Comments on: The Marimba ringtone heard 'round the world: symphonygate update

By: Fnordius

Fnordius — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 09:43:00 +0000

A good UI reason for this is if you set a recurring alarm. The other time where it makes sense is when you can’t tell in advance if you will be in a “no alarm” area when setting the alarm hours in advance.

I agree that the user needs to have this setting available, and Apple is probably going to update this ASAP (Google and Microsoft will also be scrambling to check their apps too).

By: Fnordius

Fnordius — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 09:38:00 +0000

More a case of the guy thinking “it can’t be me, I know I turned my phone off!” and not realising that some forgotten alarm was going off.

By: Fnordius

Fnordius — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 09:36:00 +0000

I personally am loathe to turn my phone off after I mis-typed the GSM PIN and had a brick until I could get home and type in the SuperPIN. Anecdotal reports from people I know suggests that I am not alone.

By: Fnordius

Fnordius — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 09:33:00 +0000

I disagree. If you want that sort of behaviour, then there should be a setting to allow for it. Too many people treat the mute as “theatre mode”, and I myself use it to mute the phone during meetings.

I suspect Apple will soon be rolling out a new setting anyway so that you can fine-tune the mute button behaviour to accommodate both of us, with the default being that all alarms are muted to vibrate only as well.

By: paul beard

paul beard — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 08:14:00 +0000

I don’t *usually* tell the Boss to RTFM: if I like the job and can stand the Boss, I RTFM and tell him the bits he needs to know. It’s amazing how much you can learn from reading the story instead of a heavily commented on excerpt.

By: paul beard

paul beard — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 08:11:00 +0000

And if you didn’t know enough about it to know it made noises? Dude didn’t even know phones had alarms, let alone how to turn one off. This is sounding more and more like a first world problem but not for him as much as for the people who have never ever had a piece of kit do something unexpected and embarrassing.

By: paul beard

paul beard — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 08:07:00 +0000

No, you’re not. But maybe whatever I set an alarm for is. And knowing how to turn it off is even more important.

By: Guest

Guest — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 08:05:00 +0000

A little clock icon appears next to the battery icon at the top right of the screen to indicate an alarm is active.

When you flip the no ringing switch an icon of a crossed out bell appears momentarily.

When I power down my iphone entirely it does not power itself on to sound an alarm.

By: Guest

Guest — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

If I were completely unfamiliar with something that made noises I was not entire sure I knew how to control, I would not bring it to the theatre, because I am not a prat.

By: Guest

Guest — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

if he is on call he should not be in the theater.

By: Guest

Guest — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 07:56:00 +0000

then, may I submit, you have the wrong phone, and that is entirely your responsibility.

By: Guest

Guest — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 07:55:00 +0000

I’m pretty psyched about my personal responsibility for my own alarms too!

By: Guest

Guest — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 07:54:00 +0000

I think that’s the best summary here.

By: Guest

Guest — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 07:52:00 +0000

Why?

Becuase your second phone is an iphone?

Can you just be happy with your clearly superior product?

By: Guest

Guest — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 07:51:00 +0000

he is an android phone rep, can you not see that?

By: Guest

Guest — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 07:46:00 +0000

Failing to know how your stuff works is bad user. Blaming the interface is weaksauce.

As are the rhetorical flourishes and false outrage.

edit: you’re not blaming apple, but anyone who disagrees with you is an apple apologist? TROLL ON.

Second edit: stop trying to sell phones here.

By: Guest

Guest — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 07:42:00 +0000

it’s not that he was disturbed involuntarily. it was that 2,000 other people and a bunch of professional musicians were disturbed involuntarily.

By: Guest

Guest — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 07:38:00 +0000

‘no matter where I am’

see, I happen to know that i’m just not that damned important. I suspect you aren’t either.

By: Guest

Guest — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 07:37:00 +0000

He should be ashamed. Not much more.

By: Wayne Dyer

Wayne Dyer — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 06:12:00 +0000

Indeed. Having alarms sound despite the ringer being off is a Good Thing. What people aren’t used to is carrying around an alarm clock in their pockets.

By: Ant

Ant — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 21:08:00 +0000

Or yank its battery out. ;)

By: Marktech

Marktech — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 11:48:00 +0000

I dunno. If people – and the Apple manual – refer to switching a phone to “silent”, I can see how confusion could occur. The manual does say that alarms will still sound if you set the Ring/Silent switch to silent; but in that case I think they could find a more intuitively-understandable name for the switch. As it stands, the manual is obliged to say that “silent” doesn’t really mean “silent”, but means “ringtone is silenced”; and most people who have grown up with phones will take that design illogicality for granted.

I’m curious: how clearly does the iPhone show that an alarm has been set?

By: Øyvind

Øyvind — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 06:19:00 +0000

To that I would like to say two things. 1: HE should have RTFM when he got a new phone. 2: when you’re in a theater where silence is expected, you turn your phone off. Not on silent, off. (With a possible caveat of him being a doctor on call or similar)
Maybe he’s not a huge ass, but still somewhat of an ass.

By: paul beard

paul beard — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 05:31:00 +0000

But the point is that he didn’t know how. He thought he had turned it off. He obviously agrees with you but his execution was lacking.

By: Guest

Guest — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 05:19:00 +0000

Even a new phone is one I turn off in a theater. If my job requires that it be on and I be available, I don’t go to the theater at that time.

By: Donald Petersen

Donald Petersen — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:33:00 +0000

Does it? My wife’s new iPhone has at least four buttons on it. If I were completely unfamiliar with my new iPhone and I discovered it was making noise in this kind of situation, I’d probably mash some buttons too.

By: esoteric4

esoteric4 — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:31:00 +0000

n/t

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:06:00 +0000

I have a sudden urge to stick my head up through the ceiling tiles.

By: Jim Saul

Jim Saul — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:05:00 +0000

They cut him a break by not naming him.

I suspect his version of the story starts to break down around when he mentions that he was frantically pressing all the buttons on his iPhone.

By: Donald Petersen

Donald Petersen — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:03:00 +0000

this is how phones have worked for decades.

I don’t believe this is true. ”Decades” ago, phones neither had alarm clocks, nor fit in one’s pocket. Surely you’re old enough to remember that.