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Not everyone knows (or cares about) the finer points of technology.
Many are happy just to discover that their phone works and that they know how to work it.
So who cannot at least attempt to have sympathy for the man whose iPhone stopped the New York Philharmonic in its tracks last Tuesday?
The marimba was so out of tune with the strings that conductor Alan Gilbert downed baton and became upset.
Now the New York Times has located the man who stopped Mahler dead, and he is mortified.
Yes, they come with alarms.

He is a regular concertgoer. He was seated in the front row. Unfortunately, though, his company had--for reasons unknown--taken back his corporate BlackBerry and given him an iPhone instead.
This was its first day in the gentleman's possession. This was its first time at a concert.
And the gentleman explained that he wasn't quite au fait with all of its joys. He was sure he had switched his phone off. There was a gap, though, in his phone knowledge.
"I didn't know phones came with alarms," he explained to the Times.
Some will scoff louder than metal fans at the opera. Some will utter diatribes of disbelief. How could this gentleman not see the little bell at the top of his screen that told him an alarm had been set?
How could his wife have only discovered this for him on the way home?
But, you see, not everyone gets a new phone and prods and presses until it's an extension of their right arm.
Some people are just grateful they have a phone that does wonderful things: like get e-mail.
Perhaps, though, if his phone is an iPhone 4S, he will familiarize himself with Siri. She will help him. She will save him. Always.

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