Lots of Android phones have been hitting the market lately, with a resounding thud. A nice convenience feature available on some, but not all, models is a notification LED, which flashes for things like missed calls, text messages, or low battery. There's even a few apps that let you change the color and flash speed of the LED for different kinds of notification.
My idea is for devices, like the Galaxy, Galaxy S, and Galaxy Tab which are amazing devices in every way but lack the notification LED.
It's an app that "lights" up the screen, but makes it all black with a small circle in the corner blinking to simulate the notification LED. Would work like a screensaver. Could even display a floating message with the time/date and info about the notification. There's a screensaver app already that has a floating clock over a black screen so this should be more than possible.-- 21 Quest, Nov 29 2010 Baked http://www.appbrain...oled/com.led.notifyYes, it doeswork [not_only_but_also, Dec 01 2010] An LED is a bit brighter than the screen, amirite? So when I'm rooting around the dark insides of my manbag, it might be a lot harder to see a blinking dot on the screen than a flashing diode. Good idea though!-- DrWorm, Nov 29 2010 I'm not convinced that's always the case, Doc. On my HTC G1 and MyTouch 3G, it's definitely brighter than the equivalent-size number of pixels on the screen. On my Motorola Cliq XT, however, which has a white LED with no ability to change the color and is recessed slightly, it's no brighter than the white portion of the screen directly below it when flashing.
On newer devices like those in Samsung's Galaxy series, with AMOLED (Active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) and Super AMOLED screens with nearly twice the pixel density of an iPad, I'm thinking the screen stands a pretty good chance of matching, if not vastly outshining, the kinds of LEDs used on most phones for notifications.
The question I don't have the answer to is: Is an LED notification bulb brighter than an equivalent-sized cluster of pixels on an AMOLED screen?
Of course, the whole debate would be moot if the manufacturers of the damned things simply included the LED in the original design. Without an LED notification bulb, however, I contend that my idea is better than nothing, which is what these devices currently have.
But I do appreciate the positive feedback!-- 21 Quest, Nov 29 2010 If they can make part of the screen a second screen, then I don't see why another part can't be the LED.-- MisterQED, Nov 30 2010 Nor do I.-- 21 Quest, Nov 30 2010 Well shit. Only available on phones running 2.1 or higher. No wonder I couldn't find it on the Market when I searched. My G1 and MyTouch are running 1.6 (well, the MyTouch crashed yesterday installing the 2.2 update and I'm awaiting warranty exchange so I didn't have a chance to play with the new version), and my Cliq XT is running 1.5. Ah well. I'm still leaving this, because it really should be available for phones with lower build versions.-- 21 Quest, Dec 01 2010 Glad to see one of my ideas being Baked by Motorola. The Moto X has a feature called "Active Display" built in. This feature is, for all intents and purposes, identical to the app linked to here, which was very close to the purpose and intent of my idea only flashier.-- 21 Quest, Feb 28 2014 random, halfbakery