Feature Request: Disable Lock Screen Scrubber
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Apple putting the media control at the bottom of the lock screen with no way to disable the scrub bar is one of the more baffling software decisions they’ve made in the last few years, but it seems like Overcast found a way to disable it in its latest release – as a recent Pocket Casts convert, I’d love to see this adopted by Pocket Casts as well.
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Thanks for your feedback @stupendous3877895f8c! I have forwarded your feedback to our development team.
We have an open GitHub issue about this as well, if you’d like to follow along or add more feedback there: https://github.com/Automattic/pocket-casts-ios/issues/2200
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I would love for this to happen. So many times I’ve lost my spot in my podcast or accidentally scrubbed to the end because of an errant touch of the screen. Usually putting my phone in my pocket. I’m glad you see in the GitHub that there’s an easy to implement fix that I hope is enabled.
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@theelevato thank you for sharing your feedback on this! I’ve added your comment to our feature request. :)
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+1
I have accidentally scrubbed forward and lost my place so many times. Please please give us the option to disable it.
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+1 due to the amount of times I accidentally scrub away from my current listening position. I never intentionally want to scrub on the Lock Screen.
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Is there any estimate on when this will be added to the Android app? I have an Android phone, and have lost my position in the podcast I was listening to twice while walking today, and many times in the past. Which is deeply frustrating, and I would really like to stop happening (especially when the fix is already available to iOS users!)
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Hi @wipsaunders,
Regarding the Android app, the feature to disable scrubbing specifically on the lock screen is a bit more complex than it might seem. Because the Android media session controls are shared across several interfaces—like the lock screen, notification shade, and Android Auto—disabling scrubbing in one place could unintentionally disable it everywhere, which may confuse users or affect functionality in other contexts.
Our team is aware of this and the challenge is being discussed here: https://github.com/Automattic/pocket-casts-android/issues/3820. While there’s no concrete timeline yet for when this might be addressed in a way that works smoothly across all platforms, the issue remains open and under consideration for future updates.
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I don’t mind that this would disable the scrub bar across other controls–it happens less frequently on the notification shade, but I have accidentally scrubbed to the end of a podcast while hitting the skip forward button. The only place I want scrubbing is within the app itself (and even there I barely ever use it), so turning off scrubbing across the lock screen, notification shade and Android Auto is completely good for me. Having scrubbing enabled in those places is a common source of frustration.
Thanks!
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Thanks for that additional information on why you’d find this feature useful, @wipsaunders! I’ve shared it with the rest of the team.
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100% agree with @wipsaunders. There is almost never a case where I want to use the scrubber anywhere and there are daily occurrences when I am frustrated with accidentally interacting with it on the lockscreen when I am trying to fast forward.