Hello.

I have been informed the reason iPhone begins playing music as soon as I power the car is not because Apple wants me to listen to music but it is because the car audio system does.

Can anyone verify this is true? And if true, has anyone found a way around it?

The very annoying part of it is that after I pause the audio which is being played, if I make a phone call, at the end of the call the audio starts playing again.

Thanks.

Do you have it connected via Bluetooth? If you do that is why it is auto playing. You will have to remove the phone from the entune system completely under the Bluetooth section.

Yes, I have connected via bluetooth because I want to be able to make calls.

What I want to know is if there is a way to be connected but have the audio system not force the streaming of audio when I power the car up.

Thanks for the reply.

My IPhone is connected through bluetooth and doesn't do anything when I start my 4Runner besides connect. I have a feeling you have the music app open in the background so when your phone connects it starts playing.

This sounds normal to me. Not sure what you are really asking.
You can turn the volume down, the audio for the phone calls is different for the audio of radio/bluetooth.

You don't need to pause the music before making a call, it will pause automatically, then resume automatically when you hang up. Same for incoming calls. This is a feature....

You could just set the source to am/fm or sat and not bluetooth. The phone will still connect and you can make/receive calls still. The audio functions for pause & resume with calls are identical with radio as it is for bluetooth music the only difference is you have an additional volume control on your phone.

I believe there are actually 2 independent bluetooth connections from the phone to the head unit. One for phone and one for media player. You can connect one without the other (Say phone only, no media player)

Or as 2016 4Runner SR5 mentioned, kill the music app in the background of your phone and you'll have all the silence you can handle.

I understand what OP is experiencing but unfortunately I don't have an answer. Everything I have looked into points to it being an Apple issue since the iPhone does not have a way to turn off auto play. It's very frustrating and annoying as I don't want it to do anything automatically unless I say so.

My wife drives an '18 C-HR and has an iPhone 8. She doesn't listen to music but does listen to podcasts through an app. Without fail every time she tries to listen to a podcast the music app fires up and starts playing music.

It even does it in my '19 TRD ORP even though it is not linked through bluetooth. In my 4R I have my music on a thumbdrive that I leave plugged in even though I have the same music on my iPhone 7 which is linked via bluetooth for calls. It never tries to automatically connect my music on my phone through bluetooth with my iPhone. But if she is with me in the 4R she will connect her phone through USB to listen to podcasts the music app STILL fires up and starts playing.

Since she doesn't listen to music I've suggested we just delete all music off of her phone and see if that helps.

It’s not your iPhone. It’s the audio system. At power up it recognizes there is a connected device, so it connects to it.
Same thing happens when you put a cd in the system, or power up with one already installed.