Apparently, the secondary light source could then be made to pass light through several transparent or semi-transparent areas on the main lighting source, thus emerging as faintly lit, distinct status icons on the screen, even when the phone is in sleep mode. The secondary light source could then be used to create a blinking effect or something resembling the pulsing behaviour of the sleep indicator on Macs.

I'm no engineer, of course, so the exact details of how this might work are a bit unclear to me, but it sounds like a pretty clever idea. Since it requires changes to the hardware, don't expect to see it enabled via a software update, if ever. Apple has a lengthy history of patenting ideas and technologies that never actually make it into the hands of consumers.

That Apple is looking into ways to add more status indicators to iPhone is certainly good news though. One way they could add them on the software level even to current iPhones is to have some more icons in the status bar to reflect important information like unread email and SMS text messages or missed calls. That would eliminate the need to unlock the phone or scroll to a different Home screen to find these details and make the phone a tad more accessible.

[via ]