Comment by alistairSH

alistairSH Jul 27, 2017 parent

Can it play music independent of a phone? I don't want to carry a phone with me when running. No good place to put it. Likewise in the gym - I'm moving around, so any pocket is likely to be a problem for at least some portion of the workout (back pocket - benchpress, side pocket - stretching and yoga, etc).

pm90 Jul 27, 2017

You can, but only using the Apple Music app. I've asked Google Play music repeatedly to have something similar on the watch, but they don't seem to care. Like you, I wanted to have ONLY my watch while running (I like to minimize any external clothing/devices while doing so).

So what I do now is use an armband as a place to keep my iPhone while running or exercising. The watch DOES let you seek forward/back once you have any music app playing (this works for podcasts as well) so effectively, I use the watch as a convenient "controller" for my iPhone.

Protip if you're oncall/devops: I LOVE the watch when running because I can quickly acknowledge pages from PagerDuty since you can scribble and send text right from the watch itself. Once ack'd, I finish my run and get back to handling the page

Analemma_ Jul 27, 2017

Overcast can also play podcasts from the Watch without the phone. It's annoyingly slow to transfer, but it works.

Get it now, though. The developer has said the feature was a mistake to implement and is a pain in the ass to maintain, so it might be going away soon.

Cenk Jul 27, 2017

It’s going to be removed in Watch OS 4: https://twitter.com/OvercastFM/status/890236178238230533

Analemma_ Jul 27, 2017

Urg, that's unfortunate. This is totally baffling, Overcast is literally the only third-party app I use on my Watch, and it seems to be one of the only apps that was serious about Watch support. With watchOS struggling with dev support, you'd think Apple would be tripping over themselves to help out the few devs who actually use it.

jandrese Jul 27, 2017

I guess, but the watch is still 7 times more expensive than the shuffle. It does do Bluetooth through, so that's nice. A bit extravagant for someone who is just looking for a music player for their workout.

pm90 Jul 27, 2017

But its more than just a music player. The workout tracker is absolutely amazing. I've used it to accurately track my running and swimming and I just love how easy to use it is.

polpo Jul 27, 2017

Yes, you can sync a playlist to the watch so it can play it independently: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204691

alistairSH OP Jul 27, 2017

Cool. Didn't know that. I was leaning towards picking up a Garmin Fenix, but this makes the Apple Watch a bit more compelling. Still not sure I can deal with the frequent charging. Hmmmm.

Edit - nevermind - looks like only a single playlist can be synced. That's a pretty major flaw in the system.

gumby Jul 27, 2017

IIRC the shuffle can only handle a single playlist too -- how would you switch playlists?

BTw in practice I haven't found charging an issue on my 0th gen apple watch and I use it to track both exercise and sleep. It's not "fire and forget" but neither was the iphone for a long time either.

alistairSH OP Jul 27, 2017

The shuffle does multiple playlists. Hold the voice button (short push reads song name/artist) to access playlists, device reads playlist title, user clicks voice button to select the one they want. Not a great user experience, but it works.

speg Jul 27, 2017

As for battery; my wife just got a Series 2 and she often goes to bed with it at 60%+ charge but I guess depends how heavy a user you are.

Personally I'm waiting for another month or two to see if the next generation has enough to make me take the plunge.

dawnerd Jul 27, 2017

My original handles all day just fine thanks to the not so recent software updates. If you're really worried turn on theater mode so the screen doesn't constantly turn on.

alistairSH OP Jul 27, 2017

Yeah, daily is the problem. I'm tired of charging devices all the time. Phone, watch (TomTom for running), GPS (for cycling), iPod, iPad(s), laptop.

The Garmin Fenix comes really close to replacing the watch and GPS from above. And it'll run for about a week between charges. If it played music, I'd own one already (even if that meant charging twice a week).

Total 1st world problem.

plandis Jul 27, 2017

AFAIK Spotify doesn't have offline play on the Apple Watch

27182818284 Jul 27, 2017

Not...really. You can do some playlist-like stuff, but not really. It isn't there yet but it is definitely on the horizon. Not hard to imagine an Apple Watch talking directly to your AirPods and skipping the phone at a point in the future.

sathomasga Jul 27, 2017

Yes...really. I regularly run with just my Apple Watch and a pair of bluetooth earbuds. Works fine.

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