Simultaneous audio playback from multiple sources is still not possible, and why Apple should implement it

[symphony]

Why this feature is necessary:

• Prevents bugs when using apps from pausing your currently playing audio (ex. I experienced my music stop when opening and scrolling through Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube)
• Prevents websites from pausing your currently playing audio (ex. Videos and ads that auto play or secretly plays silent noise)
• Allows you to freely skim through other videos without pausing your currently playing audio (ex. I am watching a YouTube video on Safari, while I am watching, I want to find this other video, uncertain if it is the right video, I open it in another tab and skim through it to see if it has the part I was looking for, I don’t need my other YouTube video to be interrupted here while multitasking)
• Allows you to view videos from your photo library without pausing your currently playing audio (ex. I wanna view a video of my dog while listening to music, especially when the video has no audible noises, or I had no intention in hearing the video’s audio)
• Allows you to view your HomeKit cameras without pausing your currently playing audio (ex. You just need to visually see where your dog went, it is not necessary to stop my music)
• Allows you to just view any video without worrying that your music will just stop
• Allows you to edit a video while audio is playing (ex. Editing on LumaFusion while watching a YouTube video in PiP or listening to music)
• Allows you to play multiple audio sources simultaneously (ex. Commentaries and reactions audio files that need syncing to movies files via two separate apps; comparing two videos in Files app; skimming through videos in Files for review while listening to music)

Simultaneous audio playback from different sources already exist, but is limited to phone calls, navigation, sound effects.

How they can implement this:

• Similar to macOS where all the audio sources currently playing or paused is in the menu bar, which is essentially similar to Control Center on iOS
• In Control Center on iOS, it shows the current audio source, when you long press on it, it should appear like macOS where we see a vertical list of all audio sources

If people still haven’t been accustomed to technology after 16 years of iOS, despite learning all the gestures and other complex features, then at least bring it to iPadOS. And for the tech illiterate who can’t be bothered to pause the audio and rather have it done automatically for them, then have a toggle to disable it. In fact, I suggest the multiple audio sources to be off by default.

Please and thanks Apple, for the sixth year in a row. My music getting cut out is so annoying.

 

[eicca]

This is one big reason I ditched my iPad and bought an M1 MacBook Air instead.

I have zero regrets so far.

 

[Feenician]

Really agree with all of this. It doesn't seem like a sensible limitation at this point and it's especially irksome when it's caused by a website doing something weird with media, even when nothing is playing in it.

 

[Stuey3D]

CNET are terrible for this. There I am listening to tunes scrolling Twitter and I see a CNET article so I click into it and my tunes stop every damned time! This has been the case for years, I’ve even complained to them about it and still nothing changes even adblockers don’t fix this issue.

 

[symphony]

I just opened Tips app on iOS 16 while listening to music, and it stopped it 🙁

 

[SoYoung]

I created a topic earlier this week talking for the exact same request. I litteralycasking this for years if not a decade now, but it seems it’s still not an issue for Apple.

for websites, I suggest the extension Stopthemadness for Safari. It prevents website to load some weird things in the background and stop your audio playing.

 

[nortonandreev]

Completely agree.

 

[contacos]

Yeah websites which auto play unrelated videos on top of an article that you are trying to read are literally the WORST and somehow AdGuard pro is not able to block those

 

[Feenician]

I created a topic earlier this week talking for the exact same request. I litteralycasking this for years if not a decade now, but it seems it’s still not an issue for Apple.

for websites, I suggest the extension Stopthemadness for Safari. It prevents website to load some weird things in the background and stop your audio playing.

Oooh. I've been using StopTheMadness on Mac for years and installed it on iOS when it came out. Never occurred to me to use it for this though. Looks like the "stop auto playing video setting might work for this though". Thanks!

 

[mabaker]

Is this still not implemented!? on an iPad PRO!?

 

[Steakface McToenailtongue]

Hi, I’m from the future in 2026 and you still can’t play multiple videos or sounds simultaneously in iOS iPadOS. And I still won’t by an iPad. However on VisionOS there is a glitch where as long as all videos are cued up muted, you can start playing them and manually raise their volumes. So it can be done it’s just arbitrarily draconian design decision and it’s not for performance reasons. It’s from stupid users being confused and Apple not wanting to deal with supporting it, most likely.