Your Apple Watch can now stream Spotify music without your iPhone

Support to stream music and more to Apple's smartwatch starts rolling out
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It looks like Spotify has started rolling out support for users of the Spotify Apple Watch app to stream content from the service when you're away from your iPhone.

Testing for the streaming support was spied in September, and it looks like some Spotify and Apple Watch users have noticed the functionality has started to appear.

It now means you can listen to music and podcasts, as long as you have a Wi-Fi or cellular connection. As with Wear OS, there is still no support for offline Spotify playlists on your smartwatch.

The new streaming feature that appears to be landing as a server-side update, which means you might not see it appear straight away and Spotify may be gradually rolling it out. We've checked on our Apple Watch Series 6 and it hasn't arrived for us just yet.

For those it has landed for, they've shared how the new support looks, which basically prompts the Watch wearer if they want to stream on the Apple Watch. As mentioned, you'll need to have that cellular or Wi-Fi enabled to make it work.

It's a welcome update for the Spotify Apple Watch app, which launched back in 2018 as quite a lacklustre offering. It basically offered a way to control what was playing on your iPhone and gave you access to Spotify Connect.

While this streaming support does certainly make it more useful, it's still missing a feature we really crave and that's offline playlist support. It's still something that's reserved for compatible Samsung and Garmin watches like the Galaxy Watch 3 and the Forerunner 245 Music.

Hopefully it's something that Spotify is looking to roll out too, though we wonder if Apple has a part to play in why it hasn't happened yet. It of course has its own music streaming service that already offers that type of offline support.

If you like the idea of streaming Spotify on the Apple Watch though, that's a feature that has arrived. If you haven't got it already, we anticipate it will be heading to your wrist in the not too distant future.

Via: 9to5Mac


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Michael Sawh

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Michael Sawh has been covering the wearable tech industry since the very first Fitbit landed back in 2011. Previously the resident wearable tech expert at Trusted Reviews, he also marshaled the features section of T3.com.

He also regularly contributed to T3 magazine when they needed someone to talk about fitness trackers, running watches, headphones, tablets, and phones.

Michael writes for GQ, Wired, Coach Mag, Metro, MSN, BBC Focus, Stuff, TechRadar and has made several appearances on the BBC Travel Show to talk all things tech. 

Michael is a lover of all things sports and fitness-tech related, clocking up over 15 marathons and has put in serious hours in the pool all in the name of testing every fitness wearable going. Expect to see him with a minimum of two wearables at any given time.


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