Putting your iPhone onto vibrate mode is meant to make it silent — but put it on a hard surface, and the rattle when you get a call could wake an entire house. Apple is looking to fix that, and make the silent mode less intrusive, regardless of the surface it’s on.
According to a patent unearthed by Apple Insider, Apple is looking to embrace a feedback system to appropriately clamp down on vibration when it might cause a distraction. While the phone is vibrating, it’ll also be taking readings from a microphone and accelerometer. If the iPhone’s vibration is causing it to move significantly around a surface, or generating sound above a certain threshold, then the phone will either reduce it, or use an alternative alert.
That’s actually a pretty smart way of dealing with the problem. We’ve all had that occasion where a vibrating phone left on a table can be heard across a room — or even multiple rooms — despite being on “silent”. This way, you’d still feel the phone buzzing in your pocket, but not distract everyone when it’s on your desk.
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I don’t care how loud or soft it vibrates, so long as I can actually feel it vibrate. The iPhone 4S, I can hardly feel it. I want an earthquake going off in my pants every time I get a message or a call.
Preview of Phil Schiller in 6 months… “So we asked ourselves, how can we get the iPhone 5S to simulate an earthquake going off in my pants every time I get a message or a call.”