TL;DR
- Halfsies 1.3.2, on the App Store since 22 October, shows a Google ad after every run. On iPhone, that ad broke the game's sound.
- The game asked iPhone for music-app sound, the "playback" setting. Google's ad code changed the setting during each ad and never set it back.
- After an ad the game was either silent or ignored the silent switch, depending on the phone.
- Version 1.3.3 uses the "ambient" setting instead. The silent switch wins, your music keeps playing, and the game turns its sound back on after every ad.
- 1.3.3 is now the Android build in Google review, and it adds landscape layouts for folding phones, iPads and wide phones.
Halfsies is my daily cutting game. You slice an object and a scale tells you how close you got to half. The game is free and earns its money from a short Google ad between runs. In version 1.3.2, which went live on the App Store on 22 October, I put one after every run. That version broke the sound.
What went wrong
After an ad closed, one of two things happened. On some phones the game came back silent. On others the sound came back but ignored the silent switch, so a phone that was set to be quiet started playing game sounds. A silent game feels broken. A game that plays out loud with the switch on is worse.
How iPhone decides what a game's sound does
Every iPhone app that plays sound picks an audio category. The category tells the phone how the app's sound should behave with the silent switch and with other apps. Two of them matter for most games.
- Playback is the music-app setting. Sound plays even with the silent switch on, and it stops whatever else was playing, like a podcast or your own music.
- Ambient is the background setting. The silent switch mutes it, and it mixes with other audio, so your music keeps playing under the game.
Halfsies 1.3.2 asked for playback, so it behaved like a music app. It played through the silent switch and stopped whatever you were listening to.
Where the ad came in
A full-screen ad plays its own video and sound. While each ad ran, Google's ad code changed the game's audio setting, and when the ad closed it never set it back. The game carried on with whatever the ad left behind. That is why the bug looked different from one phone to the next: silent on some, ignoring the silent switch on others.
What 1.3.3 changes
Version 1.3.3 switches Halfsies to ambient. The silent switch wins, your own music keeps playing, and after every ad the game turns its own sound back on instead of relying on the ad to leave things as it found them.
The same build adds landscape layouts. On folding phones, iPads and wide phones, the game used to be a tall phone screen stretched across the middle of a wide one. Now it lays out sideways.
If your game shows AdMob ads on iPhone
These are the checks I would run on any iPhone game that plays its own sound and shows full-screen ads, whether the game is native or runs inside a web view.
- Pick the audio category on purpose. For a casual game, ambient is usually the right one: the silent switch works and players keep their own music.
- Expect the ad code to change your audio setting while the ad plays. When the ad closes, set your category again and turn your game sound back on.
- Test the ad path, not only the game. Play a run, sit through the whole ad, and listen with the silent switch on and off.
- Try more than one phone. The same bug showed up two different ways depending on the device.
Where it stands
On iPhone, 1.3.2 is still the live version, so the fix still has to reach the App Store. On Android, 1.3.3 replaced 1.3.2 as the build in Google's review on 24 October, so Halfsies will start on Google Play with the fixed sound. The release asks for 177 countries and regions plus the rest of the world, and Google has not approved it yet. The sixth Jeje Studios ad diary covers the first Android submission, and the seventh covers this bug and the swap to 1.3.3.
The ads are not running while this gets sorted. Meta has spent nothing since 21 October, and the $200 test closed at 17,319 views and 364 link clicks: 55 cents a click and a 2.10% click rate. The full per-ad table is in my copy of diary #7. You can see the game at halfsies.jejestudios.com.