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ICS notification bar brightness question

foo

foo

Android Enthusiast
I just updated my wife's maxx to ICS. All went great except her notifications are quite dim. Has anyone else noticed this? The indicators in the top right are max brightness but all notification icons are barely visible. I know on my galaxy nexus rom there is a tweak for ICS that makes all notifications max brightness. I'd be surprised to hear that there isn't this option in stock ICS update for motorola's ics.

Anyone know how to change it with a non root option?
 
I have to agree, they are pretty dim and the icons do seem much smaller than GB. It hasn't bothered me too much to this point, but it is a good observation. I haven't found where to brighten it though... if anyone has, please let us know! :)
 
I noticed the same thing, the top right where the battery meter is, is bright as normal, but the left side is dim. I'd like brighter icons up there!
 
Yeah, this is one of my biggest gripes about ICS (which shows how much I like it). I use Gague Battery Widget's notification bar thing to show me precise (well, estimated precise) battery percentage, and it dims the icon out. It can be hard to read, especially in sunlight.
 
Bummer. I was wondering about this. Here's to hopping for another software upgrade that fixes the software upgrade! :rolleyes:
 
My guess is someone's "great" idea to conserve just a pinch more power out of the battery. I wouldn't expect any updates anytime soon nor expect anyone's gripes to be listened to now anymore than before. Just saying...
 
MasterGadgets said:
Yes, same here.
It makes my battery moninor percentage display and my Weather Bug temperature display worthless.
Click to expand...

Best option for WB is to set the text to white instead of the default blue. It looks a hint better, but it's not bright at all.
 
So this was the first thing I noticed as well with ICS. I dug around, and in emailing a developer, I found that with ICS, some idiot that works at Google decided that minimizing the notification icons and dimming them 40% is the new rule so as not to distract the user from the main screen. Really!?!? That is the dumbest idea I have ever heard of. They are useless now, especially in sunlight. That genius must live/work/survive in a cave and therefore isn't affected by the new change.:mad:

But I digress...there is a way to make them full brightness, just not something we can do as end users. Developers have to put it in their code. I found a battery icon app (Battery Circle) that was at full brightness. It was still too small for my liking, and I really missed Battery Monitor by Sim2k. BM's developer and I exchanged lots of emails and eventually, he updated his app to show at full brightness and in 4 different color choices!!! I don't know squat about coding, but there is a way to get around Google's rule. Obviously, it's not a widely known workaround.
 
The switch to white helps some, but the real issue is the font size. If the temp was the same font as the 4G, we would be all set.

Hope for a fix down the road.
 
foo said:
Best option for WB is to set the text to white instead of the default blue. It looks a hint better, but it's not bright at all.
Click to expand...

Accuweather seems to look a little better then weatherbug! At least I thinnk it does, but I may be imagining it.
 
Try Badass battery monitor.... Then download the 99 cent font pack. There is a battery icon that is much larger..... Hey if you don't like it right away then get a refund. I'm liking it a lot!
 
mahers said:
I really missed Battery Monitor by Sim2k. BM's developer and I exchanged lots of emails and eventually, he updated his app to show at full brightness and in 4 different color choices!!! I don't know squat about coding, but there is a way to get around Google's rule. Obviously, it's not a widely known workaround.
Click to expand...

Works great and is bright! Thanks for the tip!
 
Rogus said:
I looked under settings in WB but can't find any way to change text color. Where is this setting?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

go into WB > menu button & select Preferences...scroll all the way to the bottom 2 options "status bar text color" & "notification text color"
 
foo said:
go into WB > menu button & select Preferences...scroll all the way to the bottom 2 options "status bar text color" & "notification text color"
Click to expand...

Well I don't feel so stupid for not being able to find the setting, because I'm even stupidier than I thought. I thought I had WB, but I actually had The Weather Channel which doesn't have a setting to change the color of the notification. So, go ahead and laugh at me. I am.

Thanks. I like WBs app layout with lots of good info. The WB notification font is still too small to be able for me to read it, but it does show up slightly better than TWC's font which I can't read either. At least with WB you can turn off the notification setting. Why have it if you can't read it? With TWC I see no way to turn it off. I've already proven that it might just be me that can find something.
 
I switched from Weatherbug (have used this app for forever) to Accuweather. Font is bigger than WB. Then, the I turned off automatic brightness on the phone and cranked it up to 98%. Not sure what effect this will have on battery life, but I can now see the temperature much much better. Hopefully ICS bug fix will address this issue we all seem to be having.
 
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