[telecom] Ringing Finally Ended, but There's No Button to Stop Shame

Ringing Finally Ended, but There's No Button to Stop Shame

By DANIEL J. WAKIN January 12, 2012

They were baying for blood in the usually polite precincts of Avery Fisher Hall.

The unmistakably jarring sound of an iPhone marimba ring interrupted the soft and spiritual final measures of Mahler's Symphony No. 9 at the New York Philharmonic on Tuesday night. The conductor, Alan Gilbert, did something almost unheard-of in a concert hall: He stopped the performance. But the ringing kept on going, prompting increasingly angry shouts in the audience directed at the malefactor.

After words from Mr. Gilbert, and what seemed like weeks, the cellphone owner finally silenced his device. After the audience cheered, the concert resumed. Internet vitriol ensued.

But no one, it seems, felt worse than the culprit, who agreed to an interview on Thursday on condition that he not be identified - for obvious reasons.

...

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***** Moderator's Note *****

Cellphones are inherently anti-social devices. Carrying one around and answering it in public places is an announcement to the world that you think /your/ time and convenience is more important than anyone else's.

The "Patron X" mentioned in the NY Times story claimed that his employer had just switched him from a blackberry to an iphone, and that the sound was actually an alarm signal, not the phone ringing. Sounds like revisionist history ex post factotum to me, but even if it's true, that only proves that the person in question felt entitled to take an active electronic device into a concert hall without bothering to RTFM. The gaul of some people!

Bill Horne Moderator

Reply to
Monty Solomon
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RTFM? Of an iPhone? It's a computer with a zillion apps, do you really think there's a FM that explains all of them?

The guy said that he switched the phone into silent mode. If this is true, I think he was perfectly reasonable in assuming that this would silence the device, and I agree with his surprise that the alarm clock would make a noisy ring. And if he didn't even know the phone had an alarm clock, he's obviously going to be doubly surprised.

I do find it a bit hard to believe that he didn't know it had an alarm: even dumb cellphones have this, and how could he have set the alarm without going into the app? I don't have an iPhone, but I expect that it takes more than one errant click to set the alarm.

Reply to
Barry Margolin

:> The "Patron X" mentioned in the NY Times story claimed that his :> employer had just switched him from a blackberry to an iphone, and :> that the sound was actually an alarm signal, not the phone :> ringing. Sounds like revisionist history ex post factotum to me, but :> even if it's true, that only proves that the person in question felt :> entitled to take an active electronic device into a concert hall :> without bothering to RTFM. The gaul of some people!

:RTFM? Of an iPhone? It's a computer with a zillion apps, do you really :think there's a FM that explains all of them?

:The guy said that he switched the phone into silent mode. If this is :true, I think he was perfectly reasonable in assuming that this would :silence the device, and I agree with his surprise that the alarm clock :would make a noisy ring. And if he didn't even know the phone had an :alarm clock, he's obviously going to be doubly surprised.

:I do find it a bit hard to believe that he didn't know it had an alarm: :even dumb cellphones have this, and how could he have set the alarm :without going into the app? I don't have an iPhone, but I expect that :it takes more than one errant click to set the alarm.

Well, you can do it by talking to it, so it takes zero errant taps. But you're likely going to notice saying "set alarm for 9:30 pm" to your phone.

What's likely here is that the alarm was set by something like a calendar. It's entirely possible for that to happen without user interaction, particularly in a corporate enviornment, where there's a centeralized calendar server, and your boss can edit yours.

Reply to
David Scheidt
[snipppp.... concert attendee who couldn't turn off his iPhone's alarm]

- this brings up the very annoying and related issue that there ain't no way to take out the iPhone battery.

Reply to
danny burstein

No, no, not of the iPhone, silly -- of the concert hall! Every printed program, in every concert hall I've attended in this 21st century, has stated, plainly and clearly, that patrons are requested to turn their cell phones, pagers, and beepers OFF for the duration of the concert.

Most concert venues add a pre-performance PA announcement to the same effect, for the benefit of those patrons who can't or won't -- or just didn't -- read.

He may have *tried*, but he obviously didn't entirely *succeed* :-) .

Cheers, -- tlvp

Reply to
tlvp

On Sun, 15 Jan 2012 08:58:55 -0500, Barry Margolin wrote: ..........

