ok so
phones have separate speakers for media and calls, right? and the speakers for calls make sound in a way that can only be heard if you put the phone to your ear, whereis those for media can be heard even from a distance, right? but like. why is there no easy option to play media via the phone speakers so one can listen to it on the train w/o bothering anyone?? or am i misunderstanding this technology completely?
re: phone speakers queation
@phseiff on modern phones there are two speakers. one at the top of the device, the earpiece, and another one at the bottom of the device. these two are used for stereo media audio playback, and only the earpiece speaker is used, at a lower volume, when doing phone calls. there are apps that allow you to route media audio into the call audio and sort of simulate a call to be able to play media on bluetooth devices that only support the HSP profile and not the A2DP profile required by android for media audio. due to how these apps work they allow to just raise the earpiece speaker to your ear to listen to the audio if you don't connect it to a bluetooth device. i did try this in the past with an app that was available on Google Play, but now i can't seem to find it anymore :/
i found an app on F-Droid that allows doing this! haven't tested it but it's here: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.soyblue.bluesound/