How to silence iPhone?

mute switch + notifications

go to your settings and choose notifications and put everything out of the notification center

And of course, mute switch But for the games and things like that,you will have to try it

I know this is an iPhone 4 quesiton, but I'd like to add a tip for silencing the iPhone 4S... Maybe its documented somewhere but it took some accidental playing with the volume buttons to trip across this... and I have not seen it mentioned on the forums...

With the 4S, the mute switch plus putting the volume buttons down while on the home screen will silence almost everthing, system-wise, as far as I can tell.

But there is one thing that does not get silenced that way and that is Siri and the keyboard microphone input button.

Suppose you dwell on the home button too long while using the phone in a situation where silence is absolutely required. Well the microphone listening beep will occur and then again when you dismiss it. And if you are not quick enough or even realize that is happening, eventually Siri will speak to you wondering what you are up to. Also if you are typing notes and accidentally hit the keyboard microphone button (easy to do) -- same thing-- beep then beep again when you shut down the voice input.

It turns out Siri has her own volume control and you have to be on Siri's screen to set it, (the alert beep when you press the keyboard mic button also uses that volume control...) So to silence the 4S you have to be at home screen, switch the mute button to mute, press the volume button alll the way down, activate Siri-- get a beep, press the volume button all the way down and then dismiss her. Then if you use any apps that make sound, they each seem to have their own volume controls, so if you use a sound making app, turn the sound down right after entering the app.

I think at that point you are good to go to use the phone where silence is required.

It would be nice if there was one system wide mute button, but it seems like the phone industry just does not want to do that, at least for all the phones I've had over the years.

I had a droid previous to this and it had similar problems -- that one has a sound setting screen with sliders, moving any slider to turn it down causes the phone to make noise as it "previews" the sound levels for you-- pretty annoying.

On the other side of the coin.. Whats great about the iphone is, suppose you successfully silenced your phone and then lose it in the house, with other phones you are pretty much out of luck as you phone it from another phone and hope to hear the vibrator in another room,, With the iPhone you can have the FindMyIphone" app!

And I used that tonight to find my silenced iPhone in the couch coushons--- FindMyIphone will play a sound for you on the phone even though it is silenced.

Stephen

Maybe my iPhone is just "special" but I don't understand what everyone is talking About. When I flip my switch to mute it COMPLETELY mutes my phone, including the alarm. This has caused me to over sleep on several occasions when I forgot to turn the mute switch back off. And for those who may wonder my volume stays on full blast and I have tested the alarm and watched the alert box pop up when on mute but no sound at all. The sprint rep and the apple rep told me that's the way the phone is supposed to be.

DoubleTSSP wrote:

Maybe my iPhone is just "special" but I don't understand what everyone is talking About. When I flip my switch to mute it COMPLETELY mutes my phone, including the alarm.

Yup, you have a special phone. The mute switch mutes all system sounds except for the alarm sound for the built in alarm clock. If you are using a 3rd party alarm app, that will be muted.

No everything is stock no 3 rd party. Interestingly enough I just read on another website as of 5.0.1 that switch is supposed to have master silence capability per apple. And it is supposed to work like mine is.

iOS 6.0.1. The mute switch does NOT mute the alarm.

Plus the switch does not mute Siri's beep, nor Siri's speach, nor the beep you get when you hti the microphone button on the keyboard --- All of which are easy to accidentally activate. To make matters worse, if you are in a situation that requires silence and you accidentally dwell too long on the home button of your fat finger hits the mic button on the keyboard -- it makes 2 loud beeps, then to dismiss it you get even more beeps. Which is silly.

In order to silence for a meeting or church or a movie -- Shut off alarms, actiate Siri and turn down the volume while Siri's screen is up, and also flip the switch.

Not exactly convenient, especially since you have to reverse all that when you do want sounds. And of course you will forget to activate your alarms so you will miss them.

Thats on IOS 6.0.1 - iPhone 4S.

What would be wrong with providing an absolute silence switch? The switch is there, they can do it all in software.

The mute switch mutes the RINGER volume, used for notifications.

stevejobsfan0123 wrote:

The mute switch mutes the RINGER volume, used for notifications.

Correct. There is no way to silence the phone without bending over backwards.

Well gents I appreciate all the information. Clearly I will be happy with my mystery off switch on my "special" phone. None of the aforementioned alerts or media are audible on the phone when mute switch is active. It's a sprint iPhone 4 so Siri doesn't speak but if u hold the button down when the volume is on you will still hear the customary double beep before Siri speaks. However absolutely no sound comes out of this phone when that switch is activated. Not music, calendar alerts, text messages, phone call ring tone, alarm clock, emails......nothing. I guess I will continue reducing my volume to about 40 percent and leaving the mute switch alone so that I can utilize my alarm clock. It's actually odd I spend a decent amount of time with my phone vibrating my pocket to death in meetings with the calendar, emails, phone calls, and alarms going off and all along I thought everyone else enjoyed the same master mute switch.

The silent switch is designed so that if the phone is in sleep mode, no sounds go through. Say, the phone is in your pocket and you are not using it. No sound comes through.

stevejobsfan0123 wrote:

The silent switch is designed so that if the phone is in sleep mode, no sounds go through. Say, the phone is in your pocket and you are not using it. No sound comes through.

Incorrect. If the switch is set to 'silent" and it is sleep mode. Alarms stil sound.

There is no way to silence this phone without doing the steps I outlined above. And that is annoying -- my opinion of course.

We already established that alarms still sound. That's what alarms are for. If you don't want an alarm to go off, don't set one.