Didn't have a great experience with Music on Apple Watch today, Convince me to stick with it and get it working better!!

[commanderclif]

Upgraded to iPhone 13 Pro Max on Friday from old X iPhone and didn't want to lug around bigger new phone when doing the yard work today so thought I'd give playing music from my Apple Watch to my AirPods a shot. Plagued with several issues, didn't care for it and may use old X as an iPod next time.


Multiple times the playback of music just stopped/paused. I'd have to the watch face to hit play to get it going again. No idea what was causing the music to stop, the instances were clustered so when it started doing it, it would happen several times in a row than stop for awhile. Could it be that my AirPods were discovering other Apple devices in the house and not staying strongly paired to Watch?


If I took a break to talk to my wife for a bit when I put the AirPods back in after pulling it out to pause, often it wouldn't resume play and when I went to the watch, if a couple minutes had passed the current track playing was just gone and I had to drill back down in to playlists, select the one I had been listening to and basically start the list over again. Why is that?!?


Kind of felt like volume to AirPods was louder from iPhone than Watch, but I could be wrong. I did notice that sometimes when I'd pull an AirPod out and then put it back in the volume was lower. Not sure why it would adjust without my interaction. Unless it was jumping from AirPods to Watch speaker for some reason and when going back it was bringing different devices volume setting?


Lots of notifications kept interrupting causing the music to drop, seemed fixable by turning on Do Not Disturb but if there is a Don't Disturb when playing music that would be preferable to remembering to turn it on and off each time.

 

[CollegeWasHard]

…you know, I also tried it recently because I just bought an SE to replace my Series 2 that I haven’t worn for a few years. I have trouble going back into a specific song where I left off if I take out/put back in an airpod. I found I had to start the song over or even start back at the beginning of the playlist if I’ve got too much going on on the Apple Watch.

I also don‘t like the layout of the playlists - I couldn’t find a way to view a list of songs in a playlist, I can only see one song at a time and have to hit the next arrow to cycle through them. I might just be doing it wrong, but would prefer to browse a list sometimes.

It seems like it’s more designed to be a casual listening experience, not meant to get you to anything super specific, just meant to get something in the ballpark of what you’re looking for playing in your ears.

…

I also struggle with the podcast app. I listen to a lot of podcasts and tried to listen to a few on the way to work. If I stop the podcast by removing my EarPod for a second to talk to someone outside and then put it back in, the music app will start playing, not the podcast app, even though it’s open on my watch.

Sorry, I failed at attempting to convince you to stick with it lol. But, I’m going to stick with it for a while I guess. It’s probably just me doing it wrong.

 

[commanderclif]

Here's another thought I had. I wonder if maybe I was accidentally playing a playlist on my phone instead of the same playlist downloaded on my Watch. I noticed today its a lot easier to get in your phone playlists to stream than it is to get in your watch downloaded playlists so now I'm thinking that the music pauses may have been occurring when I was out of range from phone.

 

[ukms]

Here's another thought I had. I wonder if maybe I was accidentally playing a playlist on my phone instead of the same playlist downloaded on my Watch. I noticed today its a lot easier to get in your phone playlists to stream than it is to get in your watch downloaded playlists so now I'm thinking that the music pauses may have been occurring when I was out of range from phone.

The way you describe the intermittent stoppages does sound as though you were playing it from your phone.