[techinstructor]

I am struggling to listen to a radio station with earbuds on my Samsung Galaxy J7 (running Android 7). I use several different audio apps, mostly for listening to books, podcasts, or radio. In all of these apps, I want to be able to listen and pause the play on the remote if someone comes into the room to speak to me.

Today, I was listening to FM radio, via the NPR News app. When I paused the play using the remote, the phone immediately started playing an audiobook that I had listened to previously. The audiobook had been playing the night before on a library app called Libby. The Libby app was not open when this occurred. I experimented and found the same thing happened if I used Google Play to play music, closed the app and then played the radio again. When I paused the radio, the headset started playing the Google Play music I had been listening too. So when I'm using the NPR News app, if I pause the play, the earbuds will activate whatever was last played on the earbuds - even if those apps are closed. This same thing happened with two sets of earbuds – different brands - one wired and the other Bluetooth. Is there some setting in the device that is causing this to occur? Could this simply be a problem with the NPR News app? I could not find any setting in the NPR News app that was applicable. Does anyone know of another app that could be used to play an NPR radio station?

Cindy

[Rukbat]

You can't pause most NPR streams, you can only stop the app. The stream keeps going, and you'll pick it up where it is when you listen to it again. Just like a real radio. There may be some apps that play prerecorded streams, but that's on a station by station basis. (It's not the earbuds that are activating anything, it's that the app you were last playing isn't closed - Android doesn't work that way. Even the Back button doesn't necessarily close an app. (You can get an app like SystemPanel that will allow you to actually close an app - but Android may open it again.)

[techinstructor]

Thanks for the explanation Rukbat. I thought it might be something in the app. After a little research I found the NextRadio app. With it I can either play the station via radio waves (with wired earbuds) or stream it. I haven't had any issues with NextRadio, so for now I'll stick with it.

It is a bit frustrating to deal with the automation that is built into these phones. I would prefer for a "closed app" to actually be "closed," but alas that is rarely the case. As technology gets more and more sophisticated more and more actions are done without the involvement of the user. I guess I'm just old school and would rather do it myself.