One of the smartest elements of Palm’s design for the original smartphone was the hardware switch toggle sound on and off… you could call it the “shut up” switch:
And, of course, Apple stole this feature on the iPhone:
This thing is so useful! There are so many situations where you want your device to be quiet:
- In bed, at night, surfing the web on your iPhone while your significant other (or your infant daughter) is sleeping next to you.
- In a talk or a presentation that you don’t want disrupt with a ringing phone
- While you’re on a conference call and you don’t want to be distracted by your phone.
So how is that more laptop makers don’t have hard sound on/off toggles on their devices?
Until laptop makers figure this out, maybe someone could create a simple headphone jack gizmo I could shove into my laptop’s headphone connector and have it prevent sound from coming out of my laptop’s speakers? (kind of how my laptop’s speakers go “off” when I have headphones connected… except this would just be a headphone jack port of the headphones — no wires, no headphones.)
(and while we’re at it, hey Windows, would you stop making so many sounds? I don’t need a sound at login. I don’t need a sound at shutdown. I don’t need a sound when switching users. Be invisible!)
