Adjusting volume with volume buttons

[linust]

A suggested user experience enhancement.
When application is in foreground let the user change the XBMC volume with the iPhone/iPad/iPod volume buttons in addition to the sliders in the app,

Rationale: it's intuitive and convenient.

One of the more time critical actions performed in the app is to change volume (to catch the dialog that suddenly went into whisper mode... or to quickly turn down the thumbing bass before the baby wakes up)

[joethefox]

Hi, funny thing is that I always thought the opposite: remapping the device volume buttons with an app action is far from being an intuitive action, for me confuses the users.

But apart the personal opinions and if I'm not wrong, Apple rejects the apps that change the standard behavior of the physical buttons.

[linust]

Hi. I recognize that opinions on most things and especially user experience will always differ. Try it out and see how you like it. You are after all still using the volume buttons to control volume (presumably in the room you are in).

In addition to the Apple camera app I know and own at least one other (non Apple) application that remaps the volume buttons. This app allows you to skip back or forward in an audiobook - the use case being "you are out jogging, biking and find yourself getting lost in thoughts and then subsequently lost in your audiobook... klick back (-) once to jump back 30s (repeat as needed)". I'm the first one to agree that this is not super intuitive, but nevertheless sometimes it's quite convenient. If that app only slipped through the cracks then the idea should be abandoned/parked here.

[linust]

Tired, sees a browser window in the way... oh there's a convenient close button... duh :-/

[joethefox]

lol

don't know, maybe I will ask directly to apple to take away the doubt. In any case, for example I found here a snippet on how to accomplish this task http://fredandrandall.com/blog/2011/11/18/taking-control-of-the-volume-buttons-on-ios-like-camera/

as you can see it's a little trick, aren't involved private APIs but still a trick remains!

[linust]

I agree, indeed a bit of a hack. Let's see what the official statement will be.

[robbietjuh]

XBMC Constellation allows you to change volume of XBMC by using the hardware buttons on your iOS device too, as far as I can remember... I honestly do not know how they did it, but it looks like they're using the same kind of hack that's discussed in the article that @joethefox linked here.

Apple didn't reject their app either.. As long as we don't use any private APIs we should be 'safe'. Has anyone gotten (or even requested) an official statement on this specific case?

As far as User Experience is considered, you can always add some kind of switch somewhere in the settings app to enable or disable this feature.

Would love to implement this.

[wutschel]

@kambala-decapitator, I propose to close this one as we are discussing this in a newer issue (#441).