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sdkatsh Author

Level 1

35 points

iTunes automatically starts playing when iPhone 5 (w iOS 7.0.2) is connected to car radio via an Apple cable

I'm using an iPhone 5 with iOS 7.0.2, regardless it is the most recent update

When I plug my phone into my car radio's USB port (Apple cable, not knock off) iTunes starts to play the very first song in my large iTunes library.

I plug into the USB port to charge it and to connect the phone to radio in order to use hands free audio.

I have tried two or three different cables, it happens with all cables and again all are actual Apple cables.

I do not recall this happening with iOs 6 or at least as much.

With iOs 7 it happens every f***ing 😠 time. Extremely annoying and dangerous (I may get so frustrated by this that one day I might just smash the phone or the car radio :-) to the equipment.

I have to unlock my phone, go to iTunes and pause or stop the song/iTunes. ➖➖

The app does not show as being open, that is why I have to go iTunes itself, the old fashioned way, so to speak. 😕

It sometimes happens when I plug my headset in (also Apple brand, the basic ones that come with the iPad and iPhones) to phone and have tried the two different ones I have. It only seems to happen if my phone is not in use (i.e. I am on a call and switch to the headset it does not happen)

Interestingly this issue with the headphones and iTunes automatically starting happened more with iOS 6 and than with iOS 7. Ironically the opposite is true with the car radio, USB port cable, charging and iPhone — it rarely happened with iOS 6.0 but with iOS 7.0 it always happens.

I cannot seem to find a fix here but I do see I am not the only one with this annoying issue.

Please someone (APPLE!) figure out a fix. ➕ℹ➕

PS I have even considered NOT having any of my music on my phone — none at all — which not only would solve the problem (I would hope!) but be extremely inconvenient and defeating the purpose of only having an iPhone vs an iPhone and an iPod.

PPS - I probably left out something really relevant, like what color is my car 😝, so if I did, please let me know.

iPhone 5, iOS 7.0.2, iTunes

Posted on Oct 13, 2013 7:30 PM

119 replies

Dec 8, 2016 11:08 AM in response to stevenXcross

thank you stevenXcross for that detailed description because this is exactly what I have been experiencing with my phone. What happened with me when it first started and I didn't know what the issue was. I took my phone back and they replaced it. Well I was still having the same issue, in a whole different and new phone. The support guy at apple I was working with had me to totally erase my phone and set it up as new. So I did that and voila, no more problems that is until yesterday. I realized that when I plugged in my headphones and the music display shows up playing and just as you said, I didn't stop my music when I was done listening to it, I just snatched the headphones out and swipe the window from running in my background. But low and behold when I plug my headphones back in...it started happening again. So I didn't know how to shut it off and I removed both my music apps for now. I will put them back but now I know to always pause my music, podcast, or videos when I'm done properly to avoid this issue in the future. Thank you again for this post.

Dec 21, 2016 6:33 AM in response to Jim Houghton

I followed your steps:

Settings then cellular then turned off music then I plugged my iPhone into the USB port in my car then started the car and iTunes started automatically playing

Dec 23, 2016 3:21 AM in response to sdkatsh

this is quite late.... but i've been really irritated by the iTunes autoplay whenever i connect it to my car sound system (volkswagon polo). It keeps over-riding any mp3 that i try to play from gmail. A useful work-around i found is to save the mp3 to notes and play it from there. Since notes is an apple sanctioned app, it seems to be able to over-ride the iTunes autoplay when you embed an mp3 into a note and play it.