Packaging design, cost, manufacturing complexity, reliability. LEDs require a breach on the case for the lens. This requires a couple components plus sealing plus testing. Affects IP seal rating.
Every physical breach of the case is a reliability, sealing, dust, water, etc issue. Those are the things they fail on phones, after screens and batteries.
The PCB now has LEDs on the edge thdr need special assembly care like the three buttons do.
Most people put protective cases on phones so edges aren’t available.
The top is all screen. The bottom sees the desk/table.
Haptics, screen, vibration do so much the loss of the LEDs is pretty minimal.
Don’t be surprised if the power and up/down buttons go away sometime soon.
Headphone jacks are a huge problem as is USB and speakers.
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.
Look I live in a place where we get sideways torrential rain. Often. I need my phone to be waterproof enough to survive my commute to work on a bad day
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.
Yup cost is probably the single highest priority. But it is also true those are the things that fail most often. It is certainly true that they could be made reliable but it would cost more. And most people most of the time buy things that are “cheaper”. So basically we’re fucked.
I’m not convinced by this argument: at the back of the phone is a built-in LED (used as the flash). Which could be used for notifications too.
Phones with OLED screens could use part of the screen as a notification as well. Both of these can be accomplished in software. Currently you have to notice that something happens as it happens, otherwise you need to at leas activate the screen. The notification LED was useful in that you could glance at your phone and see if you missed something.
I use an app on my Pixel 7 that uses a small portion of the OLED around the front facing camera cutout to generate custom colored notifications. This is similar to how dynamic island on IOS works and since I do not use the always on display it mimics an LED light for my notification needs.
Packaging design, cost, manufacturing complexity, reliability. LEDs require a breach on the case for the lens. This requires a couple components plus sealing plus testing. Affects IP seal rating.
Every physical breach of the case is a reliability, sealing, dust, water, etc issue. Those are the things they fail on phones, after screens and batteries.
The PCB now has LEDs on the edge thdr need special assembly care like the three buttons do.
Most people put protective cases on phones so edges aren’t available.
The top is all screen. The bottom sees the desk/table.
Haptics, screen, vibration do so much the loss of the LEDs is pretty minimal.
Don’t be surprised if the power and up/down buttons go away sometime soon.
Headphone jacks are a huge problem as is USB and speakers.
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.
Look I live in a place where we get sideways torrential rain. Often. I need my phone to be waterproof enough to survive my commute to work on a bad day
It helps if you’re wearing clothes.
I’m not necessarily agreeing with all what I wrote. It’s just that I’m familiar with product dev and manufacturing issues.
I like physical controls. I’m not so happy with everything on the screen even recognizing the advantages.
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.
Yup cost is probably the single highest priority. But it is also true those are the things that fail most often. It is certainly true that they could be made reliable but it would cost more. And most people most of the time buy things that are “cheaper”. So basically we’re fucked.
I’m not convinced by this argument: at the back of the phone is a built-in LED (used as the flash). Which could be used for notifications too.
Phones with OLED screens could use part of the screen as a notification as well. Both of these can be accomplished in software. Currently you have to notice that something happens as it happens, otherwise you need to at leas activate the screen. The notification LED was useful in that you could glance at your phone and see if you missed something.
I use an app on my Pixel 7 that uses a small portion of the OLED around the front facing camera cutout to generate custom colored notifications. This is similar to how dynamic island on IOS works and since I do not use the always on display it mimics an LED light for my notification needs.
Would you mind sharing the name of this app?
I sent you a DM, wasn’t sure it was kosher to post publicly.