Airplane Mode

I've read this three times now on the assumption that its point was going over my head - I'm now fairly sure it's not.<p>The lesson I've learned is not to turn my phone off, in case I want to show someone pictures stored on it.

The nokia E-series E72 has the neatest feature. If you put it face down it silences all alarts. Nokia had a great ad campaign for real face time using this - "Somethings are more important than email".<p>The iphone and android badly need these features.

<i>My first thought was, wow, what a show of respect for me and our time together. </i><p>It saddens me that not being a rude ass is somehow worthy of blog-post out of the ordinary praise these days.

Why are people always feeling "honored and humbled" these days? I think they must be confused. Just feel honored and get on with your day.

Very respectful, and awesome closing off of the world temporarily.<p>Another 'use' I find - in areas where you know you'll have no signal. With the cell radios screaming to contact a station, drains the battery worse than more or less any other part (unless you have the display on 100% brightness as well as on all the time)

Tow knights, upon meeting, show their mutual respect for each other by extending their hands away from their weapons and towards one another.<p>A modern equivalent is born?

Interesting. I thought Airplane Mode only turned off the cellphone radio. But, nope, I just tried it and it does turn off the WiFi as well. You can, however, manually turn WiFi back on, leaving the cell radio off.

More or less why I got an iPod touch instead of an iPhone. Still have a crappy $10 phone off Ebay.

I feel like this is a misuse of Airplane Mode. If your photos, etc. are "on the cloud", via Dropbox or something, they may require internet access to use. I think a more appropriate feature, which as far as I'm aware, doesn't exist, would be a no-interruption mode (probably needs a better name) that holds all notifications and calls during the time it's enabled.

As soon as my head hits the pillow, my iPhone goes into Airplane Mode.

I put my phone in airplane mode for exactly this reason--it's not just being super busy, but I have lots of push notifications setup which in my daily life are helpful but while I'm sleeping or socializing not. However I need various other functions on the phone (e.g. my alarm) so turning it off not an option, moreover switching from airplane mode-&#62;non much faster.

The irony is that Airplane Mode doesn't permit you use your phone on an airplane (at least per US airline policy, despite the FAA indicating that airlines may let passengers use phones in airplane mode).<p>At least it lets you have a conversation without being interrupted.

This makes sense but is not "hacker news". It should not have made it to one of the top news - it's just obvious common sense.

Airplane mode is also good for keeping your sperm count up when it's in your pockets.