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Listen to music without phone

H

Heissenberrug

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 8, 2019
5
0
Hi everybody,

I would like to know if I can play music on a Apple Watch series 5 without having my iPhone nearby. If I understood it well it's not possible with Spotify but it is with Apple Music? This would be a reason for me to move from Spotify to Apple Music.

And if so how much music can be put on the series 5?

Thanks in advance.
 
Thanks for your quick response, I'm looking to buy a GPS model. You know how many GB is available for downloading songs to the watch and am I correct that this is not possible with Spotify?
 
eclipse01 said:
yes you can, Cellular model or GPS?

if you have cellular you can stream music, without your phone, if you have GPS you have to "preload" the songs on your watch. (unless you are around wifi)
Click to expand...
Yep thats spot on.
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Heissenberrug said:
Thanks for your quick response, I'm looking to buy a GPS model. You know how many GB is available for downloading songs to the watch and am I correct that this is not possible with Spotify?
Click to expand...
For the S5, its about 8 gig available for music even though it has 32gb of storage.
 
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One thing i want to mention, it does "auto" preload the last music you listened too, so it always keeps "something" in your preloaded music regardless if you put it in there or not.
 
Okay, great. Thanks guys. Guess I'm moving to Apple Music then as soon as I got my watch.
 
Bazooka-joe said:
Yep thats spot on.
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For the S5, its about 8 gig available for music even though it has 32gb of storage.
Click to expand...
If music is synced from iPhone, The storage space limit might be 32GB, not 8GB. I can successfully fill my 16GB watch with music that occupies a little over 8GB. I might need to threat this out tonight when I get the chance.
 
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Shirasaki said:
If music is synced from iPhone, The storage space limit might be 32GB, not 8GB. I can successfully fill my 16GB watch with music that occupies a little over 8GB. I might need to threat this out tonight when I get the chance.
Click to expand...
I can only get 8 gig on mine before it stops syncing
 
To the OP:
If your settings are configured in the right way, you won’t have to manually load any music to the Watch. It’ll learn what you’re playing regularly and every time the Watch sits on the charger, it loads music to play locally. It’s a “set it and forget it” feature that does a remarkably good job of guessing what I want handy, though I’ve also got the LTE model, so I can stream my entire library and the entire Apple Music library when something hasn’t been loaded if I’m away from my iPhone or WiFi.
 
Yeah you should be able to stream music with your watch only whether it's tethered to your phone or in LTE.

While the watch has 32GB storage, it only lets you save 8GB worth of music.
 
Wow, that sounds actually great. But the most important thing for me to know is if this is also possible with Spotify or only Apple Music. I'd rather stay with Spotify but on the other hand Apple Music got Jay-Z :)
 
ReardenMetal said:
To the OP:
If your settings are configured in the right way, you won’t have to manually load any music to the Watch. It’ll learn what you’re playing regularly and every time the Watch sits on the charger, it loads music to play locally. It’s a “set it and forget it” feature that does a remarkably good job of guessing what I want handy, though I’ve also got the LTE model, so I can stream my entire library and the entire Apple Music library when something hasn’t been loaded if I’m away from my iPhone or WiFi.
Click to expand...
Interesting. What settings are those for set and forget
 
Bazooka-joe said:
Interesting. What settings are those for set and forget
Click to expand...
Watch app/Music/turn all of these on. Couldn’t be simpler.
941DFF29-529F-4188-B061-3CED7C7BB998.jpeg
 
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@Heissenberrug - There is a Spotify app for the Watch, though I don’t personally use it so I am not sure if you can download music to the device, or only stream.
Bazooka-joe said:
Interesting. What settings are those for set and forget
Click to expand...
You can set any play list you like to sync automatically to your Watch. Create a smart playlist of recent purchases or any other dynamic list of music and it will be updated every time you charge the Watch.
 
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Thank you all for your help. I've bought an Apple Watch Nike edition and it works perfect with Apple Music. Even exported my Spotify list to Apple Music.
 
Heissenberrug said:
Wow, that sounds actually great. But the most important thing for me to know is if this is also possible with Spotify or only Apple Music. I'd rather stay with Spotify but on the other hand Apple Music got Jay-Z :)
Click to expand...
You will find yourself quickly in a position that only multiple subscriptions can suit your need.
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Itinj24 said:
Mine shows Heavy Rotation only with a spinning circle underneath it and nothing else. Did you have to do anything special to get those other options under Heavy Rotation?

View attachment 869515
Click to expand...
You HAVE TO BE an Apple Music subscriber to have those options.
however, you can add your own playlist or album or whatnot to your watch.
 
Shirasaki said:
You will find yourself quickly in a position that only multiple subscriptions can suit your need.
[automerge]1571097946[/automerge]

You HAVE TO BE an Apple Music subscriber to have those options.
however, you can add your own playlist or album or whatnot to your watch.
Click to expand...
Yep, I am a subscriber but I just get that spinning wheel. The fact that it only syncs ~8 GB of music, I wanted to try those options but they don’t come up for me.
 
Itinj24 said:
Mine shows Heavy Rotation only with a spinning circle underneath it and nothing else. Did you have to do anything special to get those other options under Heavy Rotation?

View attachment 869515
Click to expand...
This happened to me too. My Apple ID was having some issues. All I can say is I signed out and signed back into the "iTunes & App Store" section of the iPhone Settings.app and that fixed it. Key to make sure your correct Apple ID is signed in there. Add this to my long list of frustrations with the new crop of software Apple just pumped out.
 
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ReardenMetal said:
This happened to me too. My Apple ID was having some issues. All I can say is I signed out and signed back into the "iTunes & App Store" section of the iPhone Settings.app and that fixed it. Key to make sure your correct Apple ID is signed in there. Add this to my long list of frustrations with the new crop of software Apple just pumped out.
Click to expand...

Crap, Ok thanks for that info. Every time I sign out of iCloud on any of my devices, my whole Homekit setup goes coo coo for Cocoa Puffs.
 
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