AirPods / Bluetooth audio session not released on iOS

Since a recent update, the Monologue iOS app appears to hold a call‑like Bluetooth audio session whenever it is active, which breaks normal AirPods behavior. While Monologue is idle but activated, my AirPods lose controls: play/pause does nothing, volume controls don’t affect ongoing audio, and Siri from the AirPods or “hey siri” will not trigger. As soon as I fully stop or quit Monologue, all AirPods controls immediately work again. I noticed there’s a “Bluetooth CarPlay” bug report describing Monologue not releasing the Bluetooth channel after recording on an iPhone 16 Pro. My issue seems closely related or identical, but with AirPods instead of CarPlay. This has been enough of a pain that I have temporarily switched back to using Wispr Flow until it get sorted out.

I have an iPhone Air running version 1.0.2 (128) of the Monologue iOS app.