Sound engine vs mute vs bad reviews?

[kalika06]

Hi,

we’re getting quite a few 1-star reviews from iOS users (not all of them) complaining about no sound in our games. (As our games’ main purpose it to teach little children English, sound is crucial and the games are useless without it).

I have checked the app for bugs and I strongly suspect this is just because they have their mute switches turned on.

I have answered all of the reviewers, but in the long term it’s a bit difficult to instruct all of them to turn the switch off. I guess since apps like YT etc. work on mute (should they really, though? :/), they don’t even think about this button at all.

Question nr 1: any suggestions? Has anyone faced a similar problem?

Question nr 2: is it possible to somehow detect that mute is on and pop an alert for the user that the game will not work until they turn the silent mode off?

Question nr 3: is there any way of forcing the audio to work, like on YT app, despite the mute button being turned on? (yep, I know… it’s not the best option, but I’m unsure how to tackle this)

Our target group is parents, not gamers - that’s probably the main problem :P.

[slackmoehrle]

If anything this would be an objective-c code addition. I know apps that have done this.

Try starting here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/287543/how-to-programmatically-sense-the-iphone-mute-switch

[kalika06]

Thank you. After reading the SO topic you linked, I had no problems with implementing solution #3.
It’s enough to change any AVAudioSessionCategoryAmbient to AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback in the AudioEngine-inl.mm file and the app plays all sounds despite the mute button.