Can I keep screen turned on when in dock?

Question

Level 1

11 points

Can I keep screen turned on when in dock?

I have my (lovely!) 3g iPhone at my desk in the dock.

I leave my desk very often for short periods of time and often, I get emails, calls or sms's during these.

Is it possible for me to let the iPhone keep the screen lit (although dimmed) while in dock?

As it is now, I have to press home button and unlock every time, to see if there's any messages, which I find quite foolish 🙂

On my other phones, they either only go dim (and let me see if there's messages) or go "black out" like the iPhone but then have some other kind of indicator, when new messages arrive.

MacPro, Mac OS X (10.4.8), MacPro / 8 gb / xt1900 / 2x30" + Nikon D2x, Aperture, Photoshop CS3

Posted on Aug 26, 2008 1:45 AM

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Answer 1

Aug 26, 2008 1:56 AM in response to KLP29

Yes, just turn the auto lock to off and the display will stay on.

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Answer 2

KLP29 Author

Level 1

11 points

Aug 26, 2008 2:03 AM in response to steve copeland

Oh - I thought this was only to lock the thing 🙂

I've changed it now and it stays lit, thanks 🙂

Can I auto dim it after a little while? I'm afraid the screen will get "burned in" if I have it show the same icons lit for 12 hours each day 🙂

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Answer 3

Aug 26, 2008 2:15 AM in response to KLP29

Can I auto dim it after a little while? I'm afraid the screen will get "burned in" if I have it show the same icons lit for 12 hours each day

LCDs shouldn't have burn-in problems, and the backlight is LED, so should have a long life.

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Answer 4

JoeZinVA

Level 2

431 points

Aug 26, 2008 2:44 AM in response to Malcolm Rayfield

Malcolm Rayfield wrote:
LCDs shouldn't have burn-in problems, and the backlight is LED, so should have a long life.

Minus lightning strikes. That would burn it out.

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Answer 5

Quake97

Level 6

8,844 points

Aug 26, 2008 8:34 AM in response to KLP29

I wouldn't do this for a long time. If you keep the screen on for long periods, you're lowering the life of the screen. The iPhone is designed, like most phones, for the screen to turn off after a given time. For example, the screen might have a MTBF (mean time between failures) rating of 5000 hours. If you leave the screen one for 8 hours a day, you're approaching that number much faster than if you'd let it turn itself off.

Joe

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Answer 6

Aug 26, 2008 8:44 AM in response to Quake97

The screen (the backlight really) is likely to last well beyond the time that you'll own the phone. How long do you expect to keep the phone afterall, one or two years max?

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Answer 7

Aug 27, 2008 3:44 PM in response to Quake97

That's not necessarily true. Having the screen off and on a lot can also reduce the life of the LCD by giving it more thermal shock and electrical shock. If it gets cold then hot lots of times per day may be more detrimental than just leaving on. Short of doing lab tests there's no way to say how long to leave on is too long.

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