Damaged lithium batteries catch fire whether the device is on or not.
The original reason why the "no electronics during takeoff or landing" regulation was adopted reaches back to the assumption that you can cause an airliner's nav system to go out of whack with radio signals emitted from consumer electronics.
As far as I know this argument has turned out to be pure FUD. However, once a law or regulation is in effect, it is unlikely to ever be rolled back again - this is probably the reason why they simply switched out the rationalization for it to something else: they now say that electronic devices could turn into deadly shrapnel during takeoff and landing.
Like so many "security" and "safety" related things today, the fact that they make you switch off your iPod but don't actually force you to pack it away safely requires a certain amount of cognitive dissonance of all parties involved.
I can't locate it, and wikipedia fully backs up the idea that electronics could interfere with Nav systems, however, I once read a compelling piece that lead me to believe different.
It had something to do with FCC regulations and how you could somehow bypass some system and get free calls, or calls could not be billed correctly, perhaps it was data, but it certainly was cellular related.
I can't seem to locate the information now.
At any rate, it does seem strange, as they cell towers themselves are not being asked to shut down, and they certainly broadcast much greater signals than the actual cell phone. This signal is rained over the entire aircraft 24/7.
The article that you mention (which I remember as well and also can't find) was basically saying how in theory a cellphone from a plane could hop from tower to tower much faster than they currently do if the user is in, say, a car, and that could cause some problems for the cell phone system.
I remember something along those lines as well, it has nothing to do with airline security and switching off electronic devices though. The issue here is that a 2G/3G device on a flying plane does reach a lot of cell towers simultaneously. The network is not designed for this, they pretty much assume that you're in reach of only a handful of towers at any given time - so the cell network could possibly be overloaded by thousands of people in the air trying to connect to many towers at once.
The original reason why the "no electronics during takeoff or landing" regulation was adopted reaches back to the assumption that you can cause an airliner's nav system to go out of whack with radio signals emitted from consumer electronics.
As far as I know this argument has turned out to be pure FUD. However, once a law or regulation is in effect, it is unlikely to ever be rolled back again - this is probably the reason why they simply switched out the rationalization for it to something else: they now say that electronic devices could turn into deadly shrapnel during takeoff and landing.
Like so many "security" and "safety" related things today, the fact that they make you switch off your iPod but don't actually force you to pack it away safely requires a certain amount of cognitive dissonance of all parties involved.