The godfather of iOS development, Craig Hockenberry wondered out loud on Twitter about just why Apple would change the iPad’s hardware orientation lock to a mute switch in iOS 4.2, and if it could be related to future, FaceTime-equipped iPad 2 hardware:
When (not if) an iPad has FaceTime, will silencing the alerts be more important than orientation? Depends on the person and how they use it…If iPad 2 is shown off in January and ships in April, it will certainly still be running iOS 4.x. (iOS 5 won’t ship until June 2011 for iPhone, and who knows when for iPad, November 2011?) So when it makes FaceTime calls, does an iPhone-like mute switch make more sense?