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Comment by strongpigeon | Hacker News Reader

I’m probably in the minority, but a thing I’d love to see is a much stronger flashlight. It’s silly, but the flashlight is something I use almost daily and having a more powerful one would be quite useful.

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What a random feature request. In case you're not aware, you can open control center, long-press on the flashlight icon and you get to adjust the brightness of the flashlight. If you're not already at the max level, you might get a slightly (but definitely not much) stronger flashlight on your current phone.

I don't think I'd ever heard about this functionality before, thanks.

My wife is a long time Apple user, and I had to tell her to charge her phone sideways, swipe a few times horizontally and a few more vertically to get the night clock face with big numbers she wanted.

Despite boasting to have an intuitive UX, iOS can be very obscure regarding discoverability and exploration of features. Many features give no hints whatsoever of existing.

Not sure how it's random. I use the flashlight every day as well. A better one(yes I have it maxed out already) would be more valuable to me than any of the features they announced today.

Just a data point, I have a $800 watch (Garmin Fenix 7 Pro Sapphire) that has a built in LED flashlight, including a red hue. I bought it to have backup GPS in off grid situations and for health and activity tracking, but tbh the feature I would never want to give up is the flashlight. I use it all the time and it’s, frankly, invaluable. I’m not sure if other smart watches have good flashlights, but they should. I almost never use my phone flashlight as a result.

Apple Watches also have a "flashlight" feature, including a red light mode for SOS and running modes, but they just turn on the screen to full white or red output with some brightness controls. It's not a dedicated LED emitter like yours appears to be but it's sufficient for finding things in the dark or not tripping on something.

Me too! I thought it would be somewhat gimmicky but I use my Garmin flashlight all the time. For instance I was just trekking in South America and at camp while everyone else was using headlamps to get around at night, constantly shining lights in each others' eyes I could use the more subtle watch light to get up and find the toilet, etc.

Yep. I use the Garmin 955 flashlight all the time. It is how I navigate my house at night. I didn't know about the red hue option. Nice!

Find a cool keychain one to carry with you then! https://darksucks.com/products/quark-qk16l-mkiii-slate-blue-...

Except when it’s accidentally turned on in your pocket. Ouch!

You’d think they could use all of the sensors on the phone to detect this

Leaving the flashlight on annoys me but nothing beats an AirPod in the case that’s not charging. That one drives me nuts. If I’m not listening to anything and one of the two AirPods is charging then they really should be able to detect that and alert me. Especially with all of the find my features.

Yes! I bought a 15 pro solely to use the action button as a flashlight. Silly but convenient.

I agree. It would be so easy to turn it from a book light into something actually useful.

I think that's problematic from a power consumption point of view (and heat)

Not really what you're looking for, but a dedicated "proper" flashlight today easily has 1500-2000 lumens. It's a far cry from those old AA maglights, and frankly it's absolutely worth it if you need a torch for even 10 minutes a week.

I have a Sofirn SP35 (USB-C charging, standard 21700 battery) and for about $40 it can be brighter than a car's low beams. r/flashlight's recommended lights is a solid place to start.

Honestly, buy a real nice dedicated flashlight then. Do we need to waste more rare earth metals, so your phone has brighter LEDs?

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