Marco complains about the behavior of the Back & Forward buttons in the iPhone’s music player. The Back button acts similarly no matter if you’re listening to music or a podcast/audiobook: in both cases, it takes you to the beginning of the piece to which you’re listening. The Forward button, on the other hand, changes depending on the audio: if it’s music, it takes you to the next song, but if it’s a podcast/audiobook, it takes you to the next piece while remembering where you were, so if you go back, you start up right where you left off. Marco wants the behavior of the Back button to change:

Instead, make it behave just like the “Next Track” button in reverse: always just seek to the previous track. If the previous track is bookmarkable, resume from its last-played position, and if not, play it from the beginning.

I have a better, easier, cheaper solution that works today: use Instacast (available for both iPhone & iPad, though you have to buy two apps, which isn’t a big deal to me—it’s worth it). I switched to it well over a year ago (two years?) & haven’t looked back at all. It’s only a few bucks, & it puts the podcast playing capabilities in the iPhone’s Music app to shame. 

Best of all for Marco, the Back & Forward buttons don’t act in an inconsistent manner. Pressing the Back button skips you back in the podcast a configurable amount: 5, 10, 20, or 30 seconds, or 1, 2, 5, or 10 minutes (mine is set to 30 seconds); pressing the Forward button is likewise configurable. Want to jump ahead or back to the next or previous podcast? Swipe along the slider at the bottom to the end of the podcast, & if you have it configured so, the next one will start. To go to the previous podcast, you need to go back to the list of podcasts & click on the previous one, something I almost never do. 

In my case, I’d much rather be able to jump forwards or backwards 30 seconds by using the buttons than use those same buttons to jump to the next or previous podcast. Your mileage, of course, may differ.1 

  1. Note that all the above applies only to podcasts. I have no idea about audiobooks, as I loathe audiobooks. I read very fast, & listening to someone slowly read to me is akin to torture. Waaay too slow. ↩