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Comment by simonh | Hacker News Reader

You just need to choose the right phone. This works fine on iOS, especially if the game offers in app audio volume selection, although some games deliberately block other audio sources. It’s a per game issue though, not a limitation of the system.

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The fact that this requires in-app volume controls, or that an app can block other audio sources, feels like a limitation of the system.

What desktop OS provides per application volume controls, outside the apps?

Both Windows and Linux (via PulseAudio) provide this. I'm not as familiar with the Windows side of things, but on Linux I can also redirect each application's sound to different audio devices.

Yup, this is extra useful when I'm using e.g. an external USB headset for calls. I can have media played through my speakers while using the headset for calls, regardless of whether or not the application supports this itself. (Admittedly VoIP applications generally do.)

Windows does out of the box. Linux and OSX can definitely be configured to even if its not built in. On mobile, you cannot configure or add OS level features the way you can with desktops - at least without jailbreaking.

Linux distributions released in last 10 years or so come with pulseaudio, which does exactly that out of the box. No need for any configuring.

Depending on the DE it might not be exposed to the user at that level of granularity despite being supported under the hood. You need a shell plugin to expose per-app volume controls in Gnome for example. (You can always install pavucontrol, of course.)

Plasma provides it right out of the box.

>or that an app can block other audio sources

I think that's a useful feature, and the real issue is that it can't be overridden or reconfigured.

That's literally a limitation of the system. Actual operating systems like Windows and Mac OS control program volume independently of what the programs internal volume is set to.

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