After coming back from a holiday in Cairns (where I had forgotten to pack my earphones and putting a dampener on my ability to listen to my podcasts) I updated my iPad to iOS 4.2.1 to finally access features that had been available on the iPhone for months – primarily the folders feature so I could collapse my seven screens of apps down to two screens.
Anyway, I was rather perplexed when I went to the gym to find that none of my video podcasts would play in the background any more. The best I could manage was to have the video podcast playing with the screen off which was achieved by doing the following:
- Play the video podcast,
- Double click the home button,
- Press the pause button,
- Press the play button,
- Press the power button.
However, getting on the treadmill or cross trainer for twenty or thirty minutes with just audio and a blank screen kinda defeats the purpose of taking an iPad to the gym. I very much like to browse websites while listening into the podcast as well as checking my email and even getting into a bit of Words With Friends. Otherwise, I’ll flick back to the video if nothing takes my fancy.
Usually, the way background video playback would work as follows (under iOS 3.2):
- Play the video podcast,
- Press the home button (to exit playback),
- Press the power button (to put the iPad to sleep),
- Press the power button (to wake up the iPad),
- Double click the home button,
- Press the play button,
- Slide to unlock and go about using other apps.
For me, this is a real inconvenience and, had I known about this bug beforehand, I probably would have waited a bit longer for the issue to be resolved.
Anyway, if you want to provide Apple with feedback to reinstate this feature you can head on over to the Apple iPad feedback page to file a bug report. The more people that raise this with Apple the better!
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