Apple Releases watchOS 4.3 With Portrait Nightstand Mode and iPhone Music Controls

Speaking of workout related weirdness, anyone else had the thing where you’re using the S3 standalone and music playback always stops 10 minutes into a workout? (beatsx/powerbeats2 with Music+Workout/Music+NRC)

I always run the same route, and the first couple of times music stopped at the exact same location I thought it was just a coincidence, but then it kept happening every single time around the 2 km/10 minute mark. Some 50 times later I think coincidence can be ruled out with 99.99% certainty.

It’s only a minor nuisance as all you have to do is press play again, but the oddness of it bugs me. Like.. why? How? For what? Huh?
 
Kermit262 said:
Looking forward to having HomePod controls from my Apple Watch. Sometimes it gets tiring saying "Hey Siri" to the HomePod.
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I can’t figure out where you can control the HomePod from. Only option I have is to use music on the iPhone and airplay to HomePod. Nothing shows up in the now playing tile.
 
JamesBrock said:
The portrait nightstand mode is just bad. Why couldn't they just make the font a little smaller and have the time all on one line. Who reads the time on 2 lines?
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Presumably so that people with glasses don’t need to put them on just to check the time in the middle of the night. Apple’s trying to substitute a clock radio here.

When I was 25, I would’ve scoffed at that notion since I had Superman vision. Bah! Make the font 5 pixels high on that Retina screen. I can read that from 10 feet away. Losers. Then past 40, presbyopia kicks in and you’re like ohh... crap, is this my life now? Damn, never mind.
 
shahr04360 said:
Pity still no built-in sleep tracker app for this high-end&expensive watch.
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I installed the Sleep++ app on my watch a few weeks ago and am pretty happy with it (I'm not affiliated with the app in anyway). It's free - MacRumors did a review that prompted me to give it a try.
 
Anuba said:
What is it that's supposed to have been fixed? I know they reenabled iPhone music control on the watch, but other than that it's still as stupid as before.

If you click on a playlist or album just to have a look at the titles (obviously there are situations when you just want to browse, not listen), well, you can't. It immediately shoves a list of headphones/speakers in your face. If you click cancel, you're sent back to the playlist cover image.

If you want to play a playlist shuffled, you have to start playing the first song, then tap the tiny list button, enable shuffle and tap the Next icon. Only then will you get the first randomly selected song. (If I remember correctly, that sort of thing was handled with Force Touch in previous versions, but for some weird reason Force Touch has been completely eliminated from the Music app.)

Similar deal if you want to go to an album to look for an individual song. The price of admission to that information is that you have to start listening to song #1. Only then will you be offered the ability to see the whole song list.

And once again, cover art can't be shown. It remains an extremely dark and blurry shape behind the playback controls.

The Music app in the last version felt like an alpha version. I'd like to say this feels like a beta, but then a beta is supposed to be feature complete and there are way too many mysterious gaps for that. The half-bakedness is evident everywhere.

One improvement though, they got rid of the pesky little "+" button that added songs to your library on the fly. I've had to manually remove so many songs after having accidentally touched that thing without noticing. Songs that were playlist-only, outside the library. But when you remove them from the library, they also disappear from those playlists, so you have to search them and put them back there again.
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This exactly on my Series 1. I was very excited to regain control of music on my phone, but this essentially does nothing for me. I like that I can select a playlist from my phone that is remotely connected to a bluetooth device and control it again, however, there is no ability to scroll through the songs in the playlist to select the desired one. You are forced to play the first song and advance through. Why can we not scroll through the songs in the individual playlist/albums with the digital crown like os 3. I would like to use the watch as a true remote control.

When I turn on my tv it doesn't start at channel 1 and force me to hit the channel up button until I get to channel 200. This feature seems so basic it blows my mind this functionality is not back to how it was previously.
 
Once my 7 plus found and downloaded the new firmware it took a little under 30 minutes for the watch to complete the update and reboot. It does take a ridiculous amount of time for the watch to sync with the phone especially if not used daily.

