Questions about Apple Music streaming over LTE

[DualShock]

I’ve got a Series 6 with cellular on order and one of the features that drew me toward this model was the Apple Music streaming over LTE. I already have an Apple Music subscription so I tried testing the streaming out with my Series 3 non-LTE over wifi which has been updated to watchOS 7, using Bluetooth headphones paired to the watch, and I noticed some very strange behavior.

The streaming only seems to work if my iPhone is completely turned off. Otherwise, if I say “Hey Siri play <song> by <artist>”, making sure that I speak softly and close to the watch’s microphone to make sure the phone doesn’t respond, the music starts playing on the phone. This seems absolutely crazy, considering that Siri on the watch is responding. I usually get very good Bluetooth reception between my phone and watch, so I fear that even being somewhat far from the phone (like at the gym with the phone in one of the cubbies that my gym set up in the workout area) would not be enough to be out of range.

Is this the expected behavior for streaming? I would rather not have to turn the phone off or use airplane mode because I also read in an Apple support article that the iPhone needs to be on and connected to a cellular network in order to get text messages on the watch over cellular.

Also I would love to be able to browse the whole Apple Music library without having to use the scribble search and spell out artist names letter by letter with my finger. Is this doable also?

I should also note that I have not turned on library sync (yet), because of all the horror stories I read about my own music files getting deleted randomly, and the poor matching algorithm that causes live concert recording to be overwritten with the wrong version of a song, etc.

 

[swarlos]

I’ve got a Series 6 with cellular on order and one of the features that drew me toward this model was the Apple Music streaming over LTE. I already have an Apple Music subscription so I tried testing the streaming out with my Series 3 non-LTE over wifi which has been updated to watchOS 7, using Bluetooth headphones paired to the watch, and I noticed some very strange behavior.

The streaming only seems to work if my iPhone is completely turned off. Otherwise, if I say “Hey Siri play by ”, making sure that I speak softly and close to the watch’s microphone to make sure the phone doesn’t respond, the music starts playing on the phone. This seems absolutely crazy, considering that Siri on the watch is responding. I usually get very good Bluetooth reception between my phone and watch, so I fear that even being somewhat far from the phone (like at the gym with the phone in one of the cubbies that my gym set up in the workout area) would not be enough to be out of range.

Is this the expected behavior for streaming? I would rather not have to turn the phone off or use airplane mode because I also read in an Apple support article that the iPhone needs to be on and connected to a cellular network in order to get text messages on the watch over cellular.

Also I would love to be able to browse the whole Apple Music library without having to use the scribble search and spell out artist names letter by letter with my finger. Is this doable also?

I should also note that I have not turned on library sync (yet), because of all the horror stories I read about my own music files getting deleted randomly, and the poor matching algorithm that causes live concert recording to be overwritten with the wrong version of a song, etc.

Did you have headphones in at the time of this experiment?

If not the watch will default to playing from the phone as it will not play from the speaker on the watch.

I have had an LTE watch since the series 3 and can tell you with confidence that I have streamed music on my watch with my AirPods connected on a walk and at the gym without my phone with complete access to my  music library.

 

[matrix07]

Also I would love to be able to browse the whole Apple Music library without having to use the scribble search and spell out artist names letter by letter with my finger. Is this doable also?

Yes, you’ll be able to browse your library. And better you would be able to use infinity function to listen to music without interrupting as well.

If you’re new don’t sync the whole library. Sync it manually

 

[DualShock]

Did you have headphones in at the time of this experiment?

If not the watch will default to playing from the phone as it will not play from the speaker on the watch.

I have had an LTE watch since the series 3 and can tell you with confidence that I have streamed music on my watch with my AirPods connected on a walk and at the gym without my phone with complete access to my  music library.

Yes, Bluetooth headphones were connected to the watch when I ran the experiment. (They were Jaybird headphones if that makes a difference.) That is what makes this whole thing strange. I would have expected the music to start playing through the headphones that were paired and connected to the watch, even if the phone and watch were next to each other.

When you said you were at the gym without the phone, were the phone and watch still within range of each other? I believe I also tested using Siri on the watch to play a song from Apple Music, while the phone was turned off, and it played on the watch through the headphones as expected.

But this is the root of the issue that I have with this whole thing. I want to be able to play the music on the watch, if i initiate the playback on the watch, even if the phone is in range.

 

[swarlos]

With the gym scenario my phone was in my car and my watch showed the signal dots meaning I was on cellular.

Let me test with my watch here in a few and I’ll post back.

 

[DualShock]

Yes, you’ll be able to browse your library. And better you would be able to use infinity function to listen to music without interrupting as well.

When you say “your” library, do you mean the library that I sync’d with Apple Music, or the entire Apple Music catalog?

If you’re new don’t sync the whole library. Sync it manually

How do I sync Apple Music songs / albums manually?

 

[matrix07]

When you say “your” library, do you mean the library that I sync’d with Apple Music, or the entire Apple Music catalog?



How do I sync Apple Music songs / albums manually?

Your library. Apple Music library is so vast there’s no way to show all of it. You just have to use Siri or use Scribble to search.
You’ll get Listen Now on the watch though.

You sync YOUR music manually to Apple Music by uploading your albums. Find an upload button, hit it and it will check if there are similar album on Apple Music. If it finds some it will present you which one you want to match to your album. If it find nothing it will simply upload that album to the cloud and you’ll get it on all your devices.
This way you’re in control of what it will match to your music. You have to turn on Sync Library but don’t let it scan.