All smartphones and tablets facilitate the activation and deactivation of the ringing / alert system. Without this ability, we'd be left with loud ringer or message tones in the most inconvenient situations like meetings, libraries, or other such environments, but while slipping a device into silent mode isn't particularly taxing, it would be a great deal better if we could simply create a schedule for when we want our device to be silent, and when we want to hear it speak. It's certainly on my list of 'simple things smartphones should be able to do natively, but often can't,' and help is at hand for those on Android courtesy of an app by the name of Silence.