My Motorola Razr, released in 2004, had volume rockers on the side, which I used to turn my ring volume up or down. I highly doubt it was the only example of that sort of behavior.

Apple changed a lot of things with the iPhone, but let's not get into revisionist history.

Ring volume up and down. Ring volume. Not toggle between quiet mode.

All the phones had some sort of way to get into quiet mode. Apple did it right, no-one else had.

There's a vast gulf between volume controls and a tactile feedback of 'is my iPhone on silent, [move thumb over toggle], yes it is, brilliant'.

And that was the genius of Apple. But not just there on all parts of the phone.

When I first got my 3G [coming from a Razr], I remember being confused how to mute it--that I couldn't find the setting for mute. When I found the button for silence, I was struck for a few minutes that no one had thought of this before.

Just preordered my 4S to replace it. I admit I was a bit disappointed--I prefer the rounded back so I'd hoped for a case redesign. Even at this much of an upgrade [I don't have video, haven't been able to upgrade iOS in six months], I don't expect the "magic phone" feeling I had with the 3G. Far fewer people had smartphones at that time (May 09). Always startled me when my phone would create a stir. Now I get more of "wait, how old is your phone anyway?"

That's a funny example because nowadays when I want my iPhone to stop looking for WiFi because I'm going to be outside for a couple of hours I need to go to Settings and select Wi-Fi and turn if off, sort of like choosing the right profile but more annoying since on any Nokia phone you would just press the on/off button and select the right profile. But then I also want to turn brightness much lower and there I go again.

On the TouchPad that's like 5 seconds to change both.

(I understand I'm comparing a tablet to a phone but I never tried any other mobile OS so I have no idea how quick you can do that. I can guess it's like the TouchPad though.)

silent is a feature most people need on their phones several times a week - i doubt most people chnage their wifi setup many times once configured.

That's a bug, not a feature. I leave my phone on vibrate all the time, and when I had an iPhone, the hardware switch would cause it to constantly go back to ringing as I took it in and out of my pocket.

That feature was first introduced by Palm on the VisorPhone in 2001, and has been on all of their models since. I'm surprised nobody else copied it before Apple did.

Is this a serious point or an attempt at sarcasm? Because I've never seen any other phone with that "feature".