10 minutes of silence storms iTunes charts thanks to awful Apple UI A song that consists entirely of ten minutes of silence has cracked the top 50 on Apple's iTunes charts. The smash-hit, "A a a a Very Good Song" by New York-based reporter Samir Mezrahi, is in fact a rather clever trick to get around one of the more annoying bugs in the way iTunes syncs up with cars via Bluetooth. Drivers and …
I have the same annoyance with my Android phone and my car's audio system has no option to disable autoplay. I finally had to fix it by using tasker to intercept the play command on my phone.
Yet another example of modern applications trying to be to @#$@ing helpful!!
This why I have my phone bluetooth connection to the car set to phone audio only. Apart from anything else, when listening to other sources, eg an actual radio station (yes, they still exist!), the 2GB of on-board RAM I filler with music, or the 32GB USB pen drive plugged into the USB port, I also don't want the phone commandeering the audio system every time it wants to beep at me to say a new email has arrived or that the battery just finished charging.
> It's baked into (American) Apple software licensed to the people who build cars.
You didn't read the story (or comments) did you? Here's the line from the story:
"Owners of Android phones have made similar complaints, and the problem is not limited to one make or model of car"
How would Android owners be affected by Apple software? It's not just car's with Apple's CarPlay anyway.
Car entertainment systems are, for some reason, stuck in the stone age when it comes to handling audio on connected devices such as bluetooth and USB drives.
A friend's year-old Toyota Camry starts playing the first song on his USB drive every time he starts the car. It doesn't remember where it was.
The bluetooth sound quality in my five year old Nissan is atrocious so I use a USB drive as well. It sorts the contents in file system order rather than alphanumerically. There are tools to fix that but why should it be necessary?
And my kingdom for a car entertainment system that recognises ReplayGain tags...
How can it all be so bloody difficult?
VW Passat entertainment system isn't too bad - it'll remember which song it was on if I remove the USB drive to sync more songs to it and reconnect before starting up. Main issue is that if I try to shuffle, it only picks the first few hundred songs it finds, so I get a lot of AC/DC, Bullet for my Valentine, Black Sabbath etc, not so much ZZ Top, though....
How can it all be so bloody difficult?
It's difficult because ultimately car vendors know that you don't buy a car on the strength of its in-car entertainment system. Most people buy cars based on other features: drive quality, comfort, boot space, engine performance, fuel efficiency... all of those things are generally more important to people than the entertainment / navigation system. Particularly because most of the failings of these systems are pretty easy for the sales person to gloss over; when you buy the car, you're happy that it has an entertainment system with specific features you want, but it's only once you actually use it day-to-day that you start to hit the bugs and shortcomings.
My car has a built-in satnav. The car isn't that old, but the satnav is virtually useless because it's maps are out-dated. I asked about getting an update for the maps, and it would cost £200. I could buy (and have bought) a whole new stand-alone satnav for that price, with free map updates included. The UI for the built-in satnav is also abysmal. It's very frustrating to use, and it's clear that they didn't really put much effort into it. The point is that when you look at a list of features, it ticks the "has built-in satnav" box: the feature exists and it works; that's all it really needs to do.
And the next time you buy a car?
You decide not to buy that manufacturer because the BT or SatNav is crap.
All other things being equal, one way or the other, reliability, price etc. one may choose based on the better SatNav, or at least buy one without SatNav 'cause they are all out-of-date unless they are connected and have free update, which phone SatNav apps do for instance.
I once went to a dealer to get a map update DVD for my 2005 vintage Volvo S40. This was about 2008, and the maps were already so out of date the Sat Nav wasn't capable of getting me from Derby to Tenby without the motorway. At all.
£600 they said.
I only want the discs, and then only for the UK if that's an option, I said, perhaps naively.
Six Hundred Quid they said. 500 + VAT.
Six Hundred *Fookin* quid for a disc? Said I.
A trip to Halfords and £250 later I had a better, faster Tom Tom and my pop-up in-dash sat nav never popped up again.
Yeah I've recently started doing that too.
Doesn't take as long to sync, way less battery drain on the phone, and gives me back control over what gets played, rather than some semi-ransom decision Android makes on the basis of what I finished listening to five journeys ago ...
There is a subclause in Rule 34 which states that for any device with both an autoplay function and stored pornography, at some definite point in time will automatically display and/or broadcast said pornography. Usually at the worst possible definite point in time.
Note that this phenomenon will inevitably take place regardless of any 'foolproof' changes to user settings, disabled interfaces, or .nomedia files.
I have a similar frustration with Alexa and Spotify.
