Bluetooth Headphone Control & Multiple Audio Applications

[anon(40612)]

I use stereo Bluetooth headphones, and I love them. I use the Play/Pause button constantly, as I am usually wearing them at work, and I get interrupted fairly often.

Before I switched to Droid X, I was an iPhone 3GS user. The iPhone doesn't really do audio multitasking, so if I was listening to an MP3 in Safari, or streaming a podcast in iTunes, or listening to something in the iPod application, there was only one audio stream. Thus, the Play/Pause button on my headset always paused what I was playing, and thus played what was most recently paused.

I'm having a real hell of a time recreating this on my Droid X. I've given Doggcatcher control of the headset commands, so if I have the music application, Pandora, and Doggcatcher open, then the Play/Pause button plays or pauses my most recently played podcast.

However, if I am listening to music, and Doggcatcher is sitting idle in the background, then the button starts playing a podcast over the music, instead of pausing the music. Same with Pandora... the button will start Pandora up if the application is running instead of pausing the music.

So is the only option I have to simply quit out of applications when I am done with them? That seems to go against the spirit of the Android platform, letting me run applications in the background. It also is a hard habit to break, as on my iPhone I merely had to press the home key and pick another application.

So is there a way to better manage the audio streams such that the Play/Pause button on my headset will merely react to either what's currently playing or play what most recently was paused?

 

[anon(40612)]

Bump? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[anon(40612)]

Okay, I'll give this one last bump before I resign myself to thread failure.

 

[wpwoodjr]

I have a BlackBerry Storm 2 which handles this situation very well. The most recent application you used is affected by Bluetooth play/pause commands even if other music/podcast apps are in the background. This was one of the main reasons I returned my original Droid.

I've been seduced by the Droid X however so I went to the Verizon store to try out Bluetooth today and found exactly what you described. In fact, most apps don't respond well at all to Bluetooth commands, including Google's own Google Listen podcast player.

Its interesting that you say that Doggcatcher can be given control of the Bluetooth commands. This may be enough for me as I listen to podcasts a lot in my car over Bluetooth. Does Doggcatcher allow mapping of the "previous" and "next" Bluetooth commands to back X seconds / forward Y seconds the way Podtrapper on the Blackberry does? That would be excellent.

 

[anon(40612)]

I'm not sure, but I don't think so. I'll look into it and report back.

 

[anon(40612)]

I stand corrected, Doggcatcher does allow you to adjust the skip backward/forward buttons to: 5, 10, 15, 30, 45, 60, 120, or 300 seconds. I just tried it on my Sony bluetooth headset and it worked just fine.

I'm glad SOMEONE else uses bluetooth headphones and wants more control over the headset commands!

 

[wpwoodjr]

Thanks for checking that out - sounds like a great program! Maybe I will get a Droid X. I think Froyo may have made improvements in Bluetooth so that the last application retains control of the Bluetooth commands, similar to Blackberry.

 

[anon(40612)]

I would love for that to be the case. In the meantime, I will continue quitting out of Doggcatcher and Pandora when I want to play music using the stock music player.

 

[MikeF74]

Anything new since Froyo?

I'm having this same problem using my bluetooth headphones. The Cubed audio player keeps responding to controls (even if I kill the task) even though Pandora is in the foreground.

I'm stuck way back in Donut on my Dell Streak.

Does Froyo fix this? The foreground app should definitely have first dibs on the bluetooth controls (and it gets to decide whether to act on it exclusively, or pass it down the stack of recently used audio/video applications).

-Mike

 

[Qboy61]

Google Doesn't Respond

I've been using a Droid1 for 1-1/2 years now and nothing in the way of bluetooth has everchanged. When I get in my car, the bluetooth interface will send a "play" command and the default "Music" App starts playing a song. I've added XIIAlive for streaming music on Android and now when my bluetooth sends a "play" command both Apps begin playing music. If I stop one App from playing, and the play command gets issued again (phone call ends or play/pause button on bluetooth remote interface), one App stops and the other starts.

As for bluetooth skipping when WiFi is on... Google's not fixed that for the time I've had an Android device either.

I originally had a Motorola Q with WinMo OS and the bluetooth worked fine. Whichever App was running was the one that was controlled by bluetooth. If no App was running the default music player started playing. My daughter uses her Apple I-Touch on bluetooth and it has similar music and streaming Apps and it works perfectly similar to my old WinMo device.

Google has a shiny new "Ferrari" that they haven't "washed" since they bought it a couple years ago. :-\

 

[IcerC]

I have this problem too! Just came from the Palm pre which handled bluetooth perfectly.

Can I remove the default music player?

To sync the bluetooth when I get in the car I have to hit the play/pause button on the sony deck. Awesome!

But like the other posters, If I hit it again the defualt music app plays no matter what!

I need to email the android team maybe :/