If the app you're using right now has a handle for audio playback, it changes the speaker volume. If not, it changes the ringer volume. As far as I can tell, that's all, and in a half decade of using iPhones and iPods, I've never actually seen it misbehave.
My phone is permanently on vibrate (have young kids in the house and don't want to wake them), so changing the ringer is frustrating at most.
1) Press volume button to bring up volume controls
2) Tap the arrow on the right to expand
3) Adjust ring/music/alarm volumes as needed: http://core0.staticworld.net/images/article/2015/05/android_...
Android's system of adjusting media volume when media is playing and ringer volume when it isn't seems like a reasonably clean solution. It takes a single tap to expand to the three sliders.
Maybe a shortcut where where pressing volume up/down simultaneously mutes everything?
So you reduce the volume, but it only reduced the ringer for calls, which isn't what you want.
As the sibling answer says, newer Androids can do this. One click to display the volume, a touch to see the individual controls and then slide.
This is exactly what I want.
Honestly, the most intuitive option for me would the audio controls should never touch the ringer, bury that behind a menu, rather than switching based on context.
You can always adjust the ringer (something people rarely do -- for quite times there's the "silent" mode anyway) from the UI, and always use the volume buttons for the system's (music, video etc) audio volume.
You can touch the screen to drop the selector, click on which volume you want, and go ahead with using the rocker for that volume selector.
To silence app-audio, I use just: volume-rocker, click on down arrow, click on music icon to mute. That's it.
Consider this scenario:
- Use iphone at max volume to power speakers (pseudo line-out)
- Switch to sensitive IEM's later, attempt to change volume before starting... can't. Just changes notification volume.
- Begin playing music, rupture eardrum if IEM's in.
Fortunately iphone doesn't push enough current to damage the hardware (which can be replaced), but it is plenty enough to damage hearing (which can't be replaced).
I have yet to find a way to change headphone volume without initiating playback.
Android's volume control is a mess but at least it is possible to change these volumes.
Blackberry 10 handles the situation best: It remembers the volume for line-out usage and remembers the headphone volume used last. If Apple can detect headphones are unplugged they can detect line impedance vs. headphone impedance.
I also think Apple already does remember headphone volume? It seems to for me?!
Thanks for the tip about ringer volume though. Creates a new problem but at least it's not a problem that involves hearing damage.
Including the sibling replies, there's several solutions to this problem if you dig.
That's a design choice, and there're arguments to be made for and against, but it seems hardly likely to surprise anyone more than once or twice.