Are you looking at your screen rotation lock hardware button on the iPad? Well, remember that with iOS 4.2, due in about a month from now or even less, it’ll become a Mute hardware button.

The same happened to iPhones when their iOS 4.1 rolled out.

There’s no hope that things could do differently. Steve Jobs allegedly replied to question In IOS 4.2 for iPad is the switch on the side going to be the mute and not screen orientation lock from now on? and answered Yep, while answering Nope to question Are you planning to make that a changeable option?.

Screen rotation lock will become part of multitasking controls (like, scroll to the right the multitasking bar that appears after a double-click on Home button and the last icon on the left will be screen rotation lock), just like on the iPhone.

Some people love to discuss irrelevant changes to the general interface of anything, so it’s not surprising see discussions about this. [What? No Mute button for stupid emails on the iPad?—Ed.]

[via 9to5Mac]