Vratislav Holub The macOS operating system is based on its simplicity and clarity. Due to this, it also enjoys solid popularity among users. In short, Apple bets on successful functional minimalism, which works in the end. Of course, the overall optimization of hardware and software also plays an important role, which we could describe as the building block of apple products. Despite these benefits, however, we can find special shortcomings that may appear absurd to users of competing systems. One of them is also a special shortcoming associated with sound control in macOS.
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Keyboard playback control
As we mentioned above, Apple tries to bet on overall simplicity with its Macs. This is also indicated by the layout of the keyboard itself, which we will pause for a moment. An important role is played by the so-called function keys facilitating the operation of the operating system. Thanks to this, users can instantly set, for example, the display backlight level, sound volume, activate Mission Control and Siri, or switch to Do Not Disturb mode. At the same time, there are also three buttons for controlling multimedia playback. In this case, a key is offered for pause/play, skip forward or, conversely, skip back.
Gallery
The pause/play button is a great little thing that can noticeably make everyday use more pleasant. Apple users can, for example, pause playing music, a podcast or a video at a moment's notice, without having to go to the application itself and solve the control there. It looks great on paper and is undoubtedly one of those extremely practical little things. Unfortunately, it may not be so happy in practice. If you have multiple applications or browser windows open that can be the source of sound, this simple button can be quite confusing.
From time to time it happens that, for example, when listening to music from Spotify, you tap the pause/play key, but this will start a video from YouTube. In our example, we used these two specific applications. But in practice, it can be anything. If you have apps like Music, Spotify, Podcasts, YouTube in your browser running at the same time, you're just a step away from getting into the same situation.
A potential solution
Apple could solve this absurd shortcoming quite easily. As a potential solution, it is offered that when playing any multimedia, the button responds only to the currently playing source. Thanks to this, it would be possible to avoid the depicted situations where the user encounters two playing sources instead of silence. In practice, it would work quite simply - whatever is playing, when a key is pressed, the necessary pause will occur.
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Whether we will see the implementation of such a solution at all, or when, is unfortunately still in the stars. There is no talk of such a change yet - only mentions appear from time to time on apple discussion forums from the users themselves who are troubled by this lack. Unfortunately, the macOS operating system falters slightly in the area of sound. It does not even offer a volume mixer for individual control for each application, or it cannot natively record sound from the microphone and the system at the same time, which, on the contrary, are options that have been a matter of course for competing Windows for years.
Assistant for recording and mixing performance:
https://vb-audio.com/Cable/
It works well in conjunction with the native Audio midi setup.app.
All you have to do is buy Sound \source and you can adjust the volume of all sources without any problems Jirka M