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An iOS 7.1 control center feature I don't understand

A

Apple blogger

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 28, 2013
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On the control center between the music controls and brightness(where the song name appears when we play a song) ( I am not playing any song currently) I have "music" written over there if I tap it, it opens the music app... Today when I brought it up, it had "safari" written and when I tapped it it opened safari..then I presses play button to start the music but there was no response, no music played, so I kept pressing.. But nothing happend .. Then I went to the music app and played a song .. And then paused it and pressed the rewind button till no song plays in "now playing".. After that I again brought up the control center and "music" was written where the song name appears.. I pressed play and the music played...
I am not able to figure out this feature, it wasn't there in iOS 7.0.6, before it was only a blank space... Any thoughts or facts ??
 

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I had that same encounter with you too. i kept on pressing the play button but no response.

I personally feel its stupid because when i press the play button i expect my music to start playing. not sure why apple put it that way..
 
It's showing whatever app was last using the playback function, only the music and podcast apps will resume playback if they've been closed and cleared out of RAM. In 7 if it killed podcasts.app the player in the control panel would be blank and pressing play would make it relaunch the app and play where it left off, I guess having the app name is supposed to make this feature more apparent but also confusing since it doesn't work with other apps right now but lists their names anyway.
 
Apple blogger said:
On the control center between the music controls and brightness(where the song name appears when we play a song) ( I am not playing any song currently) I have "music" written over there if I tap it, it opens the music app... Today when I brought it up, it had "safari" written and when I tapped it it opened safari..then I presses play button to start the music but there was no response, no music played, so I kept pressing.. But nothing happend .. Then I went to the music app and played a song .. And then paused it and pressed the rewind button till no song plays in "now playing".. After that I again brought up the control center and "music" was written where the song name appears.. I pressed play and the music played...
I am not able to figure out this feature, it wasn't there in iOS 7.0.6, before it was only a blank space... Any thoughts or facts ??
Click to expand...

As said above, it will launch the last app that played anything.

A LOT of people on here (and on the Apple Discussions boards) were complaining that there was no shortcut to music in the CC, unlike in iOS 6 when you could launch the app from the multitasking tray controls. Apple obviously added this in response to feedback.

I quite like it.
 
This has been explained well above.

I would say Apple could improve this though, perhaps the media controls could be 'greyed out' when they are not applicable?
 
bbfc said:
As said above, it will launch the last app that played anything.

A LOT of people on here (and on the Apple Discussions boards) were complaining that there was no shortcut to music in the CC, unlike in iOS 6 when you could launch the app from the multitasking tray controls. Apple obviously added this in response to feedback.

I quite like it.
Click to expand...
So only I play any video or audio from an app like I did yesterday with safari.. And kill the app from multitasking , it will still show the it on the control center .. Ok ..
 
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Apple blogger said:
So only I play any video or audio from an app like I did yesterday with safari.. And kill the app from multitasking , it will still show the it on the control center .. Ok ..
Click to expand...

It will show the last app that used the media controls. I fail to see the issue.
 
bbfc said:
It will show the last app that used the media controls. I fail to see the issue.
Click to expand...

The issue is perhaps they added a feature that is unexpected or undesired by everyone.
I personally preferred having my music controls by default in the control center so I could start playing music without having to launch all the way into the app. It also integrated very well with my car's bluetooth system and would begin playing music simply by switching audio sources. Now that the media controls can be held by another app, such as Safari, I have to unlock the phone, find and open the music app then start playing all while driving....which of course is a bad thing.

Since I cannot resume playing anything in Safari from the control centre it appears to me pretty pointless and thus a feature I don't understand. If the media controls are going to remain for multiple apps now it would be beneficial that it could be turned on/off for particular apps and therefore adding a little more control to our own control centre.
 
W0RR0M said:
The issue is perhaps they added a feature that is unexpected or undesired by everyone.
I personally preferred having my music controls by default in the control center so I could start playing music without having to launch all the way into the app. It also integrated very well with my car's bluetooth system and would begin playing music simply by switching audio sources. Now that the media controls can be held by another app, such as Safari, I have to unlock the phone, find and open the music app then start playing all while driving....which of course is a bad thing.

