[joesmo]

All the use cases the author provides at the bottom for disabling / downgrading cellphone functionality could be captured in one app. The phone can even detect the bluetooth connection to a car and render itself useless during that time. If the author wants this, he should go ahead and pursue it, but forcing it on others is inappropriate. There are a myriad of much more dangerous tools to others than a cellphone. Cars come to mind immediately. Not only that, some people really do need to stay in constant communication. Perhaps that ringtone that the author wants to get rid of would have been heard by the doctor waiting for a page.

The whole article reads like a holier-than-though rant with no support or logic other than the author's clear intent of forcing his opinions and way of being upon others. Others people's phone screens really bother him? That's absurd. Other than driving while using the phone--the only valid complaint in the whole article--the rest are at best annoyances.