Hi all,
I’m quite enjoying iNat Next now that most of the access bugs have been resolved. However, one thing that annoys me concerns how the app handles playing and recording sounds.
I wear hearing aids, and these connect to my iPhone via Bluetooth. Specifically, you connect these particular ones not through the hearing aid connection in Accessibility settings, but rather as Bluetooth headphones via the standard Bluetooth settings.
There are two problems that result from this. The first, which is much easier to explain, is that iNat Next wants to use these, rather than my iPhone’s microphone, to record sounds. This is very much not ideal, firstly because my hearing aids will presumably be farther away from the sound source than my phone, since the phone is easier to point. More importantly though, I also use VoiceOver, and any speech from my phone will come through the hearing aids, be recorded by their microphones and ruin the observation.
The second issue comes when either playing or recording sounds. When playing a sound, instead of just using the normal Bluetooth headphone streaming route that I get when, say, playing sounds in Safari, iNat Next, and also the other iNat app, do something else specific. I’m not an expert, so I’m not sure exactly what it is. The best way I know how to explain it is that playing or recording a sound causes my hearing aid to transition out of the normal Bluetooth streaming mode into the phone call mode. This is quite annoying for many reasons, not least of which is that any attempt to configure my phone’s volume also messes with my hearing aid’s volume, which doesn’t happen in streaming. Also, streaming sound quality is better, so I prefer to listen in Safari. Thirdly, exiting the phone call mode is very difficult, involving exiting both the observation and the app, possibly several times.
I think at least some of this could be solved by allowing sound input and output to be configurable in Settings. Maybe others who are more knowledgeable can provide suggestions on settings that would keep the hearing aids in a streaming mode?
Thanks in advance,
Daniel