Danny Stewart

I’ve kept quiet on this recent discussion about the iPhone mute switch because I think it’s pretty insignificant and overblown. However, there is one thing I haven’t heard anybody else point out. I’ve heard people say that activating the silent switch on an iPhone should present an alert if you have an alarm scheduled. I was reminded this morning while listening to The Talk Show that the iPhone already essentially does this.

Look up there in the status bar. Apple has always been extremely conservative when it comes to choosing what indicators to put up in the status bar. They only put up indicators for things that are in effect right now. In a sense, they are indications of “modes” the phone can be in—audio playback enabled, alarm(s) enabled, orientation lock enabled. (I always thought it would make sense to include an indicator for silent mode as well.) They are there to tell you how your phone is currently configured at this moment in time.

The fact that they have deemed an active alarm worthy of a permanent spot there is pretty significant. I would say that that is their warning to people using an alarm. You can’t look at your phone in any app without a constant reminder that you have an alarm enabled.

In fact, because I like to keep my status bar clear, I’ve started using Due to handle alarms for me, as I need an alarm to wake me up every weekday morning, and I don’t like having that permanent indicator taking up space.

This recent hullabaloo may have been a perfect storm of unfortunate coincidences, but I believe Apple has taken every reasonable step and made the right design decisions.