gdgt

My guess is Apple wants to take away the phone management aspect from the user, stemming from their outspoken disdain for task managers. They would rather try to make their auto-brightness setting work well enough so that users don't have to constantly adjust it themselves. Obviously this doesn't work if many people find themselves jumping into settings to change the brightness.

The iPad does this but I don't find that I adjust the brightness that often on my devices to find it useful. I just lower the brightness settings when first setting up most devices.

I didn't think about it until this question came up. I use that all the time on the iPad but I hardly ever adjust the brightness on my iPhone4. So I'm not sure if the auto adjust is better or just the larger screen of the iPad makes the brightness so obvious and 'in your face'. There are so many times that I go to adjust the brightness of the iPad only to find its as low as it goes. Likewise I quite often have to turn off the iPhone to power it back on to get the brightness to adjust.

Come to think of it I never use the volume adjuster in the iPhone multi-tasking bar either. The volume buttons are way more usable on the iPhone. The only thing I use on the left is the media controls and the screen lock.

So to answer your question... I do NOT have an issue with this.

This is one of my biggest annoyances with iOS, and one of the major reasons I jailbreak (for UISettings). They have it on the iPad, I just think it's an oversight.

While I have used the volume a couple of times in the multi-tasking area, I hadn't really thought about having the brightness there. So, I started to think when I have adjusted brightness. I only seem to play with the brightness setting when I am traveling. I seem to have a decent setting at home, but when staying in random hotels, getting on various planes, and meeting in different offices, I end up adjusting the brightness on the iPhone and iPad.

I wonder if Apple decided to choose only what people would most frequently adjust. I also wonder why I even go to the volume on the multi-tasking area since as Turbomac points out, I use the buttons most of the time. My guess I use it because it is there. As to why Apple chose the volume slider...well, maybe it is only because the playback controls are on the previous screen. Since you access it in the multi-tasking area, brightness isn't a multi-tasking item. It is a setting. While it may make sense to put settings down there, a random guess maybe is that it would be too multi-purpose and confusing for some. So, they put in something that would be effected by multi-tasking...ie the volume...

OK, way too much thinking. Good question...I think I would like to see bluetooth on and off there rather than the brightness or volume to be honest.

Pff, this. If I miss the jailbreak, is for an app that adds a brightness slider in the multitasking bar. The iPad has both, they should at least let you choose which one to use on the iPhone.

I agree. Having the volume slider in there, when there are hardware buttons for that, makes it all the more strange from a design standpoint.

I think they should re-design that area, because it's crowded as it is. The current volume slider is practically hidden—it's two swipes to the left, in the multitasking drawer. And worse, the volume slider hogs up one of those screens to itself. Enough if they were to swap it with the Brightness slider, it still wouldn't seem like a "good enough" solution.

Because as Steve would say, you don't need to adjust the brightness on the iPhone. It just works.

I totally agree. I often find myself leaving home at morning (after turning the brightness all the way down for the night) and trying to "guesstimate" where the "settings" button is and what's that currently showing on the screen, so I can somehow find my way to the brightness settings (which can be pretty tough where there's a sunny down and the brightness is all the way down...)

I'm guessing they have put it in the iPad because it's a standard feature of e-Readers (the Kindle has it, also the Nook) and the iPad is positioned as a e-Reader killer more than than iPhone is.

Anyway, I wish the iPhone gets it as well!