"Alexa, play Chemical Brothers on Spotify" will *always* play tracks in the same order, even if you had shuffle turned on before.
So, my routine is now more along the lines of:
"Alexa, play Chemical Brothers on Spotify", "Alexa Shuffle", "Alexa skip"
or ... totally defeating the voice centric model, I use the Spotify app to select what I want, hit the random button and then tell it to play on the relevant Echo device...
Mine does the same but it plays a "random" song and always from the last service used. A blank song would not help me at all. If I played Spotify then it will start playing Spotify when the car connects via bluetooth. Even if the radio is off. If I don't notice this on time it will use my bandwidth for hours. I have to switch to a local playlist every time I leave the car and used Spotify. And switching off "Autoplay" in my car (and autoplay exists in the settings) does not do anything.
I guess I have to live with that.
This post has been deleted by its author
Music by wire, just leave it permanently plugged in, instantly recognises the iPod and starts playing exactly where it left off. Every time. Controls on the steering wheel and a colour screen with track info and artwork.
Lovely.
When I hire a car I don't bother with playing my music due to the A-Z play mode.
I've heard the intro to "Abacab" much too often now.
The John Cage piece 4' 33" is purely meant to be "played" live - the ambient sounds that the listeners become aware of, are meant to be the "music".
This track, however, comprises a pre-recorded "silence" which is therefore completely different, and not plagiarism.
Having been to a "performance" of 4' 33", the main accompaniment was the sound of folks checking the time so that they could sprint to the bar as soon as it concluded.
"The John Cage piece 4' 33" is purely meant to be "played" live - the ambient sounds that the listeners become aware of, are meant to be the "music"."It goes a little deeper than that I suspect. Cage meant us to think about such things as location, performance... It almost certainly inspired such pieces as Symphony of Australian Birds and that wonderful track by Jeff Beck where he plays a duet with a blackbird. It's good to be challenged sometimes methinks...
"One cannot copyright titles, only content. It has no content."Er... I just created two wav files of 10 minutes silence. The 24 bit version is 105,840,044 bytes in size; the 32 bit version is 211,681,280 bytes in size. My questions are:
1. If there's no content, then what is it that's occupying disk space?
2. Will the cognoscenti be able to perceive a difference between the 24 bit and 32 bit versions?
3. Will converting the wav files to 320 kb/s MP3 distort the silence to the extent that it becomes annoying?
"If you made it a file with maximum compression then the length would be a single bit = 0. The playback time could be slowed to whatever you want."Which means that there is no resemblance between 4'33" and recordings of silence. 4'33" is four minutes and 33 seconds of musicians not playing their instruments (tacet in the score). They are nevertheless performing and recordings of 4'33" have differing content.
It also reminds me of a vacuum tube (valve). It is a container filled with nothing. It doesn't matter what size it is, it is still filled with same amount of nothing.
To me it feels like an inverse of Zeno's Dichotomy paradox. Instead of not being able to cut the distance in half an infinite number of times to get to the end of the line it must be at the end of the line since the line is infinitely short.
"It also reminds me of a vacuum tube (valve). It is a container filled with nothing. It doesn't matter what size it is, it is still filled with same amount of nothing."I can't buy that! I've been told that the vacuum of outer space is far emptier than the vacuums we create on Earth's surface. IOW, neither are truly empty. In any event, when I studied physics, I learnt that what I perceive as a solid is no such thing; it's mostly empty space with a few atomic nuclei dispersed throughout.
FWIW, my various 4'33" silences vary in size from 587 KB to 206719 KB though they all sound the same. Nothing at all like Cage's 4' 33".
Here's one with a full orchestra
Death Metal Cover by Dead Territory
This isn't the original or at the time...
It is an approximation. The value zero isn't. It is like the Big Bang. It is an approximation of nothing but not nearly as good as an earth made vacuum.
Some say the number of atoms is around 10^82 or so. But what if there are parallel Universes? What if they are infinite? Then the number of atoms is infinite. Not a very good approximation at all.
If you made it a file with maximum compression then the length would be a single bit = 0. The playback time could be slowed to whatever you want.
Even at 256 kb/s I would still be able to hear the compression artefacts. Let alone at your appalling suggestion of using max compression! I expect this file to be in FLAC format, and nothing less.
Also, if you don't have oxygen free cabling and a proper source, with a DAC costing at least £1,000, then your ears must be made of lead!
̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿ ̿̿ ̿̿ ̿̿ ̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿ ̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿̿
Speaking of hacking, does this look like a graph to anyone else?