I have some sympathy for this person, I use an Android phone and while it has various "Silent" and "Airplane" modes that seem to work for "normal" things like incoming calls I have also installed various apps to signal me on things like incoming e-mails and I am not sure that all of these use the aforementioned settings.

All it may need is one lazy app developer to bypass the bits that control to alarm modes and then you have a device that can only be shut off with a hammer (or the power button....)

-- Regards, David.

David Clayton Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have.

Reply to
David Clayton

the word is 'gall', not 'gaul'.

Unless they're of Old French background, that is.

Reply to
Robert Bonomi

The iphone, blackberry and nokia all ignore the off switch to sound an alarm that you have set.

Reply to
Colin

Answering it (or even letting it ring out loud) in public places is indeed selfishness -- though if it wasn't your choice to carry the device, it's the boss's selfishness and not your own. But carrying it? It's unreasonable to expect anyone to refrain from doing *that*, because it would have the effect of depriving them of the device for some time before and after the event.

It would be nice if all such devices had an "absolute silence" setting that cannot be overridden by the boss, or any app, or anything at all. I wouldn't even mind if the law required such a capability and that it be easy to find. At the very least, I would have the law mandate a warning on any device which does not have such a setting.

As far as the concert, though, the venue could and should have solved the problem themselves in any of several ways. (1) Require all electronics to be turned in to the hat-check person before going inside. [Simply banning them without a 'check' option would be excessive and unacceptable.] (2) The same, but applied only to devices known not to have "absolute silence" settings, such as the iPhone. (3) Make the building opaque to radio by putting a Faraday cage in the walls, or by running a jammer in countries that allow them (of course, this would not stop "alarm clock" functions if they are internal to the phone and don't require an outside signal).

***** Moderator's Note *****

This was not a problem that "the venue could and should have solved": it was a lapse of common sense by a person who took a device that he hadn't learned how to use into a public gathering where silence is not only expected, but essential. The person who did that could have, and should have, obviated the problem by leaving it in his car, or checking it with his coat, or entrusting it to the concierge.

As to your other suggestions, I stopped being interested in them the moment you said that the managers of a concert hall should take the place of individual responsibility.

Bill Horne Moderator

Reply to
John David Galt

[Moderator snip]

I carry a cell phone that just makes phone calls. It has an alarm function. If the phone is turned off but the alarm is set, the phone wakes up and sounds the alarm at the time set.

It's still unbelievable that the alarm could get set without it being the user's responsibility.

Reply to
Adam H. Kerman

I think you're being way too judgemental. The guy honestly thought that he'd silenced the device. Was he really supposed to say to himself, "I know I just put it into silent mode, but just in case it's not going to do what I said, I'd better leave it in the car."?

He made a mistake.

Reply to
Barry Margolin

On Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:51:45 -0800, John David Galt wrote: ..........

Actually one simple solution would be a small metal bag that you could collect when entering the venue and then put the device in so it is 100% shielded (and return on exit for your deposit refund) but you still keep hold of your toy.

It wouldn't stop things like Appointment alarms (unless the bag also had good soundproofing - an option!), but it would stop any incoming signals triggering other noises.

If someone goes out an invents this bag and makes a squillion dollars, please remember where the idea came from! ;-)

Reply to
David Clayton

And right there is the problem.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

My Motorola C155 from Tracfone (voice telephone and text only) also does this. So off doesn't really mean off. I wonder what else is running? GPS to spy on me???? Apperently, the only way to turn it completely off is to remove the battery.

Reply to
Richard Grady

I have to admit that I never turned my Motorola KRZR (or its predecessor RAZR) off in such situations... but it was simple enough and I knew it well enough that I could make it silent or vibrate quietly so that no one else knew that it was alerting me.

I now carry a Blackberry (no, I didn't finally cave under the shame of being a computer/data guy with a mere feature phone and no connectivity outside the home/office, it came with the work I am doing now) and I have to admit that I have yet to truly understand all the sources of alerts on it: phone calls, texts, email, "visual voice mail", Blackberry Messenger, events, reminders, apps... and something called level 1. Each of these have a combination of sound and vibration in each of several different alert profiles and, after weeks of using the phone, I *think* I'm done configuring one profile. I'm continually discovering Blackberry features - mostly by Googling things I want to do. The little bits of paper that came with the phone aren't nearly large enough to form even the cover of a comprehensive printed manual.

