I disagree with the conclusion. Mute is a temporary state that overrides previous requests to be loud. If thought absolutely necessary that alarms should pierc

I disagree with the conclusion. Mute is a temporary state that overrides previous requests to be loud. If thought absolutely necessary that alarms should pierce the mute, then if there are pending alarms when mute is engaged, it can alert the user at that point and give them the option. The real design problem seems to be the lack of vibrate mode on the iPhone. Other phones do this to silently alert the user without disrupting a performance, secret agent mission, or other situation requiring silence. Vibrate mode solves this problem on other phones. If a phone designer chooses to eliminate the vibrate mode function, that is his prerogative but it is a design mistake to then make mute be non-silent as a result of a decision to eliminate vibrate mode. But wait a minute. The iPhone does have a vibrate mode. Ah. Then there is no excuse at all for this is there.