They said the same thing about CD players and video games (Penny Arcade: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/10/30/ )

I'm not surprised by this in the least. I always thought the "no cell phones/video games/CD players" was about getting people used to following arbitrary directions for bad or no reasons.

I thought the current rationale for not allowing cell phones and other wireless devices on planes was the potential for interfering with ground based communications. I didn't think they'd used the avionics argument in a while.