HTC One: Stock Flashlight App, Please

[LDrewDavis]

Just activated service, and was sad that I couldn't find the Flashlight app that I had gotten used to with my HTC Sensation on another carrier.

I found an APK that was reportedly from the HTC stock ROM and installed that.  Seems to work.  But it would have been nice to have it pre-installed, not to mention not having to worry about the possibility of a Trojan Horse APK. 

Please add the flashlight to the Verizon image for the HTC One.

[budone]

Heck just get a free flashlight app. Safer no worries about viruses.

[LDrewDavis]

That's what I did -- in particular, the regular HTC app.

It's mysterious why Verizon would choose to remove it from the regular HTC package.

[#4]

Here is another tidbit. Verizon also removed the stock FM Radio that every other carrier has on the HTC One.

Now the flashlight hmmm. I wonder what else Verizon didn't leave on the device.

[budone]

as for the flashlight, I suspect they left it off due to so many being available thru the play store. The FM radio, just a money grab

[demmo86rt]

It wouldn't surprise me if they left the flashlight app off because it can damage the phone. 

[#7]

demmo86rt wrote:

It wouldn't surprise me if they left the flashlight app off because it can damage the phone. 

Ha ha love this reply. I was thinking more along the lines of Budone reply. They are numerous in the Play Store.

However again the carrier should not tamper with a feature built into the device. The carriers should just provide the network and nothing else.

[demmo86rt]

Who will people turn to when the flash stops working while taking pictures?

[LDrewDavis]

That would surprise me.  Flash LEDs are also designed to run constantly on ("100% duty cycle", or as Philips calls it, "torch mode").  Usually that's about one-third of the current that's used by the flash application, with a slower on time, so it's less stressful than flashing in that sense.  Notice that the video capture mode of the camera app turns the LED on continuously.

If flashlight apps operated at a low enough level that they could override the current limits and duty cycle, they'd stress the LED.  But then, that's one reason I prefer the factory app to some random one.  If the LED put out enough heat to reach 85 C, that could also become a problem -- but if your phone gets that hot, I'd hope you'd turn it off.

LED lifespan is usually cited as around 50,000 hours -- of continuous operation, that is.  I don't think there's any reasonable chance of "using up" your LED with the occasional use as a flashlight.

[Ann154]

It is more likely that the driver for the LED would fail before the LED does.