Lex Friedman blogs here.

Lex is the EVP of Sales and Development for Midroll, the world's best podcast advertising network.

He was previously Macworld's senior writer, and continues to contribute to the publication. He is the cohost of the Not Playing podcast, a cohost of the Turning This Car Around podcast, a cohost of the The Rebound podcast, and the sole host of the Your Daily Lex podcast.

Lex's first book, The Snuggie Sutra, is exactly what it sounds like. His most recent book is a Dr. Seuss parody for adults; it's called The Kid in the Crib.

You should follow him on both Twitter and App.net.

Lex would be delighted to speak at your awesome event.

Do Not Disturb in iOS 7 is finally great

I was very excited about the launch of Do Not Disturb with iOS 6. It's not like it was a huge or especially innovative feature; the ability to silence your iPhone completely, on a schedule, feels more like a no-brainer necessity than a nicety. 

But Do Not Disturb in iOS 6 had a big, fat, dopey flaw.

As I complained about at Macworld, Do Not Disturb in iOS 6 didn't actually mute your iPhone. While your iPhone was awake and in use, chimes rang out and bleeps shouted and notifications popped up. If you tried to use your iPhone in Do Not Disturb while a child or partner slept nearby, you risked waking them, even with the Ring/Silent switch flipped, since even that switch's behavior is inconsistent for some apps.

I posted cludgey workarounds to make your iPhone actually prevent disturbances when, for example, you used Maps for turn-by-turn navigation behind the wheel.

Apple heeded my complaints with iOS 7. There's now an option to make Do Not Disturb do what it should—completely silence your iOS device.

Head over to Settings, tap on Do Not Disturb, scroll down to the bottom, and set Silence to Always, instead of Only While iPhone Is Locked. 

Thanks, Apple. And you're welcome, everyone else.

 

Posted on September 20th, 2013