Since I cannot resume playing anything in Safari from the control centre it appears to me pretty pointless and thus a feature I don't understand. If the media controls are going to remain for multiple apps now it would be beneficial that it could be turned on/off for particular apps and therefore adding a little more control to our own control centre.
Click to expand...
I believe as someone mentioned in a very similar thread at https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1718718/ (and included a screenshot from iOS 6 or earlier), it was essentially like that before iOS 7 as well.
 
bbfc said:
It will show the last app that used the media controls. I fail to see the issue.
Click to expand...

I feel like it should only show the last app if the last app is still in music playing mode. Clearly Safari isn't really a music player, but it can play music and video on certain sites. Whilst on those sites, it's fine and correct that it shows in the control centre. But when you have left that page, I think it should clear from the music centre and default to the last app before that.

In other words, I think 'play' should always DO something when you press it. If the state of the last app is such that play won't do anything (i.e. you've left the safari page) then it should not show safari, but instead Music or whatever.
 
snappyfool said:
I feel like it should only show the last app if the last app is still in music playing mode. Clearly Safari isn't really a music player, but it can play music and video on certain sites. Whilst on those sites, it's fine and correct that it shows in the control centre. But when you have left that page, I think it should clear from the music centre and default to the last app before that.

In other words, I think 'play' should always DO something when you press it. If the state of the last app is such that play won't do anything (i.e. you've left the safari page) then it should not show safari, but instead Music or whatever.
Click to expand...

Exactly. If Safari has stopped playing music/media and isn't in a position to resume playback there's no reason Safari should still be commandeering the Control Centre music controls. Perhaps this is desirable in the case of other music centric apps like Spotify which can start up playback, but it seems obvious that Safari's control should be relinquished after use.
 
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Ed91 said:
Exactly. If Safari has stopped playing music/media and isn't in a position to resume playback there's no reason Safari should still be commandeering the Control Centre music controls. Perhaps this is desirable in the case of other music centric apps like Spotify which can start up playback, but it seems obvious that Safari's control should be relinquished after use.
Click to expand...

Several different bluetooth systems (e.g., Toyota, some BMWs) send an automatic "Play" to iOS and Android as soon as bluetooth is connected, which can be quite jarring. On the Android side of things, there is a little App to ignore the first "Play" signal when bluetooth reconnects. In iOS, whatever is showing in the Control Center stars up on the first bluetooth reconnect "Play." It would be nice if there was a way to stop this behavior. I don't blame iOS for this, it's just doing what it is told, instead I blame the bluetooth head unit manufacturers. Nevertheless it would be nice to make this behavior go away.
 
iolinux333 said:
Several different bluetooth systems (e.g., Toyota, some BMWs) send an automatic "Play" to iOS and Android as soon as bluetooth is connected, which can be quite jarring. On the Android side of things, there is a little App to ignore the first "Play" signal when bluetooth reconnects. In iOS, whatever is showing in the Control Center stars up on the first bluetooth reconnect "Play." It would be nice if there was a way to stop this behavior. I don't blame iOS for this, it's just doing what it is told, instead I blame the bluetooth head unit manufacturers. Nevertheless it would be nice to make this behavior go away.
Click to expand...

Thanks for shedding a bit of light on this. I've experienced the same thing in a new Nissan Rogue. Unfortunately, you can inadvertantly chew up data if you don't pay attention to what app is cued in the Control Center. My wireless network only goes to the end of the driveway :mad:
 
I bet its embarrassing when your girl pulls up control center and it says youporn.:eek:
 
zone23 said:
I bet its embarrassing when your girl pulls up control center and it says youporn.:eek:
Click to expand...
When/how would it say that? Doesn't it simply just show the name of the app that used the controls last?
 
C DM said:
When/how would it say that? Doesn't it simply just show the name of the app that used the controls last?
Click to expand...

If you are viewing a video and hit the home key it will show the website address in multiple places even if your viewing the video in private mode. See attached.

Even show it on the lock screen.
 

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Sorry to bump such an old thread but I can't find any info on this anywhere. Is there a jailbreak tweak or something that will default it back to the music app when no other apps are open?
 
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