Setting iphone to vibrate and setting iphone back to sound via app.

Question

Folks, I need your knowledge here.

Think about the following sittuation - my app need to set my iphone to vibrate mode on a certain time and get it back to playing sounds mode (for call receiving, sms, email, all common sound notifications) some minutes later.

I've already googled that, and didn't find a good, apple accetable way of doing that:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/736047/possible-to-programmatically-open-settings-app-from-iphone

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/702319/is-it-possible-to-dynamically-alter-an-iphone-apps-settings-page-in-the-settings

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1141391/display-iphone-application-settings-within-your-application

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/335965/how-do-i-launch-my-settings-bundle-from-my-application [This one here is interesting, as fas I as find a way to know what is the key for the settings I'm interested in]

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/335965/how-do-i-launch-my-settings-bundle-from-my-application [It mentions I can do that, but does not give an idea of how =(]

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/702319/is-it-possible-to-dynamically-alter-an-iphone-apps-settings-page-in-the-settings [If this is true, I wouldn't be able to do what I want...]

Does anyone there has an idea of how do I do that via app? Many thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I do not think you can put the phone on vibrate programatically, dont believe the SDK allows you to do this.

Answer 2

There is not an Apple-approved way of controlling this. The theory I have for this is that individual apps should not override systems settings. For instance, when I set my phone to vibrate, I do not want it making noise, period. The user experience would be less than optimal if rogue apps were able to get outside their sandbox and fiddle with settings that I set for a reason.

Finally, if one were able to figure this out, my guess would be that the app stands a good chance of getting rejected.

Answer 3

Think of this from the user perspective - that silent switch is there for a reason. If I want the phone silent, I will move that switch myself. Not only will the API not let you do this, it's simply a bad idea.

Answer 4

Check out the following app:

http://iphonepackers.info/autosilent/

Looks like they've found a way to do it, so it's likely possible. The problem with the "Auto Silent" app is that it's not available from the App Store. It only works on a jailbroken phone, installed with Cydia. I have yet to find an app on the Appstore that does something similar.

Apple's current design is terrible. Many applications choose to override the silent switch, including Apple's own Timer (Clock app), Alarm (Clock app), iPod and YouTube. While this was likely intentional, 3rd party applications can choose which volume control to use and thus don't respond to the physical silent switch consistently. More info:

http://txfx.net/2008/07/15/iphone-silent-switch-is-ignored-by-many-applications/

Many people have said they'd prefer to have a blackberry interface where you can quickly select from multiple user-customizable profiles.

For non-developers who found this thread, in hopes of finding a solution, consider the following physical device (it's a custom form factor headphone jack that can plug into the phone or charging base, nullifying sounds like mail/sms/etc):

http://www.thesilentnight.com/

Regards.

Answer 5

A user should be allowed to control the volume of his device, either through hardware or software switching. There is no good reason to remove this decision from user control by limiting/controlling access through software. If the user wants to mute, reduce or increase volume or vibration, automatically, via software, it should be the user's decision.

Answer 6

Those of you who say this is a bad idea have never carried an iphone into a meeting. I did not read into the original post that he wants it silence while running an app. Maybe he does. But what Apple has missed is the option to read your calendar and silence your phone during scheduled meetings marked as busy and return to regular mode automatically. This is available on Windows smartphones and is a great profile option. Auto Silent would be great, except for the jailbreak requirement.

Answer 7

I believe many of our opinions and ideas on the subject are correct. If apple or any user has something against an app or an idea of that app, then they can simply not download it. If I want to be able to set my phone routinely set on silent during school, church, and any other daily times when I want my phone silent, then I should have the luxury of doing so. The silent switch on the side of my iphone is faulty and changes on and off at random quite frequently. Would I like to go to Apple and fix this problem by dishing out my money for their faulty-made product? No. So why not allow the creation of an App that would make my life a little easier. So that in the future someone can ask me if this is possible, I will be able to say, "Yes, there's an app for that." (which there currently isn't)