Siri: "Play My Podcasts" reverts playback speed about pocket-casts-ios HOT 8 CLOSED

@leandroalonso I think we can close this one now that it is merged. Thanks!

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@rviljoen I agree with your reasoning and ignoring the playbackSpeed.

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User added:

It also seems to work properly if you create a Shortcut called "Play My Podcasts" and add the "Resume Current Episode" action from Pocket Casts.

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Another report in 5595387-zen, but with the Shortcut app.

UUID for logs: 88705105-78AA-4CB2-B016-B6E760584B3D

App Version: 7.22
Device: iPhone13,4
OS: 16.0

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Another report in 5739926-zen

App Version: 7.26
Device: iPhone14,2
OS: 16.1.1

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Once I ask Siri to play PocketCast It will reset the speed of the podcast from 1.6 to 1.
Is there any workaround?

5879165-zen

Version 7.29
Device: iPhone13,3
OS: 16.2

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The code for DefaultPlayer already references code to handle a similar problem:

Need to investigate if the code is working as intended in DefaultPlayer and if a similar issue may exist in EffectsPlayer, which does not seem to have the same safeguard built in.

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I dug a bit more and documenting my findings to date:

• This happens using both DefaultPlayer and EffectsPlayer

• When asking Siri to "Resume Pocket Casts" or "Play Pocket Casts" it calls the app via MPRemoteCommandCenter:
  

  pocket-casts-ios/podcasts/PlaybackManager.swift

  Line 1416 in 247c730

  commandCenter.playCommand.addTarget { [weak self] _ -> MPRemoteCommandHandlerStatus in

• When asking Siri to "Play my podcasts" it does so via Siri intents. This explains the different behaviour between the different Siri commands, as logged in the original report.
  

  pocket-casts-ios/podcasts/AppDelelgate+SiriShortcuts.swift

  Lines 122 to 131 in 247c730

  	} else if identifier == Constants.SiriActions.resumeId {
  	// Shortcuts is removing the mediaItems for the "Play Podcaast" and "Play filter"
  	// actions, still handle them by checking for a mediaContainer. The correct
  	// mediaContainer is passed to the app untouched
  	if thisIntent.mediaContainer?.type == .podcastPlaylist, let uuid = thisIntent.mediaContainer?.identifier {
  	responseCode = SiriShortcutsManager.shared.playFilter(uuid: uuid)
  	} else if thisIntent.mediaContainer?.type == .podcastShow, let uuid = thisIntent.mediaContainer?.identifier {
  	responseCode = SiriShortcutsManager.shared.playPodcast(uuid: uuid)
  	} else {
  	responseCode = SiriShortcutsManager.shared.resumePlayback()

• When registering the Siri intent, we do not set a playback speed:

{
    playShuffled = 0;
    mediaContainer = <null>;
    playbackRepeatMode = one;
    mediaItems = (
        <INMediaItem: 0x2826d7e80> {
            artist = <null>;
            topics = <null>;
            privateMediaItemValueData = <null>;
            title = Resuming Current Episode;
            identifier = Resume ID;
            type = 7;
            artwork = <_INBundleImage: 0x2826d7ed0>;
            namedEntities = <null>;
        },
    );
    resumePlayback = 1;
    playbackQueueLocation = unknown;
    playbackSpeed = <null>;
}

• But when the app is called, iOS does pass along a default playback speed of 1:

{
    playShuffled = 0;
    mediaContainer = <INMediaItem: 0x28266d130> {
        artist = <null>;
        topics = <null>;
        privateMediaItemValueData = <null>;
        title = <null>;
        identifier = library;
        type = 0;
        artwork = <null>;
        namedEntities = <null>;
    };
    playbackRepeatMode = none;
    mediaItems = (
        <INMediaItem: 0x28266d680> {
            artist = <null>;
            topics = <null>;
            privateMediaItemValueData = <null>;
            title = ;
            identifier = Resume ID;
            type = 7;
            artwork = <null>;
            namedEntities = <null>;
        },
    );
    resumePlayback = 1;
    playbackQueueLocation = now;
    playbackSpeed = 1;
}

I assume the speed is sent to cater for commands like "Play my podcasts at double speed" or "Play my podcasts at normal speed". Unfortunately Apple sends 1 as the speed even if the user did not specify any speed. We then set the speed accordingly while ignoring the current speed of the player:

It would be ideal if Apple only passed 1 as the speed if the user explicitly asked for the supported "normal speed". In the interim, we may have to work around this by ignoring the speed setting when 1 is passed along, similar to what DefaultPlayer is doing here for a different, but similar, case:

My sense is that we should ignore the intent playbackSpeed if it is 1. This is not ideal, but the only workaround until Apple changes the API to consider the current playing speed before passing a value to us via the intent.

@emilylaguna @leandroalonso keen to hear your views on this one.

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