[Android Auto] Steering wheel buttons do not work for skipping podcasts back/forwards 15 secs

[bkromhout]

Plan

Premium

Country

US

Device

Google Pixel 2 // 2020 VW Jetta GLI (Autobahn trim)

Operating System

Android 10 // Android Auto

My Question or Issue

Hi Spotify team, I have a rather vexing issue for you: I have a 2020 VW Jetta GLI (Autobahn trim—may be important since it has a different infotainment unit than the standard trim), and for some reason I can't use my steering wheel buttons to skip back/forward 15 seconds when listening to podcasts.

It works just fine if I use the touch screen, and the steering wheel buttons do work for skipping tracks when listening to normal music, so it's a bit strange that they don't perform the 15sec back/forwards function for podcasts (and to be clear, they don't do anything else either; they do nothing at all when listening to podcasts).

It's been this way ever since I got the car, back in March, so I don't think it's an Android Auto issue, I've just been a bit lazy about reporting it 🙂

[Peter]

Hey @bkromhout,

Thanks for reaching out to us about this!

We can confirm that what you're experiencing is the expected behaviour.

If you'd like to see this feature implemented, the best way to do so is to submit a new idea for it in our Idea Exchange. Once approved, Spotify Staff will look into the idea once it reaches the necessary amount of votes - more info on how that works here.

Feel free to post a link to the idea in this thread for visibility so that other users can vote for it too. Let us know if there's anything else we can help with in the meantime 🙂

Take care!

[bkromhout]

That seems...very strange to me; so what you're telling me that you guys intentionally programmed it so that the steering wheel buttons do nothing at all when listening to podcasts? Respectfully: how does that make any sense at all from a UX standpoint? As a developer myself, this feels like a blatant oversight, a place you could—with very little effort—make a nice quality of life improvement. The fact that it hasn't been done already begs the question: why? (I'm honestly interested in the reasoning here, not just trying to be sarcastic.)

In any case, while I'd love to follow your suggestion of opening another topic in the Idea Exchange, I've searched high and low in there and cannot for the life of me find a way to post a new idea, so while it feels a bit silly to ask this: how does one go about posting a new idea? 😉

[Peter]

Hey @bkromhout,

Thanks for getting back to us. We'll be happy to answer your question 🙂

What's likely to have happened is that the relevant team are aware of this, but have prioritised other tasks above this one - that is just my personal guess, and there might be other reasons which I'm not aware of.

In any case, in situations such as this where a user requests a feature which has not been implemented (versus reporting a feature which has stopped working or isn't working properly), we refer our users to the Idea Exchange so that we can see if and how many other users in the Community feel strongly about this feature.

To submit a new idea, you just need to head here and use the search bar to see if this idea exists already. If you can't find it in the search results, just scroll to the bottom and click on "Continue and post". 

Hope that helps! Let us know if there's anything else we can help with 🙂

[bkromhout · Accepted solution]

Hey Peter,

Gotcha, thanks for the additional information, as well as the guidance on how to post a new idea.

For anyone who visits this thread later, if you're interested in seeing this get implemented, please go and upvote the idea I created for it here: [Android Auto][Podcasts] Make steering wheel buttons work for skipping podcasts back/forward 15 secs 

[Peter]

Hey @bkromhout,

No worries - glad I could help 🙂

We've gone ahead and marked it as a New Idea so other users can add their vote to it.

Take care!