There is a fun discussion going on around how the iPhone handles the “Ring/Silent” switch.

Marco on the iPhone’s Mute behavior

“The user told the iPhone to make noise by either scheduling an alarm or initiating an obviously noise-playing feature in an app.

The user also told the iPhone to be silent with the switch on the side.

The user has issued conflicting commands, and the iPhone can’t obey both.”

Marco is right that it can’t obey both, so I would like it to obey the command I issued last. That means when I say “shut up” I mean to shut everything up until I say otherwise. It means I don’t want my phone to make any noise at all. I almost always use that switch to avoid disturbing other people. Those people don’t (and shouldn’t) care if that sudden noise resulted “from user actions that are solely and explicitly intended to produce sound.” They only know some doofus forgot to turn off his phone and it’s ruining the performance. I don’t want to be that doofus just because I’d forgotten that I’d done something or other in some app hours or days before.

When I used to have a regular alarm clock, I had to reset it each night before bed. That was normal. If I forgot and overslept it was my fault. I feel the same about my phone. If I tell it to not make noise, it shouldn’t make any noise. If that makes the iPhone less useful as an alarm clock, I’ll just get a proper clock.

Marco points out later on Twitter:

That almost nobody has really talked about the iPhone’s mute policy in its 4.5 years suggests that Apple probably made the right choice.

That is a good point, but I still disagree with with Apple’s choice.

UPDATE: I’m with Ihnatko on this.