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macbethfan

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 4, 2010
46
21
Twentynine Palms, CA
Seeing as Apple occasionally responds to users emails, I decided to email Tim Cook, Craig Federighi, and Kevin Lynch back on September 27th in regards to the removal of iPhone music library control on watchOS 4. I expressed my displeasure of the removal of said features and made my case for why they should be reimplemented. I didn't hear back and decided to email them a SECOND time on October 5th. Still nothing. Quite frankly, I'm just pissed off at this point. It sucks when I saw the iPhone user base being able to band together to reimplement that weird 3D Touch App Switcher in iOS 11.1 after Apple removed it, but our thoughts on music control seem to fall on deaf ears. Seriously considering selling the watch or getting a warranty replacement that (hopefully) has watchOS 3 on it. I understand they're pushing this Apple Music over LTE crap on everyone, but I'm not on board with it and I hate they took our choice away.
 

Vell843

macrumors regular
Jun 20, 2011
218
44
Seeing as Apple occasionally responds to users emails, I decided to email Tim Cook, Craig Federighi, and Kevin Lynch back on September 27th in regards to the removal of iPhone music library control on watchOS 4. I expressed my displeasure of the removal of said features and made my case for why they should be reimplemented. I didn't hear back and decided to email them a SECOND time on October 5th. Still nothing. Quite frankly, I'm just pissed off at this point. It sucks when I saw the iPhone user base being able to band together to reimplement that weird 3D Touch App Switcher in iOS 11.1 after Apple removed it, but our thoughts on music control seem to fall on deaf ears. Seriously considering selling the watch or getting a warranty replacement that (hopefully) has watchOS 3 on it. I understand they're pushing this Apple Music over LTE crap on everyone, but I'm not on board with it and I hate they took our choice away.

Man I feel your pain.....see below link to an thread regarding a third party app that is probably the closet thing we will get to it.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...atch-os-4-merged.2069287/page-4#post-25199129
 

actcyclist

macrumors 6502
Jun 10, 2017
333
479
I miss being able to remotely control the music library on my iPhone too, however I'll just adapt to it like always I suppose.
I expect there's going to be a lot of unhappy users trying to play music and finding the battery life on their Watch not lasting very long.

I don't think the Apple Watch 3 as it is set up; is practical to play music much. I noticed that battery life when playing music via AirPods was terrible for the watch. I checked out what I would expect at Apple. It seems even Apple's claim of all day battery life for the Apple Watch is based on only 30 minutes of music playback.
https://www.apple.com/au/watch/battery.html
 
Last edited:

Resqu2

macrumors 6502a
Apr 23, 2011
869
305
Explain what I’m missing here guys, on my AWS2 running the latest OS on both when I start a song in my IPhone music library my watch shows what’s playing, I can skip to the next song, cut volume up and down or even delete the song. I use this all the time. What am I missing? Thanks
 

BrianSoCal

macrumors 6502a
Oct 16, 2011
595
418
Houston, TX
Explain what I’m missing here guys, on my AWS2 running the latest OS on both when I start a song in my IPhone music library my watch shows what’s playing, I can skip to the next song, cut volume up and down or even delete the song. I use this all the time. What am I missing? Thanks

I am not sure either but I think they'd like to access their library not just skip.
 

macbethfan

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 4, 2010
46
21
Twentynine Palms, CA
Man I feel your pain.....see below link to an thread regarding a third party app that is probably the closet thing we will get to it.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...atch-os-4-merged.2069287/page-4#post-25199129

Explain what I’m missing here guys, on my AWS2 running the latest OS on both when I start a song in my IPhone music library my watch shows what’s playing, I can skip to the next song, cut volume up and down or even delete the song. I use this all the time. What am I missing? Thanks

Thank you Vell843. I'll look into that app.

And yes, I know about the "now playing" feature, which is cool, but doesn't give me the full control over the library that I'm looking for. I know it takes longer to change music fully from the Watch as compared to the iPhone, but I don't mind that when I'm walking between classes or in the shower. The convenience factor was amazing. I now use my Watch for just notifications and the standard watch functions. I don't do fitness stuff, so that's irrelevant.
 

Ledgem

macrumors 68020
Jan 18, 2008
2,042
936
Hawaii, USA
Explain what I’m missing here guys, on my AWS2 running the latest OS on both when I start a song in my IPhone music library my watch shows what’s playing, I can skip to the next song, cut volume up and down or even delete the song. I use this all the time. What am I missing? Thanks
There used to be even greater control. You could change playlists, enable or disable shuffle and repeat all/one/none, view and then play recent songs... it was a really elaborate remote. The current remote that pops up is better than nothing, but much more limited by comparison.

I think Apple is still trying to figure out how independent of a device the Watch should be, and the Music application was pulled in one direction. Originally it was clearly meant to be an accessory to the iPhone, but there was enough outcry that they've been implementing features with each generation to make it so that the Watch can more fully stand on its own. The original Music app did allow you to switch over to internal storage, as I recall, but I'm someone who used it as an accessory to the iPhone, so I can't remark on the functionality there. But I'd certainly like it if they returned the application to the way that it was...
 
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