iPhone volume buttons no longer work with Spotify Connect

Apple’s gatekeeping has been an annoyance for both other companies and customers on multiple occasions. From publishers like Epic Games to Indian iPhone users who till date cannot use contactless payments with Apple Pay or third-party UPI apps are a prime example of this. Now, the latest name to pick a bone with Apple is popular music streaming service Spotify.

Spotify users on iPhone will no longer be able to use the volume buttons to control other devices connected with the Spotify Connect feature. For the uninitiated, Spotify Connect seamlessly allows you to control playback between multiple devices connected to the same Spotify account.

How the new change affects you

Here’s what the change means. If you’re listening to music on Spotify on your iPhone, the volume buttons will work just fine. However, if you use Spotify Connect to transfer playback to your living room TV, or a laptop, you will no longer be able to use the iPhone’s volume buttons to control the volume. There are no such restrictions with Spotify Connect on Android phones.

Instead, what you will be forced to use is an in-app volume slider. This may seem like a small extra step, but it actually will be an annoyance pretty quickly for most Spotify users.

For instance, if you want to quickly lower the volume on Spotify Connect, you could blindly push the volume buttons on a locked iPhone – a process that will now include first unlocking the device and then sliding on the on-screen controls.

The in-app slider is not easy to reach either. Showing it will first require you to press a volume button anyway. Following this, Spotify will showcase a “Want to change the volume?” option. You can then tap on this option to reach the in-app slider.

ALSO READ: Spotify is bringing back this popular feature for its free users, and no, there’s no catch

A report by The Verge mentions that the lack of control with volume buttons is because Spotify hasn’t opted to integrate the required APIs to make the feature work seamlessly. Until Spotify does that, or Apple eases off on restrictions like this, Spotify users will unfortunately have to resort to workarounds like the one mentioned above.