Skip to main content

Spotify calls out Apple for removing volume control for connected devices

Spotify app and earbud

Spotify users on iPhone who listen to music and podcasts via Spotify Connect will have to take a few extra steps in order to control the volume on their audio devices — Spotify seems unhappy about it.

According to Spotify, Apple has "discontinued" the technology that let Spotify users control their volume via the physical iPhone buttons when streaming to speakers, smart TVs, gaming consoles, and other devices via Spotify Connect.

SEE ALSO: Apple Sports app will give real-time NFL and CFB updates on your iPhone and Apple Watch

Users who try to use the physical iPhone buttons to turn the volume up and down will be served with a notification from Spotify letting users know they will need to use the volume slider within the Spotify app. Clicking on this "Want to change the volume?" notification will take Spotify users to the slider in the app.

This change will officially roll out on September 3, but some users are reporting that they are already being sent the notification when trying to change their volume.

Spotify new volume controls
An example of the Spotify notification when trying to use the physical iPhone buttons and what the Spotify app volume slider looks like. Credit: Spotify

Spotify and Apple continue their feud

In its update, Spotify makes it clear that Apple is responsible for making things a bit more difficult for its iPhone-owning users.

"Apple has discontinued the technology that enables Spotify to control volume for connected devices using the volume buttons on the device," Spotify says on its support page for Spotify Connect. "While we work with them on a solution, you can use the Spotify app to easily adjust the volume on your connected device."

Mashable reached out to Apple for comment and will update this piece when we hear back.

As The Verge points out, Apple's changes have resulted in random volume spikes as well as other bugs for Spotify users, which led to Spotify altering how users can control the volume. The Sonos app made a similar change earlier this year after its users experienced similar problems.

"We’ve made requests to Apple to introduce a similar solution to what they offer users on HomePod and Apple TV for app developers who control non-Apple media devices," the Verge reports Spotify saying. "Apple has told us that they require apps to integrate into HomePod in order to access the technology that controls volume on iPhones."

While this specific volume control issue between these two industry behemoths may seem minor overall, it's actually just one more issue between Spotify and Apple in a larger ongoing feud.

Earlier this year, Apple was hit with a $2 billion fine in the EU after Spotify filed a complaint against the iPhone-maker over its policies prohibiting app makers from sending users outside of Apple's official App Store in order to sign up for subscription services.

In response, Apple published a public statement criticizing Spotify for using all of Apple's tools to run the iPhone app without paying the company.

In the statement, Apple pointed out that the company works with Spotify to ensure that its app works with "Siri, CarPlay, Apple Watch, AirPlay, Widgets, and more." But it now appears that Spotify volume controls via the iPhone's physical buttons are no longer included on that list.



from Mashable https://ift.tt/KwrL5Yq
https://ift.tt/3JCLh9a
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

When the clocks change for Daylight Saving Time, and why we do it at all

The clocks on our smartphones do something bizarre twice a year: One day in the spring, they jump ahead an hour, and our alarms go off an hour sooner. We wake up bleary-eyed and confused until we remember what just happened. Afterward, "Daylight Saving Time" becomes the norm for about eight months (And yes, it's called "Daylight Saving" not "Daylight Savings." I don't make the rules). Then, in the fall, the opposite happens. Our clocks set themselves back an hour, and we wake up refreshed, if a little uneasy.  Mild chaos ensues at both annual clock changes. What feels like an abrupt and drastic lengthening or shortening of the day causes time itself to seem fictional. Babies and dogs demand that their old sleep and feeding habits remain unchanged. And more consequential effects — for better or worse — may be involved as well (more on which in a minute). Changing our clocks is an all-out attack on our perception of time as an immutable law of ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Shortcut AI Excel agent could one-shot spreadsheet jobs. Heres how to try it.

There's a new AI agent on the block for people who spend their waking hours inside spreadsheets. Navigate to Shortcut AI's website , and you'll find a page that looks almost exactly like an empty Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. The main difference is a sidebar chatbot that can be tasked with taking on the tedious legwork of building, say, complex financial models or competitive analyses. Because Shortcut is agentic , meaning it can handle multi-step tasks on the user's behalf, the tool can do more than just generate Excel formulas or analyze spreadsheet data. In a demo on X, Nico Christie, founder and CEO of the Shortcut AI agent, showed how the tool swapped out the data from a Microsoft distributed cash flow analysis (DCF) for Google data by looking up Google's SEC filings and populating the data in the same template. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. Shortcut launched on Monday with a rather ominous tagline: "Try...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mystery Pixel smartphones detailed in code references

The devices also pack 12GB of RAM apiece. Shiba is said to feature a screen with a resolution of 2,268 x 1,080 pixels while Husky could be a bit larger at 2,822 x 1,344 pixels. Given the amount of RAM, however, both would likely qualify as premium devices. from TechSpot https://ift.tt/cefMDJW via
Post a Comment
Read more