With some poor power saving implementations keeping the mike on can make sense. Switching the power back on when reactivating the mike may cause noticable stutt

With some poor power saving implementations keeping the mike on can make sense. Switching the power back on when reactivating the mike may cause noticable stutter. An application with limited permissions might not be able to turn the mike off without dropping the device to some low power state. Being in a conference, muted, hearing something that requires action, hitting "unmute", freeze for a second... bad thing. A hardware switch would be the better option. But then people wanting to hear you cannot inform you about still being muted.