5 January, 2006

Shut up

My mobile phone has no ringtone.  Or rather, I've switched it off, preferring it to indicate an incoming call by silent vibration. An obvious consequence is that if I don't have it on my person, I don't know it's 'ringing'.

I use my mobile phone extremely rarely (I still haven't used up the call credit that came free with the phone, in October 2004), and then almost always only for text messages. If I'm away from a landline phone or e-mail, I'm unlikely to want to be contacted, so I don't have the slightest problem with missing calls.

Yet the phone indicates missed calls with a loud 'beep', which I don't seem able to turn off. In what possible sense is that silent?