How to stop the same song from autoplaying every time you plug your phone into a car
The sound of silence
- By
- on August 13, 2017 3:00 pm
Its happened to everyone: you plug your smartphone into your car, and then cringe when that song the same song every time begins to play. For some reason, iPhones will automatically play whatever song is listed first alphabetically in your iTunes. It doesnt matter if youre connecting through Bluetooth or a USB port, it happens... every... time.
Last year, The Verge staff wrote odes to the songs we unwittingly start our drive with. It was never the best song that would play first, but because Apple would default to whatever was first in iTunes, youd end up with some pretty random songs like A-Plus by Hieroglyphics, A/B Machines by Sleigh Bells, or About to Die by the Dirty Projectors. Other times, whatever you happened to be listening to last on your smartphone is what blasts out of your vehicles speakers. So if its an audiobook version of a steamy romance novel, that can be kind of embarrassing.
As automakers and Apple have progressed to make your car as smart as possible, its understandably annoying when non-smart things happen. Theres no real obvious way to turn off the autoplay function on your smartphone, but there are a few things you can do to lessen the annoyance.
Tweak your vehicle settings
Depending on your cars make and model, it may be possible to turn off autoplaying in your vehicles Bluetooth settings. Even if theres no autoplay switch, there may be default volume settings that you can adjust so you dont experience hearing loss when whichever song sits perched at the top of your iTunes starts playing.
Download [or make] a blank song
This is my favorite option. Tired of waiting for Apple to correct the bug, a few geniuses have taken it upon themselves to devise a clever solution: producing completely silent, blank songs for download, then giving them titles with a lot of As that places them at the top of your iTunes list.
Ex-BuzzFeed writer Samir Mezrahi released such a single on iTunes recently called A a a a a Very Good Song thats just a little less than 10 minutes of silence. [Any more than 10 minutes and iTunes charges you for a full album.]
Mezrahis song has been steadily climbing the iTunes charts, sitting comfortably at No. 30 as of this writing. Which is pretty impressive considering its a completely silent track no lyrics, no beats, nothing. Mezrahis success speaks to a couple things: more people are circumventing their vehicles infotainment system in favor of their phones. And while they may be frustrated by the lack of flexibility surrounding autoplay, its not a deal-breaker. Theyll literally pay money to download a silent track to hack the problem.
This should send a strong message to Apple, Samsung, and other phone makers who have ignored the autoplay conundrum. Theyre creating space for others to make money off their intransigence. Of course, you can easily make your own blank song and add it to your phone. But wouldnt you rather shell out $0.99 to reward Mezrahi for his ingenuity?
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Comments
Thats an incredibly intuitive solution. So simple but effective although you shouldnt have to do it in the first place.
By Supraman21 on 08.13.17 3:17pm
Mine used to be A Day in the Life of a Tree.
No longer an issue since I started using CarPlay. Just plays the last thing you were playing.
By Dr Strange on 08.13.17 3:46pm
Ive never had this happen to medunno if I should thank my phones software or the two car stereos Ive hooked it up to one advantage to older cars: actual DIN slots for easy stereo upgrades! but either way, Im thankful.
By KirkyV on 08.13.17 4:00pm
This has never happened to me, be it through bluetooth or headphone jack. It always just picks up where I left off
By Egg7 on 08.13.17 4:32pm
Yeah. My Samsung phone never starts the first song from my iTunes library dont know why Samsung is even mentioned as it seems to be an iOS only problem. Which btw leads to another solution not mentioned in the article
By ischweizer on 08.13.17 4:45pm
iOS user here. This has also never been a problem for me.
By baRRy boRRis on 08.13.17 5:17pm
Its not only Samsung, its Android. Android phones play whatever song you left off playing. If you werent playing anything, they dont play anything.
iPhone owners have the weirdest problems.
By badasscat1 on 08.13.17 11:13pm
Ive literally never experienced the problem described, and Ive only used iPhones as my daily driver since 2010. Both of my cars pick up on the last track or audio source I was using.
By CPD_1 on 08.14.17 10:48am
My note 2 does this. I always hear "this is the hard trance remix year 2003 part 1, mixed by dj Spacey!" Every freaking day. Its the phones built in music app doing it too
By advancedhybridsystem on 08.13.17 5:31pm
This happens every time with my iPhone, but my girlfriends S8 only plays the last song played. Why Apple cant resolve this bug is beyond me, its been like this since at least iOS 5
By big-ted on 08.13.17 5:31pm
I wish I saw this post on Friday! I just downloaded a $.69 white noise song from iTunes to use as my first song that auto plays. But, Ill probably use this now as it should be guaranteed to be at the top.
By CyberPigeon on 08.13.17 5:49pm
never had this problem with the last 3 iphone Ive owned I just shuffle all my tracks anyway. is this only a usb issue? I only use bluetooth for music in my car.
the REAL issue is how shuffle will play the same song out of the thousands I have a couple of times a week while I drive to work. why cant it literally shuffle my playlist and play from beginning to end of that shuffled playlist.
its shuffle, not random. random can be excused as playing the same song twice in a row but shuffle it should never happen until all of my songs have played at least once.
By graha.me on 08.13.17 5:58pm
Or just learn to hate The A Team by Ed Sheeran.
By d0mth0ma5 on 08.13.17 6:30pm
i pity the fool who hates The A Team!
By theOtherBobDobbs on 08.14.17 1:30am
Pretty sure this is an IOS thing, though some comments say otherwise. Google play just plays what ever song i last left off on, or nothing if i just booted up the app.
By Dave Cushman on 08.13.17 6:31pm
I usually have Overcast in the background on my iPhone so 99.9% of the time my car will start playing my last podcast.
But every once in a while if Overcast isnt loaded Ill get the random song.
Its not often enough to bother me. And I really never put too much thought into it until I read this article!
By Michael Scrip on 08.13.17 6:48pm
This seems like its the authors car. iOS here and never had this issue, plays last song or overcast pod. Smh
By Dirtypancakes on 08.13.17 7:02pm
Do you use carplay? This happens when you connect using USB, I can confirm.
By lusional on 08.14.17 9:03am
How to stop the same song from autoplaying every time you plug your phone into a car
With the the articles stating "iPhone" when they should really be "phone", this is the perfect case for the title to state "iPhone" is it not?
PS: The obvious solution is to get an Android phone.
By shakalakaboom on 08.13.17 7:02pm
While I agree with the first part, I doubt many people are going to completely switch platforms over a petty issue like this.
By pallentx on 08.14.17 9:23am
Ive literally never had this happen to me on any phone.
The fact that this is actually a thing, and a widespread one at, that ridicules all the accolades given to Apple. Samsung too though obviously less, having a blank track in the top 50 songs on iTunes for this express reason is embarrassing.
By Ponk on 08.13.17 7:09pm
I thought I was the only one. Thank you for articles like this.
By sacratoy on 08.13.17 7:17pm
Im more of a Spotify guy. The problem is that Ive probably hit Stop on a song that I just dont like. And so that keeps coming back to life when I next hop in the car.
By gregorian on 08.13.17 7:32pm
Ive never experienced this issue in 10 years of iPhone usage. Every once in a while a 3rd party audio app wont appear in the "Now Playing" control center, and so iOS defaults to the music app. But its always the last song I listened to in Music, never the "top" of my library.
By Stephen Short on 08.13.17 8:48pm
Never experienced this. Android user since Nexus One.
By ngsm13 on 08.13.17 11:04pm