Isn't the highlighted phrase the operative phrase?

It's not banning those devices in any and all contexts, but rather in the specific context of using them in distractive manner.

Also, this doesn’t mention bike computers per se.

And by "tech", do you mean the tech guide or an actual person? If the latter, politely suggest that s/he is interpreting the guidelines out of context.

Bike computers are fine (ex. Garmins). What they ban is mounting your phone on your bars for use as a bike computer.

The rationale is that you would still get texts and incoming calls that could distract a rider….and some people would inevitably take a call mid-race.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

I agree. The rules are clear. They changed their minds after we showed and explained the rules.

we have this post at the same time as various discussions around questionably legal fairings. if IM can't even consistently decide whether bike computers as used by nearly every athlete for many years are legal, then what hope of sensible rulings on fairings?

I think IM has consistently ruled that bike computers are legal, as evidenced by tens of thousands of riders being allowed to use them over the years. One "tech," likely a volunteer, made a mistake.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

On a related note, I am interested to see how this ruling changes over time. Not sure much using a device for music, but more for the live updates/texts etc you can now more easily do with the rise of LTE enabled Garmin watches as well as Apple Watches with cellular capability etc. Not sure there is much in the way of advantages to be gained, but with all these devices with inbuilt cellular capability on the market now it is pretty hard to limit their use.

The tech is an idiot.
The bold line means "using the (phone etc) in a manner similar to (how one would use) a bike computer". i.e. you can't mount your phone on the bars.
It does not mean "using a device (such as) a bike computer".

That person is probably just a volunteer, who doesn't do triathlons, who had a 30 minute briefing from the event organizer. He might not even have heard of such a thing as a bike computer, and is imagining a laptop (who knows).

Eitherway, Bike computers are fine... There won't be any problems on race days... I have seen plenty of people who race with phones as well. The only tech I have seen being enforced are people who bike with earbuds.

Unless you are at the pointy end of the race.... almost anything goes as neither participants or volunteers know what's going on. Ironman is in the business of putting up a good participation event (excluding Kona, etc.). Enforcing rules in a strict manner isn't in their best interest.