Dear Auntie TUAW: What's that little dot in the iPhone's status bar?

Dear Auntie TUAW,

I was driving home from an appointment today with my brother, and at a stop light, I noticed that instead of the Edge "E", I had this little blue dot. I just assumed that it was where i had connected to WiFi and had no bars, but it was much too big and centered.

My brother, who also has an iPhone, pulled his out to find that we both had the little dot. They are both first Gen iPhones, his 4GB, mine 8GB. I did not know what this meant, but being the Apple nerd I am, I figure I would have heard something of this dot before now.

Do you know what it is? Could it have something to do with 3.0 coming out soon as expected? Thanks, And I look forward to hearing what you think.

With love from your nephew,

Andrew Dixon

Andrew, sweetheart,

Speaking of the iPhone, are you including enough roughage in your diet? Now that I'm entering onto what we oldsters can only term our "tender years," I've grown to realize that bulk, bulk, bulk is the key to world happiness. Fiber is health; health, fiber. That is what we know at TUAW, and all ye need to know for better digestive function.

As for your question, that little blue circle means you youngsters were connected to a GPRS network, aka General Packet Radio Service. When the iPhone first debuted, it displayed the EDGE "E" when connected to GPRS. This made pedants cry. Newer firmware versions show this blue circle instead. As noted below, GPRS is quite a bit slower than either EDGE or 3G.

To check this icon out for yourself, you can browse through your iPhone files using sftp (on a jailbroken iPhone) or iBrowser (for iPhones with the developer deployment). The EDGE and GPRS icons live in /System/Library/CoreServices/SpringBoard.app and are named FSO_EDGE_ON.png and FSO_GPRS_ON.png. You'll need to convert the compressed iPhone-style png images to Mac compatible ones using a utility like fixpng.

Send my love to your brother and don't forget to wear a scarf to keep your neck warm!

Love and hugs,

Auntie T.

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Dear Auntie TUAW, I was driving home from an appointment today with my brother, and at a stop light, I noticed that instead of the Edge...

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frankmantica

I have never seen that circle before--it does look cool, though.

Free iPhone Apps!
http://www.webappuniverse.com

June 16 2009 at 6:26 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Samrat

No man that blue dot is common.It shows when no network(GPRS/EDGE/3G) is available.
Not the phone network only internet.

June 06 2009 at 12:36 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jocca

For all of us who have a first generation iPhone, there is a beautiful solution out there that will bring your telephone up to 3G speed. Verizon MiFi2200 features is an easy to carry mobile wi-fi gadget that pulls the signal in from its 3G network. Skype works very well on it and you get speedy connection to the web wherever you go. I have been using it for for three days already and am very satisfied with it. As an added bonus, you can have up to five devices (laptop, phone etc..) connected to this network at the same time. Needless to say that I cancelled my account with AT&T and am now entirely dependent on this gadget.

June 05 2009 at 6:57 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

William

You state, "As noted below, GPRS is quite a bit slower than either EDGE or 3G."

Noted where? I don't see any numbers...or is someone just saying it's slower count as noted?

June 05 2009 at 6:18 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to William's comment

Michael Rose

Noted on the first page of comments.

June 05 2009 at 10:45 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

tbehunin99

Auntie TUAW, thank you so much! I've always wondered what that "dot" was! I was even in the Apple Store today and asked an associate and he didn't have a clue.

June 05 2009 at 5:28 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Alan Perry

I was in between "No" and "Where" in New Mexico and saw this. Kept toggling between that and "no service". Had to wait till we got an "E" before we could connect again.

June 05 2009 at 4:55 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Pam

When driving through South Dakota and Wyoming I experienced this dot a lot when I had service. The keyword being when.

June 05 2009 at 3:12 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Lee

Welcome back Erica.

Although, some may complain, I for one welcome your posts. It always seemed like wading through so many links to get to your posts on Ars.

June 05 2009 at 2:48 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Lenno

I live in Germany and have a 2G-iPhone (USA-Model - hacked) and use a 1&1 Flat-Tariff (30 â‚¬/month flat internet and landbound phone). This is a Vodafone-reselling tariff. V. only have Umts (in towns) OR gprs ... At the moment i am in the city so I have the little dot - only somewhere in the country I see the big E. But better then nothing ;-)

June 05 2009 at 2:31 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Aresinferno

Wow guys. Seriously? That blue dot is pretty much what I get ALL the time in the UK. Even 3G is more common than edge and even then you are lucky to get 3G at all. I live in the south of england, about an hour away from the outskirts of london.

I don't feel that gprs is slow at all considering I have gotten so used to it. The times that I have got an edge connection it was considerably slower than full bar gprs. It's no 3G but it will do for now.

June 05 2009 at 2:11 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply