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Ok, good point calling me out on that technicality. But my point stands. This is an illogical move, IMO.

Not merely a technicality. Youll never be in a situation transporting your iPad when you'd need to quickly lock the o. But plenty of situations where you'll need to mute it quickly
 
when is 4.2 going to be "officially" released?

I highly, highly suspect Nov 10th.

Beta 1 Comes out, 2 weeks later Beta 2 comes out, 2 weeks later Beta 3 comes out, this wednesday the 27th I think Beta 4 will come out and in 2 weeks after that the 4.2 official will be out. I don't think that there will be a beta 5
 
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It's not a huge deal to mute with the rocker switch. But having a dedicated switch makes muting (and orientation lock) consistent across iDevices.

Rocker switch won't mute unless the iPad is awake and unlocked. Nit convenient if you're in a meeting, for example
 
Funny how some are making this such a big deal. Remember when they had the first leaked images of the iPad? Everyone at first thought the switch was a mute switch.

No biggie for me.
 
Really?

Again, really?

I'm glad I don't make products that you buy, if I did I would take it away from you. It's a switch. A switch.

Again, a switch.

This article is talking about the purpose of a switch.

Again, a switch.

Your iPad will still work, and your life will move forward. Promise.

I can't believe people are contemplating the the fact of upgrading their device depending if they can:

a. Mute faster
b. Lock their screen faster

Either way you haven't lost the function... I really truly am in awe.

Practice? Practice? Were talking about practice.

Not a game. Practice
 
For those of us with a case, fiddling in there for the switch is a little tricky.

Isn't that more of a commentary of people using poorly designed cases? When I made my own case, I made sure everything was accessible. Why some commercial cases can't manage that, I don't know.

Rocker switch won't mute unless the iPad is awake and unlocked. Nit convenient if you're in a meeting, for example

I hadn't realized that, though that's a design choice. I can see either way being useful, one path must be chosen.
 
MY email

I sent the email to him. I asked why the change but never got the 3rd response i was looking for.


It was awesome that he wrote me back to begin with tho


Email Below. I have the email headers to prove it but that would make the post very long. if you guys want to see them i can. Just let me know.

I have actually got 3 emails from Steve over the weekend. The other was about OSX 10.7. Great Weekend for me :)




From: Steve Jobs <sjobs@apple.com>
Date: October 23, 2010 4:45:57 PM EDT
To: Robert Novak <robert>
Subject: Re: iPad Mute Switch

Nope.

On Oct 23, 2010, at 1:25 PM, Robert Novak wrote:

Steve,

Are you planning to make that a changeable option?



Thank You,
Robert Novak


On Oct 23, 2010, at 4:07 PM, Steve Jobs wrote:

Yep.

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 23, 2010, at 12:41 PM, Robert Novak <robert> wrote:

Steve,

In IOS 4.2 for iPad is the switch on the side going to be the mute and not screen orientation lock from now on?



Thank You,
Robert Novak
 
I like it how the people on this thread saying it's only a switch don't even own an iPad.

One idiot said it's even more useful. What a crackpot - you need a mute switch on a phone because you need to quickly put it on silent without unlocking it, putting in the passcode etc, when you go into meetings, church etc.

So it makes sense to have a mute switch - whereas when the hell am I ever going to quickly and easily have to mute my iPad. Most of the apps I used don't even make noise, and I am never going to have the situation where I need to quickly mute it. However, there are lots of times when i want to quickly lock the screen when browsing a webpage, magazine etc.


Poor, poor idea from the perspective of user-ergonomics IMO.

You never use your iPad for business or in meetings. Many of us do.

Again, When will you ever need the o lock without waking the device?
 
Steve wait until you get thousands of angry customers calling up and leaving feedback and then tell us if you are going to offer an option for this or not.

You guys have this wrong.

I 've gifted the ipad to quite a few older friends and relatives, and they all know how to flick a switch to have the ipad in one or another direction, and none of them will figure out to double click then swipe left, then touch a control, then click the home screen button to exit...five gestures for no reason whilst one switch is simple, it is enough, and there's already another switch in the volume button to take care of the mute (that no one is going to use anyway because it's not as if the ipad is ever going to ring or something).