"Speaking of hacking, does this look like a graph to anyone else?"Recognised it instantly! It's the beginning of this song:
"Read about the Cage/Zappa case here:"BTDT. Batt was a fool to credit his work to Cage and then claim he meant somebody other than John Cage. A bit like when the Merkins were claiming that The Bard of Stratford Upon Avon hadn't written Shakespeare's works. They were written by someone else. Presumably also called William Shakespeare.
Have car.
Have Android phone.
It auto-connects on Bluetooth (for the emergency dialling thing if the airbag goes off mostly, because I don't even answer hands-free) to a list of approved devices, including one that's marked as priority (so if I get in the car with someone else, it's still my phone that connects first). But I just stick an SD card in the car's SD slot and it plays that but... most importantly... it just remembers whatever you were last doing. You turned the entertainment off? It stays off. You were playing radio/DAB? It goes back to the same station. You were bluetooth for phone but not for media, it goes back like that. You were half-way through an SD card song, sorted
If CarPlay auto-plays to this extent, then it's a CarPlay and car problem.
If your car does this when it's not Apple, then it's a car problem.
I *hate* defending Apple here (check previous posts), but really this is a car problem. Even if they say "CarPlay devices must autoplay", shame on the car manufacturer for capitulating.
Hell, with modern cars, I expect it to remember preferences per car-key, let alone between driving sessions.
P.S. I drive a fairly new Ford. One of those ones with the Microsoft entertainment system. Despite horrendous forebodings, it actually "just works". About the worst problem is trying to use the voice recognition but that's the technology, not the specific model, and I don't use it on anything anyway.
But whether or not my phone is in the car makes no difference to what it does if I turned the radio off before I got out of the car (oh, and cutting the ignition doesn't stop the audio, which is quite clever, only opening the doors... so you can sit and listen to the music / turn it off while the key is out of the car and you're just sitting parked up).
I have an old car with none of that Viking radio nonsense. It does have a CD player though. And I have exactly the same problem with the technology playing the same start track.
Pop 'The Very Best Of The Wombles' into the CD player and there it goes: The Wombling Song!
Every bloody time!
(Your old CDs gratefully accepted.)
Here's a radical idea. Why don't Apple, Google or car manufacturers change their software so that music does not automatically play on connection? Maybe have autoplay as an option, but when some people drive, they may not want music (or any audio) playing. They may want silence (or as near as you can get with the engine running), but connect the phone to the in car entertainment system in case they get a phone call.
...My cheap Moto android in my cheap Hyundai doesn't autoplay. Only plays when you tell it to.
Guess its then inverse of you get what you pay for....
Cheap car + Cheap Phone = Good basic design, does what you want it to do
Expensive Car + Expensive Phone = Shit over-engineered design.
How many people wind up thinking there is something wrong with their iPhone or car stereo system because nothing is playing?
Turn volume up, still nothing. Turn volume up more, still nothing. Realize you're listening to the silent track and hit Next - there go the ear drums!
I beg to differ. I still have excellent hearing, sometimes too good. Yet I spent a lot of time at the Avalon BALLS room as well as the Fillmore Auditorium in San Fran Cisco. Me and a friend had a shiny black Cadillac hearse equipped with straight pipes on the outside and a nice bed in the back. When the music was over it was time to flip a coin to see who was driving and who was spending time in the bed with the two pretty girls we picked up. (this really happened more than once)
To get back to Berkeley we had to drive over the longest bridge in the world. It goes all the way from Fairyland to Africa. But that is because I grew up in the land of fruits and nuts.
To quote Isaac Asimov:
There was a young woman named Rhoda
As sweet as a chocolate soda.
It was such a delight
To screw her at night
Then once more at dawn as a coda.
This is how I was sleeping last night. I just couldn't stop thinking about nothing.
.. the first thing I do I remove the stock "entertainment" system and replace it with the wonderful one I bought 10 years ago from one of those shops that used to exist before this became difficult. It's not hard to do, but it sometimes involves chisels.
Point is, said system does what I want, doesn't annoy me in any way, and still plays my Minidisc collection.
My cars; current, previous and one before that (at least) had bluetooth, and would auto connect when the engine started, but would just carry on playing what was last played. Current car has CarPlay, and is much the same, plug phone in (car play isn't bluetooth, wired only) picks up where it left off.
Only annoyance i have is that sometimes it doesn't realise I'm listening to a podcast, so it plays music, but i think that is more to do with iOS going, "oooh, you're in your car, where you normally listen to music, here you go" instead of "oooh, you're in your car, here is what you were last listening too"
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
