Apple Is Dabbling with a New 'Theatre Mode' for Mid-Movie Texting

A new year, a new swirl of rumours about new Apple updates and features. Basically, it's business as usual in 2017 so far. If you like sitting in darkened rooms to watch movies — and actually watching them, not just paying to use the latest big screen flick as a backdrop while you have a text message convo, check Facebook, scroll through Instagram pics of cute dogs, book a holiday, send an email, take a selfie or a sneaky pic of the film, swipe through Tindr, play Angry Birds or live tweet the movie in question — then the technology behemoth's reported new option isn't just another routine addition. It's an abomination.

Behold 'theatre mode'. Or, start weeping over the fact that humanity has regressed to a state where we can't even last two hours without using the electronic devices we're all always glued to every other second of the day. As first tweeted by Melbourne's Sonny Dickson — who is known to be quite the prolific and accurate leaker of tidbits and updates from the company Steve Jobs built — Apple's new iOS 10.3 could allow you to select an option that's kind of like airplane mode for cinema-goers. You'd expect that theatre mode will mute all calls and sounds, and we can only guess that it will also dim the iPhone's screen in a new way that is supposedly less bright, glaring and intrusive to others who, you know, are happily watching a film.

Those in favour of the proposed new feature point out the fact that if people are going to use their phones in theatres anyway (and we all know that plenty do), then at least this will try to minimise the disruptive effect it has on everyone around them. Sure, that's one way of looking at it. The other is that Apple is normalising a type of behaviour some folks indulge in at the cost of everyone else's enjoyment. Seriously, we all love our phones, but two hours isn't that long. And wouldn't we all rather just soak in what we're watching, rather than half-view, half do a million other things?

Indeed, there's a reason that the Alamo Drafthouse's anti-phone and talk PSAs have garnered worldwide attention, and not just because they're usually hilarious and have enlisted a heap of celebrities to help out: most movie-goers want to watch the film they've paid for without the distraction of the person next to them pawing at their iPhone during the flick. And let's face it, no matter how supposedly wondrous the new Apple feature is, dimming that aggravating neighbourly phone glow, if you're sitting even vaguely near someone engaged with their phone, you're undeniably still going to notice it.

Some cinemas have already tried to head in the opposite direction, like American chain AMC, who revealed that they were open to hosting 'texting sessions' in April last year, only to backtrack after quite the predictable backlash. The idea of specific sections for phone-using patrons has also been floated. Sadly, each idea brings us closer to a time like this: when using your iPhone while you're in a theatre is perfectly acceptable. In case you're wondering, that list of in-cinema behaviour that we outlined at the beginning of this piece — they're just some of the antics that this writer has witnessed during a movie. If the phones most of the population own start actively encouraging their use while watching films in cinemas, expect more to follow. And we're not on board.

Ed's note: Sarah Ward is one of Concrete Playground's senior film writers and weekend editor. Read her current reviews here, here and here because she watches the whole damn movie.