I read through this whole thread, and it's pretty maddening. People are lousy about noting complete symptoms, so it's hard to know if they are seeing what I am, but many are. I really wanted to see if the current iOS 7.0.4 helps with this, but I guess not seeing that I will have to guess no.
What I am seeing is that while I am playing music from my iPhone 4S running iOS 7.0.2 through either earbuds or an Airplay device, I will randomly lose output. When I do, it's usually because the phone has switched output to the dock connector - which of course you all know is not connected to anything. I up-swipe to get to the control screen and hit the Airplay icon, and see the dock connector selected, and I can usually choose the output I want and be happy again. This happened while I was listening in bed last night without the phone even moving. This happened today while I was playing over Airplay while browsing on the phone. A secondary symptom is that when I would like to watch a quick video, I often have the dock connector selected, and have no good way to change that so far. I am going to carry crap earbuds in my pocket and see if plugging and unplugging helps.
I get that I might need to clean my dock connector. If there's gunk in there, I guess undetectable breezes and butterfly wingbeats in Brazil can cause the software to think I have plugged the phone into a dock. But let's be real - the reason this is a software bug is that 1) I told the software what audio output I wanted to use, and 2) software changed that without that being what I wanted.
Another bug is that even if my phone thinks I am docked, I should be able to select the internal speakers. But this choice goes away. If we could select "internal speakers" without rebooting / starting Skype / sacrificing chickens, we would mostly be happy. Especially if the random breezes did not change the output again.
Maybe the control screen Airplay popup needs a "lock" choice (don't MESS with my audio). I don't know the best UI solution, I just know iOS7 is getting this wrong. I think that if I REALLY plug in earbuds or REALLY connect to a dock WITH SPEAKERS, I might want the audio output to change, but it's changing on me without my agreement now, which means something needs to change.
Yes, posting this to Apple support next.
Take care,
Rob T