I posted this because this has been a problem forever, and the "solution" is funny to me--just add a 10-minute silent song to your library that will be first alphabetically.
It made me wonder: how many extra streams has "Aaron Burr, Sir" from Hamilton gotten simply because it's likely the first alphabetical song in people's libraries? Is that offset by people who develop an irrational hatred of the song because they hear it every time they turn on their car?
It’s one of the main reasons that people give for being mad about that free U2 album on iPhones.
Prior to that, most folks could ignore the broken behaviour of autoplay on connect that cars did. But once it was there you’d get it playing every time you got in your car.
...source? It clearly can't be the band ("U2") or the album ("Songs Of Innocence") that were first alphabetically in anyone's library (unless it was _really_ sparse, and the first-alphabetically track on the album[0] is called "California (...)" - hard to believe there were enough people with libraries lacking any songs beginning with A or B to make this relevant.
I’m not making an absolute or academic claim, just one based on the majority of comments I see about it. So no source, feel free to disagree if you must.
But some points :
1. The album was given away in 2014
2. Apple Music wasn’t a streaming service till 2015. Prior to that, the music app was only for bought or manually managed songs.
3. Spotify existed since 2006, Google Play Music since 2011, Rdio since 2010, Pandora streaming since 2005.
4. The Music app was (is?) the unchangeable default for when a play command was given.
The album was given out well into the streaming era, which is when most people’s on device library would be smallest.
So yes, it’s likely many iPhone users would have not had any other album in their library. Those who did would be the ones who bought other albums from the iTunes Store or added it themselves. It was estimated to have been given to over 500 million users.
If even 1% of that had cars that auto played , and had no other music, that’s 5 million annoyed people.
I didn't put any songs on my iPhone, I use other apps. So, yeah, heard that dumb album a lot. Eventually deleted it and have tons of music on my phone, but not in Apple's ripoff ecosystem.
Source: I don't store music on my phone. U2 auto plays for me. The user base of major phone models is large enough that there are many many people who are different from you, regardless of who you are.
For the record, since the article never comes right out and says it and only indirectly implies it a few paragraphs in: this is more the car's fault than the phone's. Not every car has this problem.
> you plug your smartphone into your car, and then cringe when that song — the same song every time — begins to play.
No, this has never happened to me. Nothing starts auto-playing, and what does play when I hit the "play" button is for the player to pickup exactly where it stopped the last time I unplugged it from the car.
It's not the phone--it's the car. For some reason, some car stereo makers thought it would be a good idea to automatically send a "play" signal to the phone when it is first connected, and this is the result if you don't already have a song queued up.
Then this would be an easy fix for Apple. If no music is playing and it gets a "play" signal over the cable, ignore it. For the record it happens to me and it is annoying
Can confirm as well (deh-p160bt) - I ended up uninstalling it and going back to my prior Pioneer, which also does the same but at least has an off switch.
I have a 2016 Toyota Sienna. Every time I plug my iPhone (currently on iOS 17.2.1) into its USB, it starts playing Samir Mezrahi’s song as noted in the article. It also “helpfully” hits play every time you adjust the volume:
- Listen to music.
- Pull up a map. Realize the volume’s too low to hear directions. Turn it up.
- Listening to music again, but louder.
I’m having a CarPlay unit installed for Christmas, and my feelings about this are on par with wishing for a Red Ryder BB gun. I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep between now and then.
has there ever been a comprehensive breakdown of why bluetooth sucks so much? Even after 5-6 generations, devices still get into dead-end states that leave me seething. inb4 "the manufacturer isn't following the standard" - no, then why are they allowed to put the bluetooth logo on their packaging? I thought that was the deal: comply with standard, pay the license fee, earn the logo. I've never had the "plays the same song" bug, but about 1 in 20 times, the phone will not connect to the car. I try to press "connect", still nothing. toggle bluetooth on/off, still nothing. then a few minutes later it decides to work. I could go on, but I think most people have experienced extreme frustration with this, and I'd like to know if anyone has drilled down into why, exactly, bluetooth sucks so much.
Also, I cannot believe that some cars (looking at you, Subaru) don’t have a pause button, only mute. Not an issue when you’re playing to music. But when you are Listening to an audiobook, it’s another story
This would somewhat happen to me a lot. I have an iPhone 12 and I’d plug my phone into the car and it would queue up a song from Apple Music. It wouldn’t start playing it but it would be showing there in the paused state.
It also wasn’t the first song in my list either.
That hasn’t happened in a while though so maybe it was fixed, or I just haven’t hit the edge case that causes it.
It was always the same song though, Surfin USA by The Beach Boys.
I have never had this happen to me and have never been quite sure what causes it for other people. I sort of assume it’s a PEBCAK thing where someone has their phone configured wrong, but a more fair interpretation is that some cars have badly programmed entertainment systems, which is very easy to believe, and I’ve just never encountered one.
AFAIK the cause is that some cars' bluetooth system "helpfully" sends the "play" command over bluetooth after the phone connects. The phone dutifully complies by starting music playback.
It is very possible that I’m the PEBCAK here. Trust me, I’ve made so very many mistakes over the years, that I have no certainty that I’m right about any given then. I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong here, though, and yet I’ve played “A a a a a very good song” about a thousand times.
It happens to me every time I plug in my iPhone 14 Pro into my 2014 Toyota Corolla. (Doesn’t haven’t Apple CarPlay by default). So as others have said it’s likely because the car. If I were to replace my stereo unit with one that supports CarPlay I hopefully and probably won’t have this issue anymore… thank god. I always thought it was Apple Music. Well, it partly is I think. I never had this issue with Spotify, rather, well Spotify would always start off where I left it. Apple Music almost always plays the first song in my library. It seems if I leave the app open on my phone, it will continue where I left off sometimes…
It’s an attention grabbing headline that’s no different from a Clickbait. Is it a known phenomenon? Yes, my 3rd gen Prius with low-end audio does it and it’s probably a Toyota thing between ranging from 2010-2018. Will Verge make money from this article? Yes.
I've rented over two dozen cars all with varying levels of support with bluetooth/Android Auto/Carplay and have literally never seen a single instance where this has ever occurred in a decade.
It made me wonder: how many extra streams has "Aaron Burr, Sir" from Hamilton gotten simply because it's likely the first alphabetical song in people's libraries? Is that offset by people who develop an irrational hatred of the song because they hear it every time they turn on their car?