Most of them can't figure out double click the home screen button or what background processes are. And rightly so if you ask me, after a certain age.

The mute button is already there when you click and hold the mute dial. There's not point of having a dedicated switch, it's not a damn phone that you want to mute it on the spot.

It's a poor and badly thought out decision, that makes no sense, and you ll soon reverse it....oh great a dedicated mute button for when the ipad rings, oh wait it doesn't?

Very unapple decision.
 
First of all, the level of whining about this issue is kind of a mind blower. Sheesh.

Second, and most importantly, the MUTE switch is NOT the same as volume.

The mute switch will not kill the volume of the iPod or apps that have sound, but it will mute alerts like email and such, as well as FACETIME "ringing" which wil no doubt be coming in rev2!

If you are right then that makes Steve even more lame.
 
You've got to be kidding me. Does apple even qc their own products? For a pickup-drop in 5min device I thought the orientation lock was the smartest thing they put in there -- you're ready to do what you want to do on it, in the orientation you want, in a second. Non-owners probably don't realize how handy of a feature this is, and frankly killing it will have a significant impact to it's usability.

Sure do hope this is a hoax or a brain fart on jobs' part.
 
...You guys have this wrong...
The mute button is already there when you click and hold the mute dial. There's not point of having a dedicated switch, it's not a damn phone that you want to mute it on the spot.
.

It's not a phone, true. But again, it makes plenty of alerts and noises and ft calls will become more used and email dings. Just as with a phone, it is prudent to silence your device in meetings, church (bible on iBooks anyone?) or other places. Being that you currently have to turn on the iPad merely to silence it, there's plenty of reasonsvto have a dedicated switch.

Quite simply, the young tech savvy business person is a more desirable market than people who Cant figure out the switch.

Finally, and once again, you will never need to lock the orientation from a sleeping state
 
Really hate how the volume buttons work right now. I can't wait for this change (as well as all the other changes coming in 4.2!)
 
I am in college and use my iPad primarily for reading (RSS feeds, books, etc.) The few times my iPad isn't muted I'm using it with headphones. Point being, I use the rotation lock SEVERAL times a day, and honestly can't think of a single circumstance that I will use the switch as a mute switch.

I've never thought about jail breaking my iPad, but unfortunately now it looks like I'm going to do so. For someone who uses the iPad primarily for reading (sometimes reclined, laying down, etc.) it just makes immensely more sense.

When I first heard about this I really thought it would be an option. That sure would have been nice.
 
You never use your iPad for business or in meetings. Many of us do.

Again, When will you ever need the o lock without waking the device?

Yeah, so what? Are you expecting it to ring? In that unlikely case hit and hold the volume for 2 secs.

The point is not waking the device or not, it's having a dedicated button you rapidly use, while switching orientations on the ipad, and even more important that you can see via it's position if it's locked or not. I turn around my ipad and lock it plenty of times within a time frame of average usage. Why? Cause it switches orientations easily without the lock. Cause I don't want to bother thinking of how it might switch by my repositioning my grip, I just wanted lock one way. But I am not prepared to go via 5 gestures!!!!!!!!!! to do that...


I mean what are we talking about here guys? This is obviously a piss poor decision by apple. One of the most common functions one is going to use, probably THE most common one after the home button is the lock? Do we all agree there?

OK.

The second most common function should then have 5 gestures to get to?

Does anyone think this is right? 5 clicks/swipes/touches to get to the second most common function?

Another question. The volume button can or can it not function as a mute if you hold it for 1.5 seconds or so?
It can. Agreed here too.

So there's already a very simple way (certainly simpler than 5 gestures) to set up the mute?
We agree here too.

So tell me what is the stupidest thing to do here considering all these?

We take one function like mute that's certainly not one of the most common usages on the ipad (the screen brightness e.g. is more important to me say), that already has a fairly simple way via the volume button to work, we give this function another dedicated button, that functions as button for probably the most common function the lock, so we have both buttons on the side serving overlapping functions, and then we assign that function everyone uses so often to the most convoluted way of at leat 5 gestures (six wit the unlock screen) we can come up with it.

Anyone who doesn't find this colossally stupid, I don't know what to add.

