‘Airplane mode’ is definitely one of the nicest features of the iPhone. By swiping one easily accessible control, you can disable incoming calls and texts. By default, it also turns off WiFi.
This is useful for two major reasons. For one thing, it allows you to always have an iPhone with you without always being open to random contact at any moment of the day. It is nice to enjoy a walk, film, or conversation without periodic email or text message updates.
It is also useful because the battery life of the iPhone 4 really isn’t great. Even when it was brand new, I found that it could not last from 9:00am until 5:00pm with moderate use (some web browsing, some app use, some texts). It is the kind of phone where you really need a charger both at work and at home, and where you can get caught out without power if something unexpected happens.
Airplane mode is not iPhone specific, in fact I believe even your E71 had a similar mode called “offline” that you could access by clicking the power button once, and then selecting “offline.”
Good to know. The E71 definitely had better battery life.
“Airplane mode” for OS X
It’s actually pretty simple to do this. If you go to the Network pane of System Preferences, you’ll see a Location popup menu at the top of the window. Click on that menu and choose Edit Locations. Click on the + icon to add a new location, then enter a name, such as AirplaneMode. Click on Done.
Next, choose that location in the Location menu, and click on each available network interface in the list at the left of the window. Click on the Configure iPv4 menu, and choose Off. For Wi-Fi, just click on the Turn Wi-Fi Off button. Click Apply, and this location will block all network activity.
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