Light Is The Most Underused Feature On Mobile Phones

Why don’t mobile phone manufacturers use lighting for more things? A multicolored LED can’t cost that much more to implement, and could easily notify you of so many glanceable things:

1. When charging, why isn’t there a light *somewhere* on the phone that gradually changes color to let you know how full the battery is? This way, I could glance across the room and see that my phone is *almost* fully charged, or not even close.

2. When I miss an event (phone call, SMS, etc), why not give me a different color for each? Or better yet, assign colors to specific people. For instance, if I miss a call or SMS from my fiance, the light flashes pink, but everyone else gets blue. That way, I can quickly determine the speed at which I return the call or message.

3. Keypad backlights. Ok, you caught me. This post was spurred on by the fact I just got a Nokia 7900 Prism for review. The coolest thing, this handset has a menu that allows me to change the keypad backlights to one of over 60 colors! It’s solid black, so if I put a beach scene as the wallpaper, I could have blue backlights. If I change to a pumpkin for Halloween, I could change them to orange in a split second! It’s complete brilliance!

What are some other uses for multicolored LEDs that you can think of on a phone?