Das iPhone könnte möglicherweise der Designweise von "Kopiergeräten" (Schwarzarbeitssmartphones) ehren, aber die Gründe dafür könnten sehr einfach sein.

When it comes to the "marquee lights" on consumer digital products, many younger friends may not know what it refers to. However, for old players, once they hear the term "marquee lights", they will surely first think of those feature phones with a wide variety of designs in the past, but the actual experience was often hard to describe.

Actually, for these mobile phone models, the "marquee lights" might be a rather helpless solution. After all, most of the shanzhai phones at that time adopted the so - called "turnkey" solution, that is, the upstream supply chain directly provided finished motherboards, or even almost completed prototype phone solutions.

In this situation, even if the bosses of relevant manufacturers (or designers, if there were any) had some "personalized pursuits", all they could do was probably to add a few more marquee lights to the phone or make the speakers bigger and more exaggerated, and that's all.

But these mobile phone manufacturers could never have imagined that their gaudy "personalized designs" back then would have a chance to become the "new technology" of mainstream manufacturers nearly 20 years later.

Recently, a source exposed a patent of Apple's "edge - lit electronic device". It shows that it refers to an "edge illuminator" with LED light sources arranged on the front edge, side edge, or back of the device. When the device receives a notification, the edge illuminator can light up in a single - point or linear way to give the user a reminder in a specific pattern or color.

Obviously, whether from the description of Apple's patent or the imaginary diagrams drawn by relevant sources based on it, this "edge - lit electronic device" is very similar to the "marquee lights" in our memory. It's just that it will probably use more refined light sources and light - guiding designs, and will do better in terms of the continuity of the light strip and the richness of the light effects to meet Apple's "sense of quality".

So why might Apple design the "marquee lights" in future devices? Or rather, what's the necessity for them to add "marquee lights" to the devices?

First of all, what's the function of the "marquee lights"? Simply put, there are mainly two work scenarios we can think of on current devices. One is "information reminder", such as lighting up when there is an incoming call or message to attract the user to check in time; the other is to serve as a "status indicator" in special situations.

Let's talk about the first situation. As we all know, currently, most mobile phones will generally automatically light up the screen to display relevant information when there is an incoming call or text message, or show a prompt light effect at the edge of the screen.

However, the former method will not only increase the power consumption of the screen, but also may pose a risk of accidentally revealing the user's privacy (for example, the owner doesn't see the information, but someone else happens to see it when the screen lights up). Although the latter method is very common nowadays, there is also an unavoidable problem. That is, when the device is placed screen - down, the light effect at the screen edge is difficult to notice, and the reminder effect will be discounted as a result.

After all, the "screen light effect" design was actually initially strongly associated with the "curved screen". For models with a more curved screen, even when placed screen - down, the display at the outermost edge of the screen can still be projected onto the table.

But as we all know, with the "highly curved" design no longer popular in the market, mainstream manufacturers generally use 2.5D or even flat screen designs, even on top - tier flagship phones. So the visibility of the "screen edge light effect" has been greatly reduced. In this way, it is actually quite "necessary" to move the notification light effect to the middle frame or the back of the phone.

Secondly, friends who follow the mobile phone industry must know that in the past two years, "edge - side AI" and "mobile phone large models" have become the focus of publicity for major manufacturers. So how can consumers tell at a glance that "this phone has AI"? Should we print the AI logo on the back cover?

Obviously, compared with this method, designing an "AI indicator light" on the phone that lights up when the AI function is running is a smarter approach. Because it will not only bring a stronger sense of interaction to the user, but also allow people around to tell at a glance that "this device is different". Just like the popular "blue intelligent driving light" in the new - energy vehicle field nowadays, besides informing others that the car is using the intelligent driving assistance function, it also has a kind of "publicity" effect.

Moreover, this more prominent "marquee lights" may also have a hidden benefit, that is, it may play a more significant role in privacy protection. For example, when the phone turns on the camera or recording function, a prominent indicator light lights up on the frame. This can not only allow users to detect apps that may be engaged in "secret filming" or "eavesdropping" more quickly, but also largely curb the behavior of secret filming and recording on mobile phones.

This article is from the WeChat public account "Three Easy Life" (ID: IT - 3eLife), author: San Yi Jun. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.