I actually feel that 4.3 made the Series 1 feel a little bit snappier. Whatever they did it’s definitely better than the previous firmware. So far I’ve been happy with iOS and tvOS as well. My iPad Air also runs better. It doesn’t seem as sluggish as it was with all of the previous iOS 11 releases. While loading times are about the same, the lag in the UI is just not there. I will update macOS tonight.
 
Is there a way to have the watch always displaying the time in nightstand mode while charging? If you have to reach over and tap it, what's the point?
 
bubsdaddy said:
Is there a way to have the watch always displaying the time in nightstand mode while charging? If you have to reach over and tap it, what's the point?
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The point is not having to enter the damn pin and swipe up to see if it’s done. I guess having the screen on all the time is counterproductive to charging the watch. Unlike iOS devices and macs, if you use the watch while it’s charging the battery will go down.
 
its one step forward - the ability to again control and choose music from the phone, but two steps back. Who on earth thought that the music app is fit for purpose given that you can't select or scroll through songs on a playlist.

Increasingly I think these apps are designed by people who have never listened to music or who have never actually used the app.

Please bring us back the simple and logical music navigation controls that we had pre OS 4!
 
glad to see the portrait nightstand mode but it only displays when the watch is facing with the stem on the left. I was hoping I did not have to flip the watch around. I wear it stem in on my left to keep from hitting it all the time.
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bubsdaddy said:
Is there a way to have the watch always displaying the time in nightstand mode while charging? If you have to reach over and tap it, what's the point?
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tap the table thats what I do thats plenty to trigger it.
 
Relentless Power said:
That’s actually saying something about the performance with the faster dual core processor with the Series 3 compared to the first generation Apple Watch which would take significantly longer in some cases.
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It’s more likely to be the S3’s faster radio chips. I think the bulk of the update process is copying the files over from the phone.
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lec0rsaire said:
The point is not having to enter the damn pin and swipe up to see if it’s done. I guess having the screen on all the time is counterproductive to charging the watch. Unlike iOS devices and macs, if you use the watch while it’s charging the battery will go down.
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OLED is highly susceptible to screen burn too.
 
My Watch Series 1 has been updating for over 2 hours now. Is has never taken that much time with the previous updates and I'm starting to get a little bit nervous... Has anyone else experienced that long of an update time?
 
Kurito said:
My Watch Series 1 has been updating for over 2 hours now. Is has never taken that much time with the previous updates and I'm starting to get a little bit nervous... Has anyone else experienced that long of an update time?
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Yes indeed. Took very long, than stopped altogether. I rebooted the next morning.
 
CmdrLaForge said:
Yes indeed. Took very long, than stopped altogether. I rebooted the next morning.
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I have a Series 1 and didn't have trouble this time around. I did however when updating from 3.2.3 to 4.1. I had to try several times until it finally worked. Stuff like this happens sometimes.
 
Kurito said:
My Watch Series 1 has been updating for over 2 hours now. Is has never taken that much time with the previous updates and I'm starting to get a little bit nervous... Has anyone else experienced that long of an update time?
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My AW S0 took 4 hours to update from WatchOS 3 to 4.3. I was planning to keep it on version 3 but iOS 11.3 on my iPhone 7 plus said that it won't work with WatchOS 3 and it must be updated, so i was forced to update. A note to those planning to stay on WatchOS 3 - don't update to iOS 11.3 (11.2 was fine). After 3 hours, it froze just after the wheel filled up. I hard reset it (by holding down the two buttons) and then after another 1 hour I was asked to enter my pin. I turned it off last night and this morning when I turned it on- it froze on the apple logo for an hour. I did a factory reset (Erased all content and settings and re-paired). It seems to be working now. 3rd party apps (such as Facebook Messenger) feel slower but the WatchOS itself and Apple's own apps feel a little bit faster.
 
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