How to make the flash blink on iPhone when they call me

There are many devices that, in addition to the acoustic warning and vibration, also include a visual alert. This visual alert is usually an LED that warns that they are us or that they have called us. Some of these devices also have an LED that emits a different colored light depending on the application that notified us, such as green for WhatsApp, blue for Skype, or orange for a missed call. At the moment there is no iPhone that has such an LED, but we can make the flash turns on when a notification comes in.

If I have to be honest, turning on the flash while they are calling us does not seem to me to be very useful if we do not have hearing problems, since, in normal situations, whenever we have the iPhone close by we will hear the warning or notice the vibration, But there may be situations in which it would be interesting, for example, if we leave the phone on a table while we are having a party with loud music. And of course, yes it will be useful for the hearing impaired.

How to turn the iPhone flash into a notification LED

1. We open the iPhone settings.
2. We enter the General section.
3. Next we look for and access Accessibility.
4. Finally, we slide down and, in the AUDITION section, we activate the switch that says Flashing LED warnings.

It is clear that it fulfills the function at the time we receive the notifications, but it is not a complete system. I would say that it lacks two things for it to be:

• The notification is not repeated. This means that it is only good for the moment it sounds. It is logical if we consider that the system that Apple has included is designed for people with hearing problems. We could say "And why doesn't it keep lighting up to warn that there is a pending notification?", Which has a very simple answer: the iPhone does not have a notification LED, we already know this, but what it uses as such It is the photography flash. Camera flashes are designed to illuminate scenes and make them look good. These flashes consume a lot of energy, so if a notification comes to us, the flash is flashing and we are not ahead to stop it, it is most likely that, when we realize it, the battery has dropped a lot. With autonomy being one of the problems of touchscreen smartphones, this doesn't seem like the best idea.
• Only notify with one color. Although the iPhone uses a True Tone flash that can emit light with different temperature colors from the iPhone 5s, the flash notifications are always white. If a hearing-impaired person sees that their iPhone alerts them to "something" with a light, this person cannot tell until they approach and see the screen if the notification is a Twitter mention, a WhatsApp or an alarm, what that can be a problem.

Will Apple launch an iPhone with LED for notifications?

If I have to be honest, I doubt it. It is true that these types of LEDs do not take up much space and that they could be added almost anywhere, but the question is Where would they put it? Looking at the white iPhone 6s from the front, the device already has three holes at the top: the one for the speaker, the one for the camera and the one for the light sensor. It does not seem very likely that Apple will decide to add a fourth hole, or not to include a notification led.

Additionally, technology companies are striving to pack as many components as possible in the smallest footprint. It is said that one of the reasons why the iPhone 7 It will not have a 3.5mm jack, it is so that the device is thinner than an iPhone 6 that is already quite thin. Apparently, the notification LED is part of that hardware that Apple rejects for a device to maintain a design without overloads.

What we will surely see in the future is a accessory that complies as LED of notifications. There have already been many Kickstarter projects that have presented cases of this type, such as the Lunacase that you have in the previous image that warns us that they are calling us and uses the energy that comes out of the iPhone. In other words, it takes advantage of the energy around the device to emit the warning light.

In any case, although it would be nice to see the pending notifications in different colors, I also understand that Apple gives priority to other things, such as the two-lens camera that is expected to come from the hand of the iPhone 7 or the screen AMOLED which, according to rumors, will arrive in 2018 with the possibility that we will see it on the iPhone 7s. Do you miss the notification LED on the iPhone?