Nike vs Sport for Music Playback

[inhalexhale1]

A big reason I'm looking into an Apple Watch is being able to play music from it, without needing the phone.

A review I read said this is a more cumbersome task when used on the Nike version of the Watch. It didn't explain why. For hose that have one or the other (or maybe have tried both), have you found this to be true?

 

[Night Spring]

Do you have a link to that article? I'm curious what they are talking about, exactly.

But what I've found is if you try to use the music playback function in the Nike app, it's buggy. If you just use the regular music app, that works identically, whether you have the Nike or the regular watch.

 

[ohio.emt]

There is no difference between the two watches besides the Nike+ app being installed by default, a band, and a couple watch faces. Everything else about them is the same.

There are some differences between WatchOS 2.0&3.0 since you have the music app, and the now playing app that can be in the dock.

 

[inhalexhale1]

Do you have a link to that article? I'm curious what they are talking about, exactly.

But what I've found is if you try to use the music playback function in the Nike app, it's buggy. If you just use the regular music app, that works identically, whether you have the Nike or the regular watch.

I think that's what the review was referring too. It wasn't clear on what was more of hassle, so I was curious if loading music to bring on a run or using it to stream to headphones, was any different than a normal Apple Watch.

 

[Night Spring]

I think that's what the review was referring too. It wasn't clear on what was more of hassle, so I was curious if loading music to bring on a run or using it to stream to headphones, was any different than a normal Apple Watch.

Loading music is exactly the same. Playing music is exactly the same as long as you use Apple's music app. And any third party app you might use would function exactly the same. In fact, if you download the Nike app from the App Store to use on a non-Nike watch, it would work exactly the same. Only difference with the Nike Watch is you get the band, and you get the Nike Watch faces.

 

[inhalexhale1]

OK, thanks guys. What I'm understanding is it's an issue when loading music within the app, not in an overall difference of how music functions.

 

[thewusman]

Just to be clear - I was frustrated not being able to get the Nike RC app to play music on the watch when running without my iPhone. Apparently this is by design: you have to use the Apple Music app on the watch to play your watch synced playlist, the Nike watch app WILL NOT do this for you, it can only stream/play/control music loaded from within the Nike RC app on an iPhone. Basically the phone hands-off music controls to the watch in this combination.

Really stupid imho, as running with only your watch, you have to hop between 2 apps by double clicking the crown - hopefully this will be fixed in a future update.

PS. Does anyone know if this could be an apple API issue, in that 3rd party watch apps cannot access watch synced music (walled garden)? I have no idea why Nike wouldn't have implemented this simple feature.

 

[Night Spring]

Just to be clear - I was frustrated not being able to get the Nike RC app to play music on the watch when running without my iPhone. Apparently this is by design: you have to use the Apple Music app on the watch to play your watch synced playlist, the Nike watch app WILL NOT do this for you, it can only stream/play/control music loaded from within the Nike RC app on an iPhone. Basically the phone hands-off music controls to the watch in this combination.

Really stupid imho, as running with only your watch, you have to hop between 2 apps by double clicking the crown - hopefully this will be fixed in a future update.

Yes, exactly. And this is exactly the same on a Nike+ watch as on all other models of the Apple Watch.

 

[eastamherstbias]

I run with just the watch all the time. I just use the music app and start the playlist and then start the NRC app. The voice will overlay over the music.

 

[deeddawg]

As stated above, any issue is with the NRC app -- which will be the same on both versions of the watch.

Really irrelevant anyway IMHO; I start the music in the Music app and switch to the NRC app and off I go. I play/pause, track fwd/back, and volume up/down from my bluetooth headphones. I never touch the music app again. Thats just me though, I guess if you need to keep changing your music during your run I can see where the setup might be frustrating. Hasn't ever been an issue for me though.