Using proximity sensor to keep screen off

[zorinlynx]

So, about this blurb...

"Thanks to ambient light and proximity sensors, your iPhone knows if it’s facedown on the table and prevents the screen from turning on, even when you receive a notification."

How well does this feature work? I'm curious if it only works when the phone is facedown on a table or if it works in pockets too?

There's never any reason to turn on the screen when notifications go off in your pocket. This has the potential to save a lot of battery life for those of us who get a lot of "noiseless" notifications. (Foursquare checkins, Telegram group messages, etc.)

 

[XboxMySocks]

After doing much work with the proximity sensor, I can say this would work very easily with being facedown OR in your pocket.

 

[C DM]

After doing much work with the proximity sensor, I can say this would work very easily with being facedown OR in your pocket.

Good to hear. Sounds like if there's something covering the screen in some way then likely it can stay off when a notification comes in.

 

[XboxMySocks]

Good to hear. Sounds like if there's something covering the screen in some way then likely it can stay off when a notification comes in.

The possible applications are actually much wider than this (i.e. turning on and off a device via the sensor) and surprisingly easy to remove false positives, so I'm fairly optimistic about this feature being implemented successfully.

 

[C DM]

The interesting thing is that this is all really based on what has been in the devices since long ago (unless I'm missing something)--could have been a feature that was added back in iOS 5 even probably.

 

[XboxMySocks]

Yep. The possibility has been around for quite sometime