.g. 67 different messaging apps) don't turn out great for consumers.
- entropie 2mo ago
  > The RGB leds were one of my favorite features of early Android phones. I Right man. I had forgotten that my nexus 7 had this kind of LED and I really liked it and missed it later.
- jerlam 2mo ago
  Conversely, I was surprised to learn that the temperature sensor introduced on the Pixel 8 Pro in 2023 was only removed this year. No one knew why it was there in the first place.
  - avidiax 2mo ago
    I heard that it was a COVID feature. I guess people thought you would be scanning your friend's foreheads before socializing. That sensor would be much better if it was integrated with the camera and LIDAR, so that you could "paint" a scene with thermal data by moving the phone around.
    - jerlam 2mo ago
      That's the only plausible scenario, but it also came out in 2023 and people stopped caring at least a year before. And it persisted for a few years so either someone thought they could salvage something from it, or no one had a better idea what to put there.
      - abeyer 2mo ago
        That probably means the board was being designed a year or two before that... so quite possibly they had put it in the design when it still seemed relevant and the cost/hassle/delay of a new revision of the board design and manufacturing changes made it easier to just leave it there and ignore.
    - jeffbee 2mo ago
      The sensor is damned handy because it has plenty of range and good options in the software for estimating emissivity. I use it in the kitchen.
      - Paradigm2020 1mo ago
        How exactly do you use it ? Another app or default ?
- bebna 2mo ago
  On BlackBerry i had an app that could do colour patterns, rhythms and so on depending who contacted you on which medium. Got a mail from you boss? Blue led. Got an sms or call? Red alarm. U could also group people and or mediums together (this was a basic feature of blackberry os)
  - jeffbee 2mo ago
    That eventually became an OS feature, where you could set the LED color for every app.
- bitpush 1mo ago
  Its a smartphone feature and not operating system feature. This is like saying "I left Windows because my Windows Laptops doesnt offer fingerprint scanner anymore" Google only controls Pixel, but why did Samsung, and Lenovo, and Xiaomi and Motorola remove the LEDs?
  - handedness 1mo ago
    Same reason almost anybody in the phone and laptop spaces seem to do almost anything these days: to copy Apple. It's the new sympathetic magic.
    - dgellow 1mo ago
      Apple hasn’t been innovating in the smartphone space since at least half a decade, compared to the android landscape
      - gyomu 1mo ago
        And yet every time Apple does something, Android vendors are happy to drop their innovations and realign to whatever Apple’s doing. Case in point, the latest Samsung foldable that just happens to be the exact same unseen before form factor as the upcoming Apple foldable, released the month before, even though Android has been “innovating in the foldable space” for like 10 years now. Because until now no one working on those foldable phones had the guts to say “wait let’s not just the take the existing phone screen aspect ratio and make it foldable, this new screen technology should make us rethink the overall form factor” - it took Apple to make that step.
        johanvts 1mo ago
        1 month doesn’t seem like enough time to copy something so fundamental as the screen geometry.
        gyomu 1mo ago
        Supply chain leaks around this device have been around for quite a while.
jm4 2mo ago
I remember having this on a Sidekick in like 2007.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
kevincox 2mo ago
This used to be a critical feature for me I used to customize the colour per-app so I could see what notifications I had at a glance. However always-on displays have supplanted this use case for me.
simpaticoder 1mo ago
Just wait until phones get headphone jacks!
billfor 1mo ago
My Nexus 5 had that feature and it was really useful to see if the phone had a message pending. They also did the same thing for wireless charging, dropping it and then bringing it back. The PM probably gets paid good money to go in circles.
accrual 1mo ago
> lighting up colored LEDs for notifications so you can see them “at a glance” without looking at the screen My old Blackberry Bold had this feature and I loved it! I had it customized so it would pulse a different color depending on who had messaged me.
- zimpenfish 1mo ago
  Blackberry got a whole bunch of things right but, alas, almost everything else was a bag of rusty spanners. I do still miss mine, though, slightly.
zem 1mo ago
been waiting for this feature to come back forever. hope it's still around the next time I get a new phone.
lurght 1mo ago
One day I hope for a future innovation that brings back 3.5MM jacks and I can have audio as convenient as it was in the 1950s, but until then my bluetooth can connect to my speakers while I'm not in the same building and switch device automatically with no setting to change it and with no warning deafen the people in my house, where the only way to switch back requires a mere 20 screen taps (which i can partly blame graphene os for, not their fault i can use a wire though) Maybe I take this a little too close to heart.
- sieabahlpark 1mo ago
  [dead]
- thegrim33 1mo ago
  Just vote with your wallet and don't buy phones without a headphone jack. That's what I do, and I've always had a phone with one.
  - LoganDark 1mo ago
    There is literally no way this can ever result in any impact on the market. Literally no one will ever be able to tell how many sales are made or lost because of whether or not there is a headphone jack. Therefore it is also impossible for it to influence anybody's future decision. This is also my problem with people saying you can vote with your wallet about laptops. No company will ever be able to figure out which features someone bought the laptop for, or which choices caused others to pass it up. Therefore it is impossible for your (or anybody's) wallet to show companies what you want. This also means it is impossible to vote about software. Or really anything that has multiple features. You can't vote about cars this way. You can't vote about houses this way. You can't vote about fast food this way. You can't vote about online shopping this way. You either buy all of something or you buy none of it. You can't buy into the parts you want while leaving out the parts you don't want. You incentivize the full package, or you don't, and lost sales are invisible and inscrutable.
    - em3rgent0rdr 1mo ago
saltcured 1mo ago
I remember my little Motorola flip phones from 25+ years ago had an LED that would blink for things like voice mails or unread SMS. I can't remember if it also did missed calls, and maybe could do orange or green? I seem to recall it did a unary pattern to blink out the number of queued events. The problem with this kind of feature is that it falls apart if you're the type who leaves things unread or gets them all the time. Then, it is little more than a beacon to say "phone still exists"...
Tostino 1mo ago
My Nexus One had that colored trackball, and rooting / custom roms allowed you to set specific colors to whatever type of notification or alert you wanted. Good times.
qingcharles 1mo ago
One day those autostereo displays and 3D cameras from the early Androids will return too.

