I’ve been reding various posts over the last few days about the mute switch on the iPhone and what it actually does. I’ve decided to chime in with what I think will work. The argument revolves around what the mute switch on the iPhone should actually do. Some think it should mute all sound, regardless of what triggers it. Others think it should work as it does now where it only mutes certain sounds but still allows alarms to sound when set. Source 1.
My own thoughts are that I want the mute switch to mute everything. If I switch sound off, I want no sounds at all to be made with just a single exception to Find My iPhone and setting it to beep remotely in case I want to track it down when lost.
To get around this, perhaps the image above could shed some light on a possible solution. Just like the iPad has a switch that can act as mute or lock rotation, could the iPhone give an option to Mute All or Mute Selected items like it does now? It seems easy enough for Apple to implement and wouldn’t take away from user experience. When selecting Mute All, a pop-up message could be displayed that reminds you that alarms will also be muted, or just a simple notification that tells you when you mute that alarms will also be silenced.
Anyway, just my 2c on the mute switch debate. Obviously an easy fix and I’m sure an app will appear on Cydia for it if there’s any call for it. If there’s a lot of call for it, Apple might consider adding it. For now, just be aware that sometimes your iPhone might make noises when you don’t expect it to. That’s nothing new though as it has always behaved that way ever since I got a 3GS a couple of years back.