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Signal bars or dots?

  • Signal bars

  • Dots


Results are only viewable after voting.
Some people live in areas where they could accidentally roam onto another network e.g. Some travel a lot and find it useful to know which network they're currently connected to.
That's fine. It should be an option to turn it off, or at least abbreviate it. Doesn't hurt anyone.
 
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Bars > Dots. Wish you could hide the carrier name as well.
 
The theory behind the signal bars return is to save space should that iPhone X design render prove correct with the camera / speaker / sensor cutout of the screen at the top.
 
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I think the carrier text should be replaced with icons that can only be a certain size... @ least I have AT&T so it’s short.
 
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I personally like the bars better. This should also benefit people on the SE or 5S too as a majority of the left side of the bar is not taken up by the dots.
 
So looks like iOS 11 has moved back to signal bars. Which do you prefer?
Not only that, instead of 5, there are 4!
The VPN icon is easier to see from a distance, and the battery icon has slightly changed it seems.
That all said, i couldn't care less, .. for all i care there's one dot, which is filled full when there's a proper signal, and automatically gathers up data and reports back the poor service to the telecom provider when it is not :D
 
I like the bars because it actually works when you ask someone how many bars they have. It was always weird asking someone how many dots they have. Also the bars make it seem like a mobile phone. Brings back that older feeling from phones that couldn’t play music and browse the Internet. I like it
 
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I welcome the signal bars for a change but any thoughts of it at the right instead of left?
 
I really don’t care tbh. If it said ‘you’ve got a reception’ it wouldn’t bother me lol
 
Bars, and by a lot.

I don't care much for the design of bars vs dots, but one necessity for me is the fact that the dots needed to be blank when not filled in.

I'll show an example below.

My previous jailbroken status bar theme on iOS 8 (below):

unnamed1-jpg.703445


Current iOS 8/10 dots:

unnamed2.jpg


I personally found the border of the empty dots to be kind of hard to read at a glance, with a small screen and crowded area up top. I like the jailbreak theme's implementation better.

Either way, I welcome bars back again, which to be honest is even better. I don't have terrible memories of super old android, so I'm not opposed to it.
 

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I think the dots use the available space more effectively. Or at least they used to. Now that there using that area for other things, it probably makes sense to use the much narrower bars icon.
 
Should've stuck with bars. Dots are overused in the UI:
  • Multiple pages of icons were already represented by a line of dots.
  • Updated apps already had blue dots beside them.
  • Ellipsis buttons '...' are pretty common now.
Ordinarily not a big deal, but imagine phone tech support asking a new user how many 'dots' they have.
 
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