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Spotify Officially Debuts Apple Watch App, Rolling Out to Everyone Over Coming Week
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Not sure - the image at the top of the story shows Discover Weekly and Release Radar, so possibly not personally curated playlists just yet.
[doublepost=1542128625][/doublepost]V 8.4.79 just appeared for me on Updates. “Includes first version of Apple Watch app.”
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3rd party apps are traditionally horrid at managing usage. When a 3rd party app like Spotify drains your Apple Watch battery and kills your data plan, who gets blamed? Hint: it's not Spotify. Nope, instead people blame Apple and their watch for not having good battery life.
Much of the API access has been rolled out as Apple has found ways to limit the ability of app developers to do real damage. They simply don't think of performance impacts and how their app is just one of many a user utilizes. Instead they only think of their own, making no effort to be good about minimizing resource usage.
i have faith spotify will add offline and/or cellular streaming. i cant take apple music anymore, ive missed you spotify.
The most obvious reason is battery life. The Apple Watch has a tiny battery 279 mAh in S3, 291 mAh in S4. People would be crying to no end on every forum about their “abysmal battery life”. Even streaming Apple Music can significantly lower your battery over the course of a couple hours. Offline music playback will be the best thing and Spotify will roll it out as soon as it’s ready for prime time.
They are more widely available in store than online. Even for online orders, my experience has always been that Apple beats their own estimated delivery dates by about 1 week. Under-promise, over-deliver.
That feature is not ready yet and they said it will roll out in a future update. If Apple was putting a limitation on the competition they would have never updated WatchKit in WatchOS 5 to allow this app to exist. It exists because of the new Background Audio API they created for Watch OS 5 to allow developers like Spotify to make their app.
Unfortunately, no. It's a key feature and it's not an option yet. Think of this first release as being a remote control for adjusting some Spotify playback features.
It's weak, but I give them credit for finally doing it and taking it from the TestFlight beta to a production app in just a couple weeks.
Exactly! Plus it doesn't even support the Apple Watch 4 screen resolution. Ironically it does support the new Watch 4 faces/complications. At least this gives me hope that they'll eventually release an offline mode which would be great for summer runs etc. A big feature for me that Apple Music has always had over Spotify.
P.S. I do like that you can control the volume on whatever device is playing via the Watch app. Nice little add with their Spotify Connect feature. The ability to control whatever stream you're listening to from any device has always been a great feature which Apple Music has never matched.
wait, third party apple watch apps cant stream over LTE? So no matter what as of now Spotify can't allow streaming music over LTE?
my car doesnt have bluetooth so I bought a bluetooth -> aux adapter. It works perfectly with my S4AW. I can easily stream music from the watch to the car without my phone being anywhere nearby. Seems it depends on the bluetooth chip in the car. My friends Odyssey can not connect to his watch...
I've been able to play music directly to my car using Bluetooth and the Music app on cellular. No Siri necessary. Some car stereos are strange though - I can't pair my watch with some car stereos I've tried.
I doubt it. The cellular plan for wearables is the same price for apple watch as it is for all other wearables as far as I am aware. I am willing to bet anything this was a decision made to protect the battery life. A poorly written third party app that is streaming over LTE could very quickly ruin the battery life of a device that most users expect to last a day without problems.
Don't put the cart before the horse. Cellular and offline mode don't mean **** if there's still no headphone support via the Watch. Let's get that issue resolved first with even a small cache of offline music synched from our iPhone, we then request that streaming and offline modes be available.
[It seems that Apple's new API for watchOS 5 doesn't allow for cellular or WiFI streaming. ]
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Hopefully Spotify is being responsible about that, but they could also let us know why certain features like streaming aren't feasible or give us a big ol' warning about battery use for streaming.
At least offline mode, even if regimented to the first 2 dozen tracks of a single playlist would be something useful until the SW and HW improves… but I don't think that streaming is too far away since it works with Apple Music and LTE is the biggest battery hog.
Here's an article from a year ago regarding Apple Music and LTE on the Series 3 Watch:
The only reason I pay for Apple music is because it is the only service I can stream using only the watch. I am pretty spontaneous when it comes to my music when I'm working out.
Either way if the feature still not available to a third party app until now then Apple had a headstart which creates an unfair advantage over the competition. Just imagine if I have Spotify then bought a non-cellular iWatch and I do outdoor running and want to listen to the music then I only have one option. Since I wanted the feature so bad, that will force me to jump into Apple Music. After months of use I already started liking Apple Music and created more running playlist.
