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.

The event has sparked a lot of debate about the behavior of the iPhone’s mute switch.

To offer my two cents:

At present, if you mute your iPhone, there are only two functions which will cause it to make noise: the countdown function and the alarm in Clock.app and starting a song or video playing. Calls, texts, Facebook notifications et al. get relegated to just a vibrate.

It’s essentially split into user-generated actions and non-user-generated actions. I told the phone to start quacking at 7am, I told the iPhone to make a noise when 32 minutes had elapsed. The same cannot be said for texts etc., and that’s why they get muted.

Marco Arment sums it up pretty succinctly:

It’s a typical design problem: it can’t be heavy and light and big and small. Neither decision will satisfy everyone all the time or cover every edge case: if Apple implemented Mute in [all cases], millions of people would be just as irritated when their scheduled alarms didn’t wake them up.

I’d also like to briefly disagree with Jim Biancolo’s suggested rectification: “I’d vote for silencing everything when you mute the phone, but pop a warning if you mute the phone with alarms pending” — it would be useless for those of us who flick the mute switch without taking the phone out of our pockets.

I think that the Philharmonic faux-pas is an edge-case, and that the mute switch’s behavior can and should be left as is.

Alarm pro-tip: Don’t set a song that you like as your alarm tone, you will end up hating the song.

It’s something that seamlessly combines Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare for me. Images and check-ins are integrated in the main feed, saving the need to click on links. Crashes aside, their UX is gorgeous and fluid.

What I especially love is the fact that it feels like a genuine journalling app. Long-term readers will be aware of my love of documenting real life and Path seems like an awesome app to do it in.

Definitely one to check out.

★ iTunes link

Privacy is handled like this: I can only see your location once I’ve sent you a request to do so, and you expressly accept that request. I think that covers pretty much any privacy issues people may have.

It comes with most of the features you’d expect — the ability to view all friends on the same map; the ability to create temporary events and the easy ability to temporarily disable followers (the people you’ve allowed to see your location) having access to your location, for the times you want to momentarily hop “off the grid”.

(ICE) = (In Case of Emergency)

For parents and children, it’s a handy application. I mean, isn’t the ability to find out your child’s current location why you bought them a phone at age 12 anyway?

Does such an app, and the rise of Foursquare etc. herald a new era of Big Brother-esque monitoring? I don’t think so. You don’t allow random people to see your location, you never have a problem.

One thing I’m interested in is the social area of it. Each time someone requests to follow you, you can also request to follow them back. The fact that Person A can see Person B’s location without A having to give B the same information is interesting.

It’s like the difference between Twitter and Foursquare. On the former, anyone can follow me without me ever knowing about them. Someone can follow me without me following them back in return. On Facebook, I have to specifically accept someone before our status as “friends” is confirmed. In short, Twitter is asymmetrical, while Facebook is symmetrical.

It’s an interesting social conundrum — do you feel slightly weird knowing that you can see someone’s every move without them having the same control? It feels a bit like playing god, or the FBI. It feels right that if they relinquish some of their privacy to you, surely reciprocating is only fair?

Or maybe there’ll never be any awkwardness about the whole thing, and I’ve just been wearing my Freud hat for too long.

Really interested in how (or if) this app is used.

I loved the headphones and used them a lot. Since they were expensive, I took care of them, using the case when not in use and not wearing them around my neck. I rarely used them on the go, mostly using them while drumming or at my desk studying.

Recently, they’ve developed an annoying fault in that they’ll screech or pop while playing music, which is off-putting at best and actually kind of painful.

So, I called Bose, the manufacturer. They were all set to send me out a replacement cable, after asking me only two straightforward trouble-shooting questions, but I mentioned I’d bought them from Amazon and not from Bose directly. My e-mail from Amazon.com confirming my order says Bose Corporation shipped the following item(s) in your order…, so I don’t fully understand how I didn’t “buy from us directly”, but I digress.

He said, with genuine apology in his voice, that I’d have to call Amazon, as warranty was their deal. A little annoyed at Bose passing the buck, I called Amazon. They said that they had only a 30-day returns policy, and that I should call Bose to see what they could do, since it sounded like a genuine defect.

I’m contemplating what to do next, but already I’m annoyed at both Bose and Amazon for their passing-the-buck habits.

It was turned on by default on my MacBook, but you can toggle it it and off in System Preferences » Trackpad.

The other App Store is for, well, everything else. These are apps made by people who give a damn about user-experience and their advertisement will mostly be in accolade form — iDevice-owning people who have the app telling other such people about this great new app. They’ll usually be more expensive. Instapaper, MarsEdit and iFlash are three examples of such apps.

iFlash is a Mac app that mimics the flash cards you used to cram definitions onto the night before your exam. I’ve found from experience that flash cards are the best way of learning Spanish vocab (define ‘travierso‘?) or definitions in Economics (what are the economic factors of production?)

The application is clean and simple, with no bells or whistles. It feels like a Mac app, like iChat or iTunes[1]. You input the info onto the front and back of the flash cards, then you can test yourself.

