iPhones have a physical switch for turning sound off. This switch will mute incoming audio alerts and the phone will only vibrate when you get a call, a text, or any other type of alert. Despite the switch set to mute, you will still hear sound when you play a video. You will also hear a shutter sound when you take a picture, you will hear the click sound when you lock your phone, and you will also hear typing sounds when you tap keys on the virtual keyboard. This makes quite a few sounds that the switch doesn’t mute. The video playback is something you have control over i.e., you can change the media volume. The camera shutter can’t be silenced but you can turn off typing sounds on iOS, just not from the sound switch.
Typing sounds and the screen lock click sound are not bound to the mute/unmute switch on an iPhone. They are their own setting. Open the Settings app on your iPhone (or iPad, this works for both), and go to Sounds. Scroll to the end, and you will see two switches; one for typing sounds, and one for lock sound. Turn them both off.
You will no longer hear the tap sound when you tap a key, and when you lock the phone or tablet, it will not give you audio feedback.
If you’re wondering what can be done about the camera shutter sound, the answer is nothing. If you are willing to jailbreak your phone, you might be able to find a tweak that can silence the camera shutter. Alternatively, you can try using a different app to take photos and see if it can take them without the shutter sound. The shutter sound used to be something that could be silenced but it gave people the ability to take photos in situations that compromised or violated someone’s privacy; think upskirt photos. The shutter sound alerts people around you that a photo has been taken and is meant to deter people from trying to ‘sneak’ photos. It may be annoying but it is, as they say, for the greater good.
On older iPhone models, it may still be possible to silence the shutter sound in the camera app but we’re talking exceptionally old models that are probably not running the latest version of iOS and will likely be obsolete in the next few years if they aren’t already.
