Do I Want to mute or Do I Want to MUTE?

[Jeff Campbell]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://ihnatko.com/2012/01/14/daring-fireball-on-the-behavior-of-the-iphone-mute-switch/' target='_blank'>http://ihnatko.com/2012/01/14/darin...ne-mute-switch/</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"I think Brother Gruber is wrong when he says that Brother Jim is wrong. John's point is that the iPhone handles the Mute switch in a friendly and sophisticated way. The iPhone doesn't treat it like a modal function (speaker is on, speaker is off). The iPhone does a contextual mute."</em></p><p><img height="319" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/zt/auto/1303417243.usr105634.jpg" style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 50px;" width="500" /></p><p>I personally like the fact that I can mute my iPhone from every sound except for the alarm. I think this works well and, since I know that this is the way it functions, I know if I truly want to silence everything I better make sure I have my alarms off (or at least set for a time later than during the time I need it quiet). So I guess I'm <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2012/01/iphone_mute_switch_design" target="_blank">with Gruber</a> on this one, sorry Andy (although I do like his suggestion of a switch in settings that could truly mute everything if the user wanted to). What are your thoughts?</p>

[paris18m]

Mute button does mute anything besides the alarm is a good thing! since most of the time i would have a problem with my alarms if it worked otherwise. If i mute my phone during night hours so it won't disrupt me and forgot to disable enable it, my alarms will still fire! which is cool.


Volume control also works in a similar way! its not a global volume thing. if i am playing a game and i lower the volume, i can still hear a call coming in later on, since ringer and alerts have their own setting under sounds and a toggle if ringer and alerts will change with the volume buttons!

A toggle in setting for control in mute everything or mute everything but alarms would not be a bad thing thought! being on by default would not change existing way iOS works

[Sven Johannsen]

I'm sure the gentleman who interrrupted the New York Philharmonic would have his own opinion about this.

Likely you have heard of the incident, but may not realize he had just received the iPhone, believed he had silenced it, and had no idea alarms would continue to blare.

New York Philharmonic cell phone offender speaks out - Celebrity Circuit - CBS News (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31749_162-57358927-10391698/new-york-philharmonic-cell-phone-offender-speaks-out/)

Are we accepting that the the only way to positively keep an iPhone from disturbing others is to shut it off? Couldn't set it to just vibrate, regardless of the source of stimulus. (I can do so with my Windows Phone).

No, probably not acceptable to have to ensure there aren't any active alarms or lord knows what else Apple believes is more important than my conscious decision to flip on mute. It making noise when I said not to...its fault. My forgetting to un-mute and missing an alarm...my fault.

[Jason Dunn]

Likely you have heard of the incident, but may not realize he had just received the iPhone, believed he had silenced it, and had no idea alarms would continue to blare.

There's something fundamentally wrong with an electronic device that makes any noise when the user turns the volume down all the way. Would we accept a TV that made any noise when muted? Yet somehow we accept this as normal behaviour on our phones - that users who mute their phones at night still want to be woken up by alarms in the morning...yet that same behaviour causes problems during in the middle of a symphony. I can see both sides of this problem, which makes it all the more vexing...

[Sven Johannsen]

Let me point out a major bug/issue in Windows Phone. BT audio is not routed to the BT headset (A2DP) when watching videos. The given reason has been regidstration issues between the audio and video stream, so the option was removed. The issue is if you are in Zune listenning to tunes on your BT headphones and select a music video, guess what happens to the sound. Yes folks it comes right out of the speaker. Select a music track and yu are back to the BT headphones. That's wrong!!!. If you shut off the headsets, it will pause whatever you are listenning to, just like pulling physical headphones out. That's apparently a concession for accidental blaring in case something pulls them out, or you accidentally hit the BT off. If you make a conscious switch from audio to video though, the sound just moves from BT to speaker.
Be aware of what you are about to watch ;)