Question About the music app turning on when I double tap

While I do not have an iphone I have noticed the same issue with Pandora on my iPad sometimes when I go to do other things. I'd double tap the home button twice & go 2 your app switcher & c if the music app is open & if it is close it. Sometimes it takes 1 or 2 tries but it works. Hope this helps you!

Hi.

This happens because the VoiceOver cursor has no focus on an object over the screen. Slide your finger over the screen until you find something that VoiceOver reads to you, then double tap with two fingers to answer the call. I usually put my finger on the earpiece and slide it downwards until i hear the caller I D being read, then I double tap.

It also seems to happen when running earlier versions of the iOS software. Is your phone's software up to date?

the 2 finger tap has multi functions. It is mainly to stop, pause, play. So when voiceover is not focused, then it will think that you want to stop/start your music.
So best thing to do is swipe to your left or right and then double tap.

Hey, sorry for the slightly late response here. basically, the posters above are correct, in that it's the music app triggering. the music app actually does not have to be visible to play something. for example. close the music app if it's open, and ask siri to play something. the device will play said track, .... and there's no visible music app in the switcher. i usually have to open the music app, then close it, to force it to totally go. it's a bit of a bug / feature i guess, just kind of annoying. the 2 finger double tap activating audio doesn't just happen to music either. if i've had podcasts up and playing something, and i then close it, and try to deal with a call, sometimes it will play the podcast. lol. but yeah, making sure voiceOver has a good focus on the actual activity you wish to interact with, usually makes it work right.

So the reason music that is not yours is playing is because you probably last listened to live radio. Whatever you last listened to will play again whether or not the app is open.

You don't have to wait for the phone to ring to test this out. Create an email to yourself. Focus on the edit field for composing and double-tap; this should invoke Siri and let you dictate.

Now press Home or simply focus on anything that's not an edit field. Double-tap. Music should start playing.

You can also test this out with the messages app. Read a message and double-tap; you'll hear music. Reply to a message and if you are in an edit field, Siri should ding and let you dictate.

There are of course times when Vo reports you are focused in one place and you are actually focused somewhere else. This happens to me when I want to dictate or type and I get no keyboard or ability to dictate but Siri keeps saying "is editing" as if I am. To fix this, I touch the status bar area and then return to the place where the edit field is. You can do the same with the ringing phone; touch the status area and then touch where the answer button is.

If you don't know where the answer button is, call yourself from another phone and slide around the screen to find it and memorize its location.

Next time the phone does ring, carefully focus on anything that's not an edit field and the double tap will indeed answer the phone.

Re reading this, I said double tap, but what I meant was double tap with two fingers. Double tap with one finger activates something, same as sighted person merely touching the item. Two-finger double-tap is a voice over specific gesture which we lovingly call the magic tap. It is context-sensitive, meaning it depends on what you are doing or focused on.

For me, the big confusion when I got my iDEVICES was the context-sensitive thing. I couldn't figure out why the magic tap worked sometimes and at other times it didn't work. When I understood it depended on where I was focused, that cleared up the entire mystery!

In earlier iOS versions, it used to be that when you had music playing then switched to another app that used the two-fingered double tap, such as Bard or Voice Dream Reader, when you would close that app, the next time you double tapped your music would resume playing where it left off. However, lately that doesn't happen. You have to physically go into the music app and do a two-fingered double tap for it to resume. The downside? When you close the music app, the music will stop. That is okay. However, if you do a two-fingered double tap again, a totally different song will start. I've tried disabling shuffle mode, and still that doesn't help. Drives me crazy. I loved having it keep its place in the music app when you use another app and then close said app. Sorry if that makes absolutely no sense.

I have all but mitigated this problem entirely by being careful to place focus in the app that I want to receive my two finger double tap. You can actually exploit this quirk to your advantage in some situations. For example, when you are perusing the Facebook news feed, 2-finger double tapping will activate options for whatever post has focus , but what if you are just wanting some background music for your surfing? single tap with 1 finger anywhere in the status bar (where time, mobile reception and battery life are displayed) and then when you 2-finger double tap, you can start or stop music without having to navigate away from Facebook