krackers 2mo ago

They had it as a hidden feature up till the nexus 5 or 6 I believe. Someone bothered to include hardware for an LED even if the stock software never supported it.

ozyschmozy 2mo ago
I remember my old nexus had it, and it was very customizable. I had it flash different colors for different chats. Definitely funny seeing this make its way back as if it's some new revolutionary feature

eufouria 2mo ago

This is precisely why I left Android. Google can't seem to decide on a direction and stick with it. Years of new features that inevitably ended up abandoned 2 versions later resulted in a constantly changing and unpredictable user experience. It was fun while I had free time in college and enjoyed flashing ROMs, but as I got busier with life this lack of refinement pushed me away. The RGB leds were one of my favorite features of early Android phones. I even backed a terrible Kickstarter campaign that synced those colors to an RGB wristband (this was before smartwatches were a thing).

ValentineC 2mo ago
> Google can't seem to decide on a direction and stick with it. Years of new features that inevitably ended up abandoned 2 versions later resulted in a constantly changing and unpredictable user experience. I'm guessing cultures that reward shipping new products (e.g. 67 different messaging apps) don't turn out great for consumers.
entropie 2mo ago
> The RGB leds were one of my favorite features of early Android phones. I Right man. I had forgotten that my nexus 7 had this kind of LED and I really liked it and missed it later.
jerlam 2mo ago
Conversely, I was surprised to learn that the temperature sensor introduced on the Pixel 8 Pro in 2023 was only removed this year. No one knew why it was there in the first place.
- avidiax 2mo ago
  I heard that it was a COVID feature. I guess people thought you would be scanning your friend's foreheads before socializing. That sensor would be much better if it was integrated with the camera and LIDAR, so that you could "paint" a scene with thermal data by moving the phone around.
  - jerlam 2mo ago
    That's the only plausible scenario, but it also came out in 2023 and people stopped caring at least a year before. And it persisted for a few years so either someone thought they could salvage something from it, or no one had a better idea what to put there.
    - abeyer 2mo ago
      That probably means the board was being designed a year or two before that... so quite possibly they had put it in the design when it still seemed relevant and the cost/hassle/delay of a new revision of the board design and manufacturing changes made it easier to just leave it there and ignore.
  - jeffbee 2mo ago
    The sensor is damned handy because it has plenty of range and good options in the software for estimating emissivity. I use it in the kitchen.
    - Paradigm2020 1mo ago
      How exactly do you use it ? Another app or default ?
bebna 2mo ago
On BlackBerry i had an app that could do colour patterns, rhythms and so on depending who contacted you on which medium. Got a mail from you boss? Blue led. Got an sms or call? Red alarm. U could also group people and or mediums together (this was a basic feature of blackberry os)
- jeffbee 2mo ago
  That eventually became an OS feature, where you could set the LED color for every app.
bitpush 1mo ago
Its a smartphone feature and not operating system feature. This is like saying "I left Windows because my Windows Laptops doesnt offer fingerprint scanner anymore" Google only controls Pixel, but why did Samsung, and Lenovo, and Xiaomi and Motorola remove the LEDs?
- handedness 1mo ago
  Same reason almost anybody in the phone and laptop spaces seem to do almost anything these days: to copy Apple. It's the new sympathetic magic.
  - dgellow 1mo ago
    Apple hasn’t been innovating in the smartphone space since at least half a decade, compared to the android landscape
    - gyomu 1mo ago
      And yet every time Apple does something, Android vendors are happy to drop their innovations and realign to whatever Apple’s doing. Case in point, the latest Samsung foldable that just happens to be the exact same unseen before form factor as the upcoming Apple foldable, released the month before, even though Android has been “innovating in the foldable space” for like 10 years now. Because until now no one working on those foldable phones had the guts to say “wait let’s not just the take the existing phone screen aspect ratio and make it foldable, this new screen technology should make us rethink the overall form factor” - it took Apple to make that step.
      - johanvts 1mo ago
        1 month doesn’t seem like enough time to copy something so fundamental as the screen geometry.
        gyomu 1mo ago
        Supply chain leaks around this device have been around for quite a while.

