Regarding iOS 4.2’s Change of the iPad’s Orientation Lock to a Mute Switch

According to a purported email from Steve Jobs, there will be no preference setting to turn this switch back to an orientation lock. What’s weird about this change is that I don’t think anyone is happy about it. It seems like Apple is standardizing for the sake of standardizing, not for improved usability. The iPhone and iPod Touch are, for many people, audio devices. But the iPad is a reading/viewing device for most of us.

And, the iPad with iOS 3.x effectively has a hardware mute button: just press and hold on the volume down key, and it quickly jumps to mute.

★ Monday, 25 October 2010