So, no, I'm not surprised that your average Joe doesn't know everything his

smartphone does.

(Or maybe we can all just learn a lesson and switch our phones off when

asked to.)

Reply to
Geoffrey Welsh

I'd be interested in knowing what Blackberry apps exist that won't obey the "sound profiles" Blackberry provides, which includes both a "Silent" and "Vibrate-only" mode, and allows the flexibility to create a "Vibrate-also" mode, useful in a very noisy machine room where ear plugs are needed to preserve hearing. It covers various alerts for all sorts of things: phone calls, reminders, alarms, social feeds, texts, tweets mentioning you, etc. It's always on the home screen with a little picture of a speaker that indicates the current mode. It's one place to change all the alerts all at once. Apps seem to be able to register their own sounds in a sound profile.

The original version of Blackberry OS on my phone (from 2 years ago) wasn't quite so easy about "airplane mode". You had to find the right icon to control this. Now, there's a place on the home page you can click, then there's this nice big button that says "Turn off all connections". It also asks "are you sure" before making an emergency call, which it didn't before.

I've used calendar and reminder apps (including 3rd-party ones) and never had any problem with them making noise when the profile is set to "Vibrate-only" (Ok, vibrate-only makes a little noise and isn't appropriate for a theater. For company meetings, it seems to be acceptable if you leave the room to answer or return a call, unless you're the biggest Boss there, in which case you can leave it on !!EXTRA LOUD!!.) or "Silent". I am surprised our theater-going iphone user had such a problem turning off the alarm. While finding where the alarm was set up and removing it might take some time, dismissing an active alarm is usually in-your-face easy. That popup in the center of the screen gives you choices to dismiss it, and you usually can't do much else with the phone until you choose one.

I hope anyone who is going to a theater that implements one suggestion here of turning in all the phones before the concert doesn't ask for my contact info. You shouldn't be turning over your phone with Personally Identifiable Information to anyone unless you trust them a lot (that doesn't necessarily include your spouse, parents, or kids). On the other hand, I'd have no problem with a request to put the battery in one pocket and the phone in a different pocket. iPhone users might have trouble with this.

You also might lose your phone, if not to a thief, to some well-meaning person who thinks that every _color_ _type_-phone _model number_ is hers without checking. (I am reminded here about the lady at the airport a few decades back who insisted it was her bag, not mine, and went on threatening to call security for 5 minutes even after I pointed out that my baggage claim check number matched, and hers didn't, and the bag (not a tag on it) had my name and address on it. She threatened to call security, while I was walking towards and waving at the nearest guy who looked like security. He said it was my bag, and she left.)

I don't quite agree with the moderator's claim that answering your phone anywhere in public is rude. If it is reasonable for me to have a conversation outdoors in a normal voice with someone standing next to me, it seems equally reasonable that talking on the phone in the same voice is OK. (I shouldn't be blocking (pedestrian or vehicle) traffic, walking into moving trains, trying to walk into an open elevator shaft, or holding up a line talking on the phone while at the head of the line. Yes, I've seen people doing all of these.) Why can't I do that on a public sidewalk, in a park, walking down a street, or standing in line overnight to buy the latest new iPhone? No, that's not an excuse to use it in a theater or classroom, while hogging a stall in a crowded restroom, in a business meeting, or while driving.

***** Moderator's Note *****

"our theater-going iphone user" probably tried to ignore the sound, assuming it was going to go away on its own, which is more fuel on the 'RTFM' fire.

"Anywhere in public" does not mean in the middle of an open public space, and I'm surprised that you infer that meaning. I was referring to public gatherings, where there is an expectation of discretion from the participants whom are not there to speak or perform.

Bill Horne Moderator

Reply to
Gordon Burditt

On my Motorola C155 from Tracfone, I set the ring volume to vibrate only. Alarm clock alarms still play audibly (and loud). Same result when the ring volume was set to zero and no vibrate.

On the good side, there was no sound from the voicemail alert when the ring volume was set to zero. Dick Grady, AC7EL

Reply to
Dick Grady AC7EL

[You] need a ground somewhere in the mix there. Where I work someone had built a small box that was essentially a Farraday cage. Nicely constructed and it used a standard three conductor power cord to tap ground. That's when we found out that the outlets at our desks, didn't have a real ground.
Reply to
T

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