What Do Those Status Icons Indicate?

[Jerry Raia]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/help/smartphone/icons.mspx' target='_blank'>http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/help/smartphone/icons.mspx</a><br /><br /></div>Here is a handy guide to what almost all of those status icons on your WM5 device mean. I say almost because they left out the "E" for EDGE data connections. Any of you out there know of others that aren't accounted for? There were a couple there I had never seen as well.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/images/Jerry-indicators.jpg" alt="User submitted image" title="User submitted image"/>

[oturn]

The EDGE icon is only missing in the WWE ROM. It is present in the NRE ROM. The primary difference between the ROM's is that the non-U.S. languages are different. U.S. English is present in both, but it's just not set to default in the NRE version. SP5 owners can download the NRE ROM from the i-mate website. Flashing to the NRE ROM is fairly simple, although you will have to re-install everything....But you get the "E" for EDGE!

[nedge2k]

Gotta go for the obvious one here "U" for UTMS (3G)

there's also the remote display icon but im not sure if that counts.

[Pennan]

Any of you out there know of others that aren't accounted for?

The "vibrator on" icon is usually never mentioned.
It looks like a shaking pda phone.

I first noticed this icon in an AKU update for WM2003 SE. It is present when the vibrator is set to on.
You can see it in WM5 when using the "Meeting" profile.

[Mike Temporale]

Wow, Nice work everyone!

They're also missing a couple different versions of the WiFi icon. It displays differently depending on the state of WiF connection.

[John Cody]

The EDGE icon is only missing in the WWE ROM. It is present in the NRE ROM. The primary difference between the ROM's is that the non-U.S. languages are different. U.S. English is present in both, but it's just not set to default in the NRE version. SP5 owners can download the NRE ROM from the i-mate website. Flashing to the NRE ROM is fairly simple, although you will have to re-install everything....But you get the "E" for EDGE!

How can one check if they have the "WWE" rom or not?

[jtheun]

I get a two-spindle sign for voicemail (on t-mobile)... looks something like:

0_0

Also, one that confused me greatly... I had a C icon for a while once, and then realized it was a caps lock indicator from my thinkoutside keyboard tat was still there after i packed away my keyboard...

[oturn]

How can one check if they have the "WWE" rom or not?

Settings, Regional Settings, Language. If your languages are English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Greek, Turkish and Czech, then you have the WWE ROM. If your languages are English, Finish (suomi), Dutch (Nederlands), Norwegian (Norsk), Slovak (Slovencina), Swedish (Svenska), Hungarian (Magyar) and Danish (Dansk), then you have the NRE ROM. I believe most SP5's shipped to the U.S. have the WWE ROM.

Besides the ROM, there's also a small registry change required to enable the EDGE icon. Check out this thread for more details: http://www.modaco.com/GPRS_EDGE_E_Icon_on_iMate_SP5_Resolution-t234230.html

[John Cody]

Thanks Oturn :)

[Neil]

Wow, does that list ever bring back memories. I'm going to date myself here...

It was, uh, 2000 and by virtue of owning the specification for the home screen that also meant I owned collecting the list of icons for the title bar, and figuring out how to fit them all in. Man, what a royal colossal pain in the butt that was.

You'd think finding the icons to include would be easy, but there are a lot of semi-obscure icons we were required to include for compliance to GSM specifications. You've probably never seen it, but the SIM Full icon is one of these. It would have been very bad to forget one of them only to find out when the phones went for operator testing!

I just dug up the final copy of the home screen spec for Smartphone 2002 and we had 23 icons listed to squeeze into 9 slots. From that list I spent many fun-filled weeks cramming icons, doing a review with folks, looking through the different scenarios, bickering about which icons needed to live across the whole device, etc. We went back and forth over questions like: Is it ok for the voicemail and the SMS and the e-mail icon to share a space?
If they do share a space, which one is the most important? Obviously e-mail is the least important. Or is it? Voicemail must be the most important. But what about people who live and die by SMS in Europe?
Can we cover the battery icon with the text entry method?
Can roaming and GPRS active share a slot?
Once you solve all those problems then the *real* fun begins: what on earth should the icons look like? I'm so glad I didn't have to design the actual pixels :)

What amazes me is that looking back at the spec it's incomplete even at 23 icons! It lists a GPRS available icon, for example, but not the GPRS connected icon that is mooshed into the signal strength. What's amusing is that icon also is still missing from the website that started this whole thread.

Now for a fun question: There's actually an icon from the original Smartphone spec that, as far as I know, never made it into any device and isn't listed on the reference site. Anyone care to guess what it is?

Neil

[John Cody]

Now for a fun question: There's actually an icon from the original Smartphone spec that, as far as I know, never made it into any device and isn't listed on the reference site. Anyone care to guess what it is?
Neil

I would guess maybe the "New Fax" icon or the "Sync Error" icon?

[Neil]

Wow, that was quick :) Yes, it's the new fax icon. The sync error icon is there, I've seen it many times...

Neil

[John Cody]

Wow, that was quick :) Yes, it's the new fax icon. The sync error icon is there, I've seen it many times...

Neil

I cheated...I looked at the sp2002 homescreen design paper on MSDN which listed all the icons defined.

Curious, if two icons need to be active at the same time and are assigned to the same position, why not just alternate between them? i.e. like flash back and forth between the voice mail icon and email icon if there are new messages for both.

[Mike Temporale]

Wow, does that list ever bring back memories. I'm going to date myself here...

I always like it when Neil comes around and posts on the site. He's always got the best stories and insight. :)

I have never thought twice about why I don't see an icon at a given time. So, whatever you guys did to solve those icon display questions, you did a fine job of it. :way to go:

[Neil]

Curious, if two icons need to be active at the same time and are assigned to the same position, why not just alternate between them?

Battery life. It would mean we'd have to constantly wake up the processors to alternate between the two, and for maintaining a long runtime that's a very bad thing.

Neil

[John Cody]

Battery life. It would mean we'd have to constantly wake up the processors to alternate between the two, and for maintaining a long runtime that's a very bad thing.
Neil

I don't know of any smartphones that are usable without the backlight on, so what's your thoughts on only toggling the icons when the backlight is on (which would mean that the user is actively using the phone, so no extra battery life is used for the icon switching).

In other words, the routine that gets called when the backlight is being shut off, would also include additional code to "freeze" the icon on whatever one was being displayed when the routine was called - which would make that icon behave like the static (non-toggling) method you have now. Then, in the "backlight on" routine, it would unfreeze the icon and allow it to toggle.

[Neil]

You could, but then the screen gets awfully busy with flashing/blinking things. We found that there was typically a clear priority of importance, and at any rate if you had any one of the kinds of message when you went into the mail client you'd see them. Further, the home screen plugins for mail would tell you the specific count of each, so even if you had more than one there was another way to find the more detailed info.

We also made sure that the *really* important stuff (missed call, for example), didn't share a slot with anything else.

Neil