Why is There No Audio (Media and Call) Routing Priority Setting?

iOS Version: 16.1

Model Name: iPhone 11 Pro Max

There doesn’t appear to be any way to set priority for all audio or even differentiated audio (media vs calls) in the settings. There is an option to have headphone or speaker priority on incoming calls. However, for those with hearing assistance devices it can be a huge pain to have the car Bluetooth take over audio priority (media or call) automatically from the hearing device.

Even for those who are simply using AirPods it can be a pain to have to switch back to AirPods once the car takes over and pulls the audio through the speakers. I know several therapists who sometimes need to listen to a voicemail left by a client (yes, they could read the content, but therapists gain much from listening for vocal cues). These conversations are confidential but sometimes a client will call with an emergency while they are about to head get into the car to go somewhere with the family. One might begin to see how, for confidentiality purposes alone, it can be problematic to have the car automatically pick up media audio from an VM instead of continuing to route through the playback through the connected AirPod.

As for me, I am a medical student. I listen to a ton of media audio to facilitate studying on the road. I’ll often hop into the car and pull out onto the road while listening to a book or mp3. Then I have to switch from car Bluetooth back to AirPods mid traffic. I run into this most often when carpooling with friends. It’s not a critical problem for me. Just a bit of a pain. However, once I started poking around and asking others I quickly realized how this could be a bigger problem for others.

Having a way to set an audio routing priority list for media as well incoming calls as would solve this issue. I believe it used to be available in iOS 13, but if the ability to prioritize where media is routed still exists in settings I certainly can’t find it.

Additionally, just for future consideration for all you software programmers out there, shouldn’t it also be possible to create a geolocated priority list? In other words, when I’m home maybe my phone prioritizes one thing, in my car another, and at work something else? Just seems like we should be able to do this in the year 2022. I mean, my phone obviously has the ability to know where I am. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Thanks!