[jefe_]

Similar thing would happen in my Toyota, the song 'Afraid' by Yellowcard would play every time I turned on the car. Realized it was playing the first song in my library. In Apple Music there is a song called 'A a a a a Very Good Song (Silent Track)' by artist Samir Mezrahi, that contains 10 minutes of silence. I added that to my library and now that song plays when I turn on my car (although this autoplay only happens occasionally since some Toyota update). The album art simply says: 'have a wonderful day.'

The song: https://music.apple.com/us/album/a-a-a-a-a-very-good-song-si...

[mcculley]

I had a Mercedes lease for three years with the same problem of automatically playing the first song as sorted alphabetically. In my case, it was "A Boy Named Sue" by Johnny Cash. That song loses its humor after you hear it a few hundred times.

[cptcobalt]

Same thing with my husband's car, his phone, and the song "A-Punk" by Vampire Weekend. I now jokingly play it as the first song any time we head off on a long road trip, much to his immense frustration.

[selcuka]

Heh, decades ago a Phil Collins tape was stuck in my car's cassette player (yes, that was a thing) and there was no way to switch to radio when there is a tape inside. I guess I listened to that album few hundred times until I decided to do something (probably spray some WD-40) about it.

[feet]

But why the hell is it autoplaying in the first place? Does apple really hate their customers/users so much that they can't make this an option?

That's completely insane. The more I learn about apple, the more I see extremely hostile UI decisions for literally no reason

[oliveshell]

I believe what’s happening is that certain car stereos are programmed to basically send the “play” command as soon as a device is connected. From the phone’s perspective, it’s as if you had connected Bluetooth headphones and then pressed the “play/pause” button.

I say this because my iPhone never autoplays when connecting to any Bluetooth audio device except for my car stereo.

I agree it’s aggressive and should be able to be turned off, but it’s the car’s software, not the phone’s, that’s the problem.

[falcolas]

IME, this doesn't happen in any of my Subaru vehicles. It picks up where I am in Spotify with no issues. Whether via carplay or connecting via Apple's Car integration.

That said, I have had this issue when connecting an iPhone to a '11 truck via USB. It tries to treat it like an iPod, and consume its default playlist (all songs in Music, sans shuffle).

So this is probably the bluetooth equivalent being done by the cars - treat it like an iPod that the entertainment center should be in charge of.

[StevePerkins]

As others have already explained, the autoplay is because the car sends a "play" command as soon as the bluetooth connects.

From the auto manufacturer's perspective, this kinda "makes sense". Because that was the legacy behavior, pre-bluetooth. If you turn off your car with the radio playing, then the radio will start playing again the next time you crank up the car. If drivers didn't want that, then hey... they would have turned off the stereo before turning off their car. So it would be less confusing to carry forward that legacy behavior into this new thing.

The problem is, it's 10 years later now. The culture and the consumer expectations have shifted. Maybe (?) the radio-like behavior makes sense for older consumers in their 60's and up, who lived with radio for many years more than they've lived with bluetooth. But for the younger bluetooth-native consumers, it's generally pretty infuriating.

It's LONG past time for auto makers to stop this legacy behavior with bluetooth connections. Or at the very least, offer the option to disable it somewhere in a dashboard menu.

[scifibestfi]

I've always assumed this is a bug. Why isn't it just resuming from whatever you were last listening to? And why is this still an issue after so long?

This is one of those things that Steve Jobs would have fired people on the spot for.

[bombcar]

I assume it's something to do with the devices not quite recognizing themselves as being identical to last time (perhaps any single change to anything on the iPhone causes it to download all the playlists again, etc).

I just use a stupid adapter with a mini jack input. Ain't got time for wireless wierdness.

[dkarl]

Engagement is eating the world, maybe engagement is now driving these decisions, too. People who listen more, buy more, so optimize for time spent listening.

My car and phone achieve a level of randomness that makes me wonder at the complexity of the software behind it. Usually it starts playing Music, but sometimes it's another app, especially if the last thing playing on my phone was YouTube. But sometimes it's YouTube even if the last app that played audio was something else. Sometimes I get the pause music from a game that's been running in the background for days.

I can't even predict whether Music will start in shuffle mode and pick a random song or if it will start playing an album I was recently listening to in sequential mode.

The result is that I've started to look at my phone the way I used to look at cable TV, as an invader in my home that works for people who want to manipulate me.

[joshu]

i seem to recall that this is what the spec calls for, and toyota follows the spec. it drives me up the wall.

[tiagod]

Why do you assume this was decided by Apple?

[focusedone]

Modern problems require modern solutions. Nice work.

[yakak]

Modem problems require AT solutions, but I guess I need a font problem solution.

[jtbayly]

I created a one-hour long silent MP3 and named it similarly and added it to my phone. I've sent it to a friend who uses it as well.

[marbu]

I have a script (simple ffmpeg wrapper) to generate silent mp3 files:

https://github.com/marbu/scriptpile/blob/master/silence.sh

I'm not quite sure what I needed that for anymore, but I find it interesting that there are such weird use cases for this.

[a9h74j]

Call it Subliminal productivity silence and you can make a fortune.

[SilasX]

Semi-related: I tried out Microsoft/Ford's SYNC system (voice commands for your car) in '08 and was upset that it didn't seem to support an option for "continue listening to podcast series X where I left off" ... like, the thing you would want to do all the time. (Item 5.)

http://blog.tyrannyofthemouse.com/2008/07/setting-sync-strai...

[Lammy]

I use a jailbreak tweak for this: http://cydia.saurik.com/package/com.itortrix.stopplayin12/

[iancmceachern]

Samir is brilliant. Talk about identifying a need and then solving it in the most efficient way possible.

[nostromo]

I wonder how much this person makes in royalties for a silent track.

[lattalayta]

Was (and maybe still is?) top of the charts

https://www.engadget.com/2017-08-10-silent-10-minute-song-it...

[void-pointer]

My dad added the song to the library, but it didn’t work, because he has a song called “A” [1] in his library and that one takes priority. It’s a family in-joke now.

[1] https://music.apple.com/gb/album/a/1316144097?i=1316144100

[bakemawaytoys]

My car does this too! Except the first song in my library is A Christmas Festival by Boston Pops Orchestra.

The song has a dramatic opening, to say the least.

[funcDropShadow]

That is the best workaround for a software problem, I've ever heard.

[dhimes]

My Toyota only plays my iPhone bluetooth if (a) my car is in bluetooth "mode" and not radio and (b) I have my music app open.

I've never experienced what you (two) describe. 2020 Toy and iPhone 11.

[edgyquant]

I have a 2017 Toyota and never has that problem. Though for awhile I did have an issue where audible kept starting randomly but it seems to have fixed itself.