[kartoshechka]

> don't want to bother your surroundings

all apps with voice messages I happened to use support playback through voice speaker, if you put the phone to the ear as if you were just speaking with someone

but I don't really remember how I discovered that and it seems that majority of users don't even know about this feature

[genocidicbunny]

Depending on how loud that speaker is, people around you would still be able to hear it, even if its up to your ear. Years ago when I used public transport more, it was almost daily that I'd be able to listen in on peoples phone conversations because of how loud their speaker was even when not using the speakerphone setting.

[namibj]

On my Android (not even particularly recent) the phone earpiece speaker responds to the volume buttons when I'm in a phone call or use it to join a discord (group) voice chat. The latter works very well with voice activation, unless I'm in a loud place, in which case the incompletely filtered background noise causes intelligibility problems when talking over another.

[genocidicbunny]

I'm sure it does, but I speak from experience where there wasn't much of a difference in volume between the earpiece speaker, and the speakerphone. Most people had their earpiece loud enough that if I was close enough I could hear it just as loud as when they used speakerphone mode.

With a lot of (cheaper) phones the speaker is also terrible enough that the different modes don't make much of a difference.

[GekkePrutser]

Yeah I know that's an option too but it's annoying... It means it's even more time-consuming because it ties up one hand as well as my attention for the duration of the message.