Steve and co. are obviously under the spell of some conception of uniformity between devices, on this...
 
My iPad does little other than collect dust, but I can't say I've ever felt like a needed a "Mute" switch.

You'd think they'd just make its function user configurable... I bet you could drum up an equal vocal minority who'd like it to toggle the brightness between a high and a low setting.
 
This is a dumb change. You can easily mute it now just by holding down the volume rocker.

software orientation lock is very useable and quick, it's not an issue as far as i'm concerned. having the hardware mute is good because you can easily switch back to your set volume and not ramp up and down. i personally feel this "issue" is WAY overblown in the newsgroups. wait till you use it and then see what you think. i've been on the beta for a while and it works very very well. very fast and functional. no problem. imho.
 
It's not a phone, true. But again, it makes plenty of alerts and noises and ft calls will become more used and email dings. Just as with a phone, it is prudent to silence your device in meetings, church (bible on iBooks anyone?) or other places. Being that you currently have to turn on the iPad merely to silence it, there's plenty of reasonsvto have a dedicated switch.

Quite simply, the young tech savvy business person is a more desirable market than people who Cant figure out the switch.

Finally, and once again, you will never need to lock the orientation from a sleeping state

Great, since you guys are so tech savvy then, just click and hold the volume button and in a sec or too, it will be muted. End of story. I am tech savy too and I want one simple switch to flip and unflip to lock or unlock my iphone, and because I am tech savey I don't want to go through 5 gestures to do it.

As for the sleeping state argument, it's irrelevant, you still mute it from sleep, hold the damn volume button down, it will probably be quicker than flipping the switch anyway.



Come on guys let's get real, one less used function takes up two buttons overlapping in functionality and another arguably much more used one is assigned to 5-6 gestures to get to it. How clearer than that can we make it? It doesn't get any clearer or obvious than that.



It's not even an issue to debate here. It's something people debate in microsoft or google forums, not apple forums ....
 
I 've gifted the ipad to quite a few older friends and relatives, and they all know how to flick a switch to have the ipad in one or another direction, and none of them will figure out to double click then swipe left, then touch a control, then click the home screen button to exit...five gestures for no reason whilst one switch is simple, it is enough, and there's already another switch in the volume button to take care of the mute (that no one is going to use anyway because it's not as if the ipad is ever going to ring or something).


I agree completely.

The current screen lock switch makes it an easy to use feature for everyone.

No one who currently uses the screen lock switch is going to think it is better to require them to do multiple gestures to lock or unlock the orientation.

There are many current iPad users who utilize the screen lock who will be confused.

I have seen children as young as 3 who know how to use the screen lock switch. Changing it to a mute switch is certainly not going to benefit them in any way.


It's a poor and badly thought out decision, that makes no sense, and you ll soon reverse it....oh great a dedicated mute button for when the ipad rings, oh wait it doesn't?

Very unapple decision.

Although this bad decision goes against Apple's claim to make things simple for users, it is very typical of Steve.

For years after 2 button mice were standard everywhere else, Steve was opposed to Apple selling 2 button mice. Then the moment that Steve endorsed the Mighty Mouse, Apple's single button mouse was completely abandoned and discontinued. Users never had a choice. One day users had to buy their Mac with a single button mouse and then the next day users had to buy their Mac with a multi-button mouse.
 
Yeah, so what? Are you expecting it to ring? In that unlikely case hit and hold the volume for 2 secs...

Anyone who doesn't find this colossally stupid, I don't know what to add...

No, but I very frequently receive emails. Not to mention aim alerts, words with friends alerts, iCal alerts, dictionary.com word of the day alerts, espn alerts, fax received alerts. Do I need to go on, or do you still think it's unlikely and I am colossally stupid?

How about if you're in a high powered business meeting? Ever go to one of those? It doesn't matter how rare they are, all you need is one Unfortunate ring and you have people eyeing you.

Still stupid? How about this. Your solution of just holding the volume button down only works if the iPad is unlocked. So if you're interrupted by an alert, you can't casually flip this switch and pretend it was someone else. You have to pull it out, wake it, unlock it, then wait two seconds.

Be careful how you throw around the word stupid.
 
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