jm4 2mo ago

I remember having this on a Sidekick in like 2007.

deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]

kevincox 2mo ago

This used to be a critical feature for me I used to customize the colour per-app so I could see what notifications I had at a glance. However always-on displays have supplanted this use case for me.

simpaticoder 1mo ago

Just wait until phones get headphone jacks!

billfor 1mo ago

My Nexus 5 had that feature and it was really useful to see if the phone had a message pending. They also did the same thing for wireless charging, dropping it and then bringing it back. The PM probably gets paid good money to go in circles.

accrual 1mo ago

> lighting up colored LEDs for notifications so you can see them “at a glance” without looking at the screen My old Blackberry Bold had this feature and I loved it! I had it customized so it would pulse a different color depending on who had messaged me.

zimpenfish 1mo ago
Blackberry got a whole bunch of things right but, alas, almost everything else was a bag of rusty spanners. I do still miss mine, though, slightly.

zem 1mo ago

been waiting for this feature to come back forever. hope it's still around the next time I get a new phone.

lurght 1mo ago

One day I hope for a future innovation that brings back 3.5MM jacks and I can have audio as convenient as it was in the 1950s, but until then my bluetooth can connect to my speakers while I'm not in the same building and switch device automatically with no setting to change it and with no warning deafen the people in my house, where the only way to switch back requires a mere 20 screen taps (which i can partly blame graphene os for, not their fault i can use a wire though) Maybe I take this a little too close to heart.

sieabahlpark 1mo ago
[dead]
thegrim33 1mo ago
Just vote with your wallet and don't buy phones without a headphone jack. That's what I do, and I've always had a phone with one.
- LoganDark 1mo ago
  There is literally no way this can ever result in any impact on the market. Literally no one will ever be able to tell how many sales are made or lost because of whether or not there is a headphone jack. Therefore it is also impossible for it to influence anybody's future decision. This is also my problem with people saying you can vote with your wallet about laptops. No company will ever be able to figure out which features someone bought the laptop for, or which choices caused others to pass it up. Therefore it is impossible for your (or anybody's) wallet to show companies what you want. This also means it is impossible to vote about software. Or really anything that has multiple features. You can't vote about cars this way. You can't vote about houses this way. You can't vote about fast food this way. You can't vote about online shopping this way. You either buy all of something or you buy none of it. You can't buy into the parts you want while leaving out the parts you don't want. You incentivize the full package, or you don't, and lost sales are invisible and inscrutable.
  - em3rgent0rdr 1mo ago

saltcured 1mo ago

I remember my little Motorola flip phones from 25+ years ago had an LED that would blink for things like voice mails or unread SMS. I can't remember if it also did missed calls, and maybe could do orange or green? I seem to recall it did a unary pattern to blink out the number of queued events. The problem with this kind of feature is that it falls apart if you're the type who leaves things unread or gets them all the time. Then, it is little more than a beacon to say "phone still exists"...

Tostino 1mo ago

My Nexus One had that colored trackball, and rooting / custom roms allowed you to set specific colors to whatever type of notification or alert you wanted. Good times.

qingcharles 1mo ago

One day those autostereo displays and 3D cameras from the early Androids will return too.