headphonesiphone
My iPhone 3GS has decided to pause music playing when the headphone plug happens to move a bit or to start playing music without warning for the same reason. Sometimes it also skips to the next song or podcast. It's very annoying.
Is there some way to tell my iPhone not to do that?
The headphones are original Apple headphones for the iPhone. I bought two pairs and it happens with both pairs but only with that iPhone. I have a second iPhone 3GS which doesn't appear to react like that.
The behavior you describe is inconsistent. In my experience, sometimes the podcast will continue and sometimes the iOS device will switch to the music app. I believe (but haven't confirmed) that this depends on whether or not the podcast app, be it Apple's or third party, is still considered active by the system. When it occurs I just open my podcast app and playback of the the last podcast resumes (unless I was streaming it in which case I may have to hit play.)
Because this is a memory management issue there is no way to force the behavior you seek using a dedicated podcast app. However, if you uninstall Apple's Podcasts you can continue to download podcasts using iTunes and can move them over to your iOS device with a playlist. This solution is less than ideal—for example you can't download fresh podcasts directly to the device.
iOS 7 UPDATE: It is my understanding that under iOS 7 you no longer have the ability to listen to podcasts from within the Music app. Perhaps better memory management and multitasking will provide resumed playback more consistently, but it seems that a podcast client (or listening via Safari) will be required.
This is trivially accomplished by removing the third pin from the connectivity. You could buy an adapter for this purpose if you don't want to change headsets or get what appears to be a faulty switch in it repaired.
Basically the green plug goes into your phone and the headphones go to the black end of the cable.
Best Answer
It happens because a quick jog of the plug causes a short interruption in line level. It's the same with headphones -- Apple or otherwise -- that include a play/pause button (usually place on the cable itself, where it splits to go to each ear). That button functions in exactly the same way, by momentarily interrupting line-level on the phone's cables. iTunes starts playing because it assumes the interruption from plug movement (or a dirty plug) is a play/pause signal. As a simple demonstration, start iTunes playing something and wiggle the phones jack, same conditions as make iTunes launch and play, only if it's already playing this will make it pause.