Signal Icons Meanings

[this_is_nascar]

This may be more specific to Verizon than to the Turbo, but I'll take a chance and post it here. As it relates to the signalling icons for strength, WiFi, 4G, etc, what do the changes in them represent? For example, sometimes they may be in blue, instead of white. Sometimes, I see 2-small dots under one of the icons. Other times, it's a combination of all the above.

 

[doogald]

This may be more specific to Verizon than to the Turbo, but I'll take a chance and post it here. As it relates to the signalling icons for strength, WiFi, 4G, etc, what do the changes in them represent? For example, sometimes they may be in blue, instead of white. Sometimes, I see 2-small dots under one of the icons. Other times, it's a combination of all the above.

You will never see blue anymore with a phone that's KitKat or later. Blue (under ICS and Jellybean) meant that you were connected and autenticated to Google services through that networking interface. Now on KitKat you need to do a two-finger pulldown (to open the settings notification shade) to see if you are authenticated - white means that you are, orange means that you are not.

I've never seen two small dots.

On a Turbo, the WiFi icon shows up and down triangles to show network activity, though this is now non-standard Android behavior. (It's one example where the Turbo does not use stock Android.)

If you are connected to a network extender on Verizon, you will see a small house icon flash above the network signal strength indicator.

Signal strength is denoted by the number of bars filled in by the WiFi and mobile network indicators, though I've never seen a definition of what strength indicates which number of bars.

 

[vzwuser76]

You will never see blue anymore with a phone that's KitKat or later. Blue (under ICS and Jellybean) meant that you were connected and autenticated to Google services through that networking interface. Now on KitKat you need to do a two-finger pulldown (to open the settings notification shade) to see if you are authenticated - white means that you are, orange means that you are not.

I've never seen two small dots.

On a Turbo, the WiFi icon shows up and down triangles to show network activity, though this is now non-standard Android behavior. (It's one example where the Turbo does not use stock Android.)

If you are connected to a network extender on Verizon, you will see a small house icon flash above the network signal strength indicator.

Signal strength is denoted by the number of bars filled in by the WiFi and mobile network indicators, though I've never seen a definition of what strength indicates which number of bars.

I understand their reasoning for the status bar changes in KK (less redrawing so supposedly better on battery and allows for better performance on lower end hardware. However, there comes a point where what they're doing actually decreases functionality. Before KK, I could look at my status bar and know that I was connected to an active WiFi signal and what my battery level was. Now I've had times where the WiFi icon looks like I'm connected and the signal is good, but it's not working, like!e its hung up. And battery requires me to pull down the notification shade to see what it actually is, unless I'm around 50%. I have the app installed that allows the battery percentage to be displayed in the battery icon. On KK the numbers were white and the icon was blue, and there were no issues. Now the numbers are white and so is the icon, so it has to get down so low before you start to see the numbers.

Honestly is starting to seem like they're going backward in functionality with every new release since KK. They got rid of the things I mentioned in KK, they dropped private mode in LP. If they keep removing things to increase performance, were gonna end up with a touchscreen dumb phone.

 

[xmx1024]

I believe the two dots are related to spectrum/XLTE?

 

[xmx1024]

I believe the two dots are related to spectrum/XLTE?

Oh, the triangles. Some manufacturers re-enable them to shoe network activities