Nothing to do with auto play. My phone gets upset if I try to have more than one audio source open at a time, regardless of intent (I have to install an app and explicitly state which apps shouldn't pause media); meanwhile my PC doesn't give a fuck.

I want my phone to still be reachable. I want to receive texts still, as well as calls. I just don't want to be inundated with interrupting notifications while trying to listen to something when I can't easily manipulate my phone.

They could make an optional setting to where after a notification pings, your phone won't ping for subsequent notifications for some time frame after, like, say, 30 seconds. They could also let you set default notification preferences when your phone is connected to Bluetooth in a car or playing continuous audio streams like music, audiobooks and podcasts. Like if I'm in a vehicle with a screen that has popup notifications, maybe that's the only way I want those notifications while in the car. Or maybe while listening to audiobooks, music, or whatever, I may want the notifications to not pause the audio, but play concurrently, or only vibrate instead, or flash my phones flashlight, etc.

There should be other options between accept constant interruptions or cut off all contract from the outside world.

Oh lord, hahaha. Crossing my legs at the thought. Nice.

yOu GaVe ThEm PeRmIsSiOn

It's not really a feature but a side effect of having two audio channels, one is completely dependent on the ringer being on, and the other may only have one app playing on it.

How do you mention you can play multiple audio streams at the same time and then claim the OS is designed to let only one app access an audio channel / device? Which one is it now? Let's dig a bit deeper into this:

Also, let's not blame everything on the OS vendor being malicious. In most cases, playing multiple audio streams simultaneously would be annoying. In android, you can absolutely play multiple sources simultaneously, and Android will mix everything together and play it.

That being said, starting with API level 31, Android actually started to enforce a concept called audio focus at the system level. That would be around Android version 12. Audio focus is basically a token that can be requested and handed from app to app, and only the app holding the token gets to talk, everything else is faded out.

I'll agree that enforcing this and not making it configurable for the end user was a pretty dumb move, but that was simply a UX decision, not certainly malicious.

If your phone is rooted, you can work around it, e. g. via an xposed module.

At least with the config I mentioned, it pauses any audio for calls. I assume it was bugged for you