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Wow, the mute button being a button instead of a switch is a game changer. This could mean automating muting the phone using Siri Shortcuts/focus modes! I have wanted software support for muting my iPhone for YEARS especially with focus modes being a thing
I don't get why they didn't give us a shortcut action so we can do this with our current phones. We can Mute/Unmute our phones through the Back Tap feature...so it can already be done via software. If you toggle it that way, it'll ignore wherever the switch is at.
 
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Wow, the mute button being a button instead of a switch is a game changer. This could mean automating muting the phone using Siri Shortcuts/focus modes! I have wanted software support for muting my iPhone for YEARS especially with focus modes being a thing
Same here! The hardware toggle is indeed archaic now, and not having software control over the ringer/silent mode is such a problem for me.
 
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I mean, one of the things that annoys me about the current iPhone is that the switch is no longer totally authoritative. I have more than once been in trouble when I've been scrolling through my phone while my wife was asleep and I've touched the screen slightly wrong and a video has started playing instead of scrolling the display. And sound comes out, even though the switch is set to silent. Facebook is a major offender there. But I think also Twitter, and even the App Store.
This is the one thing I've always hated. Why can't the silent switch silence EVERYTHING?? At least have some toggle in settings for what it silences.
 
Not a good idea. Elderly people have trouble identifying and using a Unified Button as two buttons.
If they have trouble with something like that why would they buy the super expensive and overkill iPhone 15 Pro to begin with?
 
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apple will always come up with the right solution

Last year: hole? pill and hole (very ugly)?
Apple: dynamic island

2y ago: diagonal camera lineup?
Apple: actually quite good

M1 iPad is too powerful: we need some multitasking features
Apple: stage manager

Snapdragon have better gaming capabilities
Apple: wait for A17
‘Dynamic island’ is not a solution, is just a way to conceal the problem. But the problem is still there: less screen space than the notch that is already less screen space than the punch hole design of other manufactures. Some marketing won’t change this fact.

The camera bump (diagonal or not) is ugly and impractical, and this hasn’t changed.

Nobody ever said that M1 is too powerful, we all complained about iPadOS being a subpar operating system inadequate for a powerful device. Stage manager didn’t change that and it’s fact it’s cumbersome and badly designed.

Hopefully A17 will bring real innovation as this was completely lacking in A16, and apple even had the balls of not even putting it in the vanilla iPhone, despite its extortionate price.
 
how do you feel when the boys “info-teinment” system of your car only has “touch” controls va “physical” buttons and knobs?.
Those are total mess!. Thank you but NO thank you for your “innovation”, just copying a feature for the sake of copying it.
Innovation?, my touch sensitive…
 
It’ll be a bit sad to see the mute switch go. My only concern is accidentally toggling it more often since a button is easier to accidentally hit than a switch.
But it’s not a button.
It’s just a sensor, like the iPhone 7 and 8 series home button.
The chances of accidentally pressing it in your pocket will be slim… because it’s not a button.
 
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well, there is one benefit to doing this.
Finally stops case manufactures from recessing the mute switch so deeply you need a fingernail to feel or move it.
Or in the case of more rugged cases, totally covering it with an annoying little flap.
I’ve never had this smooth “just flick it in your pocket” experience everyone else seems to have, so an actual button like system is an improvement imo.
Also as pointed out, finally will let you control the state of mute from control center and use it in automations
 
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Having to speak to your phone to ask it if it's muted completely negates the whole advantage of not having to take it out of your pocket.
This but also the phone vibrates when you flip the switch to mute? That will remain the same with whatever implementation they come up with. When I don't want to look at it and flip it while it's in my pocket, I flip the switch and the vibration lets me know it's now on mute. It was never only visual indication, and for when you want to glance at it and know without touching it, they'll probably put a "muted" icon on the always on display right next to the actual switch (like the volume popup).
 
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Wow, the mute button being a button instead of a switch is a game changer. This could mean automating muting the phone using Siri Shortcuts/focus modes! I have wanted software support for muting my iPhone for YEARS especially with focus modes being a thing
Apple could accomplish this today by simply providing an option to ignore the physical switch.
 
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This but also the phone vibrates when you flip the switch to mute? That will remain the same with whatever implementation they come up with. When I don't want to look at it and flip it while it's in my pocket, I flip the switch and the vibration lets me know it's now on mute.
Currently you don't need to flip anything to know that it's on mute, just feel that the switch is flipped toward the back of the phone.
 
My prediction:
  1. I've long wondered when they were going to change the silent switch to a push button, since with the physical switch it's impossible to change the state of the ringer between noise/silent via shortcuts or focus modes. Making this a push button that is handled in software will allow the state to be controlled automatically.
  2. All solid state buttons will require PRESSURE to activate -- not a simple touch or slide control. The pressure detection would probably use something like the old 3D touch technology.
  3. The new taptic engines will replace the current single one, not be in addition to it, to give a more realistic haptic feedback, and possibly save space, allow them to be placed in a different configuration, or maybe save power, compared to the current one.
  4. Touch activated functions will produce haptic feedback. The silent switch already does this (it vibrates when you enable silent mode), and the volume buttons would "click" the same way the solid state home button, mac trackpad, and phone keyboard haptics do.
  5. It will be easy to tell the difference between silent vs noise ring mode by clicking the button. A click with no vibrate means "not silent", and a click with a vibrate means "silent"
  6. There's no reason to think software will be processing the button presses. It could easily be a separate chip that handles all this and sends the button press voltage to the device the same way it happens now. Any slow reaction to the button press by IOS would be the same with or without solid state buttons.
 
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Yes, remove all tactile feedback everywhere, who needs sense of touch anyway.

Some things touted as “progress” are nothing but the change for the sake of change.
We call that corporate America. Need to change something for the sake of it just so the person in charge can tell his boss that they innovated and are working hard.
 
Apple could accomplish this today by simply providing an option to ignore the physical switch.
Maybe, but non techie people would get confused if this happens to get turned on and they try to use the switch. Plus this is terrible for the user experience to have a hardware switch that can be completely ignored by software.
 
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If the mute/silence switch is made into a "button" then they need to make it so that when it is "pressed" (lol) it vibrate/pulses 3 times really fast to show its activated. Anything unique and quick that conveys the point that isn't simply a long vibrate. From the volume up and downs short vibrate. Catch my drift? I need to know it's on. And don't want to be taking it out of the pocket. (Also edit if you try right now to the flick your switch up and down and feel the current implementation of the vibrate? I don't feel that the current one cuts it
 
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