No sound from iOS games without headphones connected

While I’ve had iPhones and iPads in the past, and have been back on iOS from
Android for the last year, there are still some things that I’m ignorant to.

One of those things, is why most of the games I played on my iPhone only played
sounds when I had headphones connected, and never through the phone itself.

Other things worked just fine, like watching videos, either on the web or via an
app. A lot of games also worked just fine, which ultimately got me thinking that
it was some extremely weird issue with the Apple Arcade, as I noticed the bulk
of the issues with Apple Arcade titles.

Well turned out I’m just an idiot, and I never quite understood what the little
switch on the side of my iPhone was actually doing.

I always thought that it was throwing my phone into a “do not disturb” mode that
would keep the ringer at bay.

While technically correct, as it’s a toggle between “ring” and “silent” mode, it
actually does more than that. It also disables the sound in many of the games I
play.

Talk about feeling like an idiot the moment I flipped the switch and my game
started to bleep and bloop without having headphones connected.

The more you know 🙂

Josh Sherman - The Man, The Myth, The Avatar

About Josh

Husband. Father. Pug dad. Musician. Founder of Holiday API, Head of Engineering and Emoji Specialist at Mailshake, and author of the best damn Lorem Ipsum Library for PHP.


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