“Music streaming from a wrist watch is, both in concept and in practice, a big thing. Almost every wrist wearable we’ve tried and tested that offers ‘music’ is really doing one of two things: it’s playing music that was locally stored or cached on the watch in advance, or it’s offering wrist-based controls for music that’s actually playing on your phone,” Laurne Goode writes for The Verge. “What Apple promised with the LTE-equipped Series 3 watch was true, phone-free streaming from the wrist, directly into your Bluetooth headphones.””
“I finally had the chance to use this over the past couple weeks. I slapped on the same Apple Watch Series 3 I tested back in September, and re-subscribed to Apple Music ($10 per month),” Goode writes. “Turns out it’s a great little feature to have.”
“This is the first time I’ve put on a smartwatch and been able to request almost any music on demand from the watch itself, no phone required,” Goode writes. “Really the only thing I missed acutely during these phone-free walks was access to podcasts on demand. For whatever reason, Apple hasn’t created an Apple Watch version of its Podcasts app… You can use a third-party app, such as Overcast, and pre-sync your podcasts to the watch before you head out, but you could do that with earlier, non-LTE Apple Watches.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Only Apple offers true music streaming to a smartwatch via Apple Watch, Apple Music, and Apple AirPods (or other Bluetooth earphones, headphone, or speakers). Hopefully, Apple will release Podcast app for Apple Watch capable of streaming via cellular ASAP.
SEE ALSO:
Apple preps Siri for the HomePod, now streams a news podcast when asked for ‘news’ – January 4, 2018
This is neat! How much is the battery drain on the watch when streaming music?
It has gotten to the point that I doubt I could run without music streaming. The Apple Watch combined with AirPods is fabulous.
We dont stream but i loaded a few playlists into my wifes new watch, wife loves running using airpods. At&t just text me i am getting a 55 credit for the watch subscription.
iTunes Match works as well. You do not have to do Beats d.b.a Apple Music.