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.

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.

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.

In Apple's case it's a subtle encouragement to buy their watch.

Yeah, it’s basically just this. AODs took over for notification lights.

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.

My phone does not have a LED notification light. It does however have a little green LED hidden near the front facing camera which is within the screen area. This light comes on only when using the front facing camera and I assume is some kind of indicator light. Why this can't be dual purpose or why another LED or even small sections of screen can't be used for notifications is beyond me.

I think the real reason they removed the notification light is to make people use their phones more. Now instead of a glance to see a light I actually have to touch my screen which could allow additional scans of my figerprints or face and could contribute to data tracking when I am most active on my phone.

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.

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 don't understand how Blackberry managed to drive itself into the ground like it did. I need a modern BB 9900 ASAP.

This is the way.

Its not natural to feel "connected" all the time

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.

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.

Every phone has an LED for the camera flash.