How To: Get Rid of the Obtrusive Popup Box When Adjusting Video Volume in iOS 7.1

As obtrusive as they come, the translucent volume control window that appears in iOS 7 takes up a lot of screen real estate. It's extremely annoying when watching videos, appearing directly in the middle of the movie you're viewing for several seconds any time you adjust the audio levels with the volume rockers.

In older iOS versions, the volume popup window was actually transparent, making it less bothersome, but the frosty translucent version in iOS 7 is ridiculous. It's especially infuriating when watching short video clips, where you actually have to restart the video after adjusting the sound.

While there's no official word as to whether or not Apple will fix this issue, there is a glimmer of hope in the latest iOS 7.1 update.

Introduced in one of the earlier beta builds of iOS 7.1, the irritating volume box is now gone when watching any video through the Safari web browser. Whenever you use the volume rockers while watching a video in Safari, the top and bottom video controls appear instead of the annoying middle box.

Above: YouTube video in Safari in 7.1.

While this new feature is a great improvement, there are still a few issues. One, the top and bottom controls are also translucent, so it still makes portions of the video hard to see. However, it's still way better than having it block the middle.

The other issue is that it doesn't work across the board. I tried it on YouTube and other applications, and the annoying volume box still appeared. It only works in Safari right now.

Above: YouTube app in 7.1.

But, if you're tired of getting the volume control box blocking your view, just watch all videos through your Safari browser—Vimeo, YouTube, ESPN, WorldStarHipHop, LiveLeak, Break—any video player that can play in Safari will work.

Hopefully, the iOS 7.2 (or whatever) will use this across the board, not just in Safari, but we'll just have to wait and see.