I'm having a hard time understand how volume control works

[someone28624]

I must be a total idiot, but I'm having a hard time understanding how volume control works on the iPhone.

I get that if I adjust the volume from the home page, this controls my ringer volume. I also get that flipping the mute switch silences my ringer, text messages, and various other alerts. Alarms set within the native iPhone clock app still seem to sound if this switch is flipped. What I don't get, however, is that this does not seem to silence app sounds, like music in a game or on Pandora, however, if I set an alarm through a third party app, that will not sound if the mute switch is slipped. The mute switch also seems to not silence music through the iPod app. This is throwing me off- how does the mute switch function within application sounds? Are there any alarm apps that will sound even if the app is running in the background and the mute switch is flipped?

Also confusing to me...if I adjust the volume within an app, is just that app's volume adjusted, or all volumes for all apps?

Can the ringer be silenced without using the mute switch?

I need a way to not hear any sounds from my iPod- phones, texts, emails, Facebook, except alarms. What's the best way to do this?

Sorry if all of these questions seem stupid. It's just very confusing to me for some reason.

 

[Small White Car]

You're not alone. It is confusing.

I think the problem is that app developers have control over how their program interacts with the volume buttons and the mute switch. And they all seem to do something slightly differently with them.

I also wish Apple would make it more clear with on-screen labels. When you're on the home screen and change the volume it says "Ringer." As a test I just went in to Angry Birds and then Bejeweled and confirmed that they use the same volume system. When I turn one down, then switch, the other has been lowered to the same amount.

Ok, that's fine, but why is that volume screen blank? Where it said 'Ringer' it should now say 'Apps' or 'Games' or something.

It needs to be labled better.

 

[HeezyBear]

I need a way to not hear any sounds from my iPod- phones, texts, emails, Facebook, except alarms. What's the best way to do this?

Sorry if all of these questions seem stupid. It's just very confusing to me for some reason.

The way to do this is simply to flip the switch to mute and just don't play your iPod or open the Pandora app.

Whenever I have mute on none of the apps make any sound except for the alarm, which is what you want. Unless of course it is a music app, which this makes sense because people may want to listen to their music uninterrupted or with headphones somewhere where they need to keep their phone silent.

I really don't know how third party games would be making any type of noise if you had the mute on. This never happens to me. One annoying thing, though is that if you have the mute on, but then use your headphones, the ringer will still go off in the headphones. This is really annoying because I always forget to turn down the headphone ringer volume and it blasts it so loud.