HTC One - Updated to 4.3, Google should reign in the status bar

[Darth Mo]

With 4.3 we get yet another persistent icon in the status bar so now there is even less room. I thought when they added native battery percentage you could swap out the battery icon, but no, so basically that feature is useless to anyone with access to the app store.

So with location, a daily alarm, NFC and Bluetooth turned on, data indicator, signal strength, battery bar and clock that leaves only three spots for active apps/notifications. Even fewer when listening to music with Beats audio.

So what you get is two spots for notifications, one you usually lose because when you have more than can be shown, you get the icon that tells you that you have more.

What they should do is have notification push the persistent icons off not the other way around. If I check my phone quickly at work I want to know what notifications I have and not all that concern whether my location is locked in.

 

[Gator352]

I agree. It's obtrusive but I think it's Google and not HTC that made it that way. If you notice the screen shots of 4.4, it's like what you're describing.

 

[Darth Mo]

I agree. It's obtrusive but I think it's Google and not HTC that made it that way. If you notice the screen shots of 4.4, it's like what you're describing.

Oh, I'm not blaming HTC, it's definitely Google. They should have made the status bar fully customizable several versions ago. Could even be lazy and just double the height of it. There's plenty of screen real estate these days.

 

[Gator352]

Oh, I'm not blaming HTC, it's definitely Google. They should have made the status bar fully customizable several versions ago. Could even be lazy and just double the height of it. There's plenty of screen real estate these days.

I agree. There are apps that you can customize and have it display info in the status bar or not. I don't see why Google can't do that. Doubling up on the status bar would send android users into a tizzy even if there is plenty of screen.

 

[ajua]

Doubling up the size of the status bar would be terrible. Most of the time we don't have that many notifications justifying the added size. If Google allows persistent notifications to be hidden from the status bar, it would be better instead.