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Oct10

iPhone tip: Listen to audio only from a video while the phone’s locked.

Headphones on top of three different video podcast logosDuring my bus commute to work every day I spend a large amount of time listening to podcasts on my iPhone. And while video podcasts can be great, sometimes I just don’t have the stomach to hold my iPhone to my face for 40 minutes on the bus.

The thing is that a lot of my video podcasts (diggnation, TED Talks, Wine Library TV) are great to listen to with just audio. And in fact I find the extra battery life saved can be a welcome benefit. Well, about two weeks ago I figured out how to listen to audio from video’s on the iPhone with the phone locked. Here’s how:

  1. Start your video from the iPhone iPod app
  2. Lock the phone. At this point your video and audio will stop
  3. Double tap your home button to bring up iPod controls in locked mode
  4. Select play and the audio from your video will start playing while the phone is locked

I’m not sure if this tip is published but it’s been super useful for me. Hope it helps you all out too.

Update: Just realized these steps also work if you want to listen to audio only with the phone unlocked. Simply do the above and then unlock your phone, wala!

posted in: Apple, iphone, podcasting

This post was published on Friday, October 10, 2008 at 12:17 am

Leave a comment


Comments

1

Carrie

January 6, 2010 at 7:31 pm

This was very helpful! Do you know if you can lock your phone and continue to play both the audioAND video of a podcast? My son loves to watch podcasts, but I need to be able to launch the podcast and then lock the phone. Otherwise, he pushes the home button and the podcast turns off.

2

Bruce

January 8, 2010 at 2:32 pm

Hi Carrie, I don’t think you are able to do that unfortunately. As far as I know the only option is to play video with the phone unlocked or just audio with the phone locked.

3

ivan

February 15, 2010 at 4:16 am

thanks this is great tip!

4

Destructor

January 12, 2011 at 5:29 pm

This solution no longer seems to work in 4.2, is there a workaround?

5

Tony

April 2, 2011 at 12:00 am

I think these feature has just been removed since I upgraded to ios 4.3. used to be able to do it on 4.2.

Sometimes its better to “listen to a movie” instead of watching it, especially educational videos.

Does anyone know of a work around? please post

6

Bruce

April 3, 2011 at 12:32 pm

I have tested this and it still works for me in iOS 4.3. Just lock the phone, double tap, then hit play. Or, alternatively you can hit play on the movie, pause it, then go to another app or home screen, double tap for the task bar, swipe over to the audio controls and hit play. This too will give you audio without video.

7

Destructor

July 21, 2011 at 9:17 pm

I’m afraid that’s not my experience in 4.3.3. Using the method described in the original post (lock phone, double-tap, hit play), the pause button briefly flashes to play before immediately going back to pause- the audio will not play. Using the method described in the comment above, when you slide over to the iTunes controls, all controls are greyed out and will not function. As far as I can tell the video-without-audio function (which used to work just by clicking the mic-control!) has been removed in 4.3 forwards.

8

Destructor

July 21, 2011 at 9:17 pm

Sorry, when I said ‘video-without-audio’ I meant the reverse of that!

9

Bruce Clark

July 22, 2011 at 10:10 am

I have 4.3.3 on my iPhone and it’s working properly for me but not if the video is in the “Videos” section in the iPhone. Video podcasts seem to be working for me without issue, which is what I mainly use. Good catch though, hopefully Apple fixes this bug.