disable auto play?

I found a fix for that and you should use it while driving anyway. Three words DO NOT DISTURB.

Every since I discovered that I use it while driving and no more interrupts to my audiobook, podcast, nor music.

When I set my phone to vibration only, it still vibrates (obviously) but music or audiobooks aren't interrupted.

And if you're still waiting: it's the gardener. It's always the gardener

Android now allows you to set how many minutes need to be between two notifications of one App. Helps with such problems.

I also tend to just leave it on vibrate. That way I get notified, but my media keeps playing.

Do not disturb mode or driving mode may help

In WhatsApp, you can simply mute a group or a person. That is of course not very convenient when you are driving.

One time I had this happen while I was listening to one of the Emperor of Thorns books. The scene being described was of scrotal mutilation and my brother kept texting me during the reading.

I didn't want to hear about scrotal mutilation that many times.

Otherwise, excellent YA book series, audio or otherwise.

Android will let you make a custom notification for a group. I don't know about iOS. (So you could turn the notifications off just for the one group, but still receive texts from other people like them individually.)

Either I pay for the app to have it without ads or I remove it. Both my pc and my phone are ad free. I watch YouTube without ads thanks to the grayjay app, which includes sponsor block. I removed Reddit when Boost stopped working for it. I don't watch sports because of all the ads. I live an ad free life.

Well fuck the ad.... So....

You seem knowledgeable with these workarounds, would you happen to know of a way to bypass ducking?

It's the temporarily lowered volume for notifications etc. I know app developers can choose how to implement this, PowerAmp lets you choose whether to do it or not. I can't find such a setting for Audible and Spotify, and while navigation prompts are played through my phone (on purpose) it still lowers the music on the car's speakers.

Also specifically with Samsung, there is a setting called separate app sound. With this feature you can have your music play out a Bluetooth sound source while opening a different application and have the sound come out the phone for that. It's the biggest feature I miss when switching to pixel.

Once my Spotify didn't stop my metal song while I answered the phone, it was a mess

Beat me to it. You can also set the volume of apps individually too.

Turns out maybe boiling all our electronics into a single device maybe had consequences

I don't think it's stock android, is it?

True. It’s a super annoying iOS “feature”

Samsung has a workaround for this with their sound assistant app. It'll let you both control individual app audio and allow apps to play audio at the same time.

Android isn't and fairly confident ios isn't neither. Apps are made to behave this way because it's generally more convenient. They can ignore it or not trigger it for other apps just fine, like in the case of WhatsApp conversation tones or shutter tones

You may be right. However I think it might also be how most apps are written.

Disclaimer: I am no audio expert nor am I knowledgable enough in mobile OSs to confirm it but I did manage to build myself a ROM for my unsupported phone which led me to see a lot of things under the hood.

The way Android (AOSP) is made, and Im sure the same is true for iOS, easily accessible APIs are made available for devs to implement them without thinking much about how the OS on your phone will handle it. Multiple audio streams are definitely a thing on mobile OSs, for example if I want a Youtube video playing along side a phone call and music, I can. It's just not practical if you're an attention grabber company to let other audio streams interrupt the very important audio that they want you to listen to.

Anyway all in all, you're right that mobile OSs are designed to only let one app access the audio channel because Google wants to keep you on Youtube, all their partners paying for their apps to get on Android want the same thing and I can imagine the same is done on iOS and other manufacturer's OSs.