You’re shown the front of the flash card, (which says “travierso”) and if you know it, skip to the next one, or hit the down arrow to view the back of the flash card (which says “mischievous”)

There’s also an accompanying iPhone app that works the same way — sync the two and then have your flash-cards with you on the go, just swipe left/right and up/down.

iFlash is €11.99, so it’s at the very far end of the App Store pricing graph (which, I imagine, looks like a skewed bell curve). But it’s worth it.

I mean, it’s replacing paper flash cards for me. But I have to buy more flash cards when I run out, and I have to store them safely when I’m not using them, and then some become obsolete and I’ve to throw them out. iFlash is organized, so I don’t have to be. I could also pull the ‘it’s more environmentally friendly’ line here, but that applies to so much computer software, the phrase is almost obsolete. I always have either my MacBook or my iPhone on my person, so I always, without having to think of it, have my flash cards with me. That’s a huge bonus. I’m really happy that I bought this app — and I’m glad that I gave the developer €11.99, because it’s obvious that a lot of work went into the app. I’m gonna make a point to e-mail the developer too, because I want him to know how awesome I find his app.

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[1] iTunes gets a lot of crap, with a lot of people calling it the worst Apple app out there. Personally, I don’t see how you could call it that while iPhoto exists, but also — what’s so bad about iTunes?

The problem that The Journal faces, and one I haven’t seen them address, is that these poll results aren’t representative at all. I feel that this should be stated somewhere. They’re not representative because the people who vote on The Journal:

• Use a computer recreationally
• Are the sort of people who read news websites

If The Journal stood at the top of Grafton Street and conducted this poll, I sincerely doubt they’d get the 86% / 13% split that they’re currently touting. I feel that this is something that The Journal should try to address.

I feel that Trust Tommy (which I coined when I was 13) was a fun, quirky name, but unsuited really to anything vaguely professional.

I’ve been debating whether or not I’ll keep this blog called “Trust Tommy”. There’s a lot to be said for all your online stuff having the same name. Maybe a refresh is required.

Stay tuned!

- STILL no Dvorak love. I don’t use the QWERTY keyboard on my Mac, instead choosing to use Dvorak, a different layout which I find to be much faster. However, the iPad doesn’t offer Dvorak as a keyboard layout, so I’m finding the transition a little difficult.

- There are pretty much no good free apps. Obviously there are exceptions but the majority of iPad that are any good are going to cost you. I’m totally fine with this, as developers put extraordinary amounts of efforts into these great apps and when they’re especially good, €7.99 is not much in return. That’s not to say my bank account doesn’t wish they were cheaper.

- You no longer surf the web. I couldn’t think of a non-buzz-word-laden way of saying this, but it truly feels like you’re *interacting* with the web, as opposed to just browsing or reading it. You’re constantly tapping, scrolling and zooming. Web pages are something to be moulded and manipulated, not just read.

- Balance issues. I think I’m going to have to get a Smart Cover or something. Partly to do with protection, but mostly to do with the fact that I’ve yet to find a comfortable way of typing on it. Currently, it’s propped between my tummy and the edge of the table in front of me. This isn’t too bad apart from the fact that it makes typing very difficult.[1]

- Web apps don’t really work. I use Google Calendar on my Mac a lot, because syncing between two user accounts, an iPhone (and now an iPad) is proving quite difficult. However, the Google Cal site doesn’t really work on iPad and the mobile version is far too simplistic to use. Still looking for a proper solution for this one.

- Something for the left. As well as affecting my walking, my cerebral palsy also affects my left hand, making it weaker than the average non-dominant hand. Over the years, I’ve tried different things to get it stronger, and I actually think the intricate gestures required by the iPad could be beneficial for it in the long run. Drumming in particular has done wonders for the left hand’s fine motor control skills.

- BATTERY. As much as I enjoy the 8+ hours I get out of the iPad battery, it charges very slowly, almost 6 hours to charge fully.

Overall, I can see myself using my laptop a lot less; for stuff that I physically can’t use the iPad for. It’s probably going to become my primary device for trips round the country etc., which is great because it’s lightweight. If you want a lightweight browsing experience, get an iPad.

Written on and published by my iPad.

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[1] In the time between writing that and publishing this post, I bought a Smart Cover and adore it. It keeps the iPad at the exact right angle for typing and protects the screen from accidental damage.

Internet personas are a wacky thing: Some of my favorite people IRL also happen to be among some of the most disliked people online — and I totally hated them before meeting them, too. I’ve learned over the past two years that you absolutely cannot judge a person’s personality, motives, or intelligence based on what they do on the internet.

We’re all playing parts here.

- TopHerChris

It’s an interesting statement to make that you can’t judge someone’s personality based on their online persona, because it goes against everything I’ve ever thought. I’ve always maintained that you can get a good feel for someone from their online persona, but the quote above says that I don’t get an idea of the person at all.

Maybe a better quote would be “nobody ever agrees on the internet”, and maybe that’s something we can all agree on :)

Food for thought!