Speaking of things we don’t like about iOS 4.2 for iPad: Apple changed the orientation lock button and made it a mute switch. Then, they put the orientation lock in the multitasking tray, which you can access with a single swipe to the right. Many users – MS staff included – asked: why? Why putting a mute switch on the iPad when you can get the volume down to zero by simply holding the volume key for a second? Why changing the behavior of that button when the iPad is clearly more a reading device and reading on a tablet requires orientation adjustment all the time?

When Apple changed the behavior of the button in iOS 4.2 betas, we predicted it wouldn’t take long for jailbreakers to find a way back to the orientation lock. And indeed NoMute for iPad, available for free in Cydia now, makes the mute switch button an orientation lock button again. Too bad there’s a bug in the tweak which together with locking orientation will mute the iPad’s volume as well. Ouch. I guess the developer just needs to release a quick update to fix this issue.

Anyway, the orientation lock button is back. We were waiting for you, good old friend.