Since the arrival of the Apple Watch, users have been asking for it: a Spotify app for Apple’s smartwatch. Since yesterday, the music service finally supports watchOS, but much remains to be done before it can be called a fully-fledged app.
Apple Watch Spotify now available
In the iOS update of Spotify yesterday, the first fully-fledged watchOS app of the music service was also hidden. After a short test, the music service makes the switch to Apple’s smartwatch, with the message that it is still a first version. You can notice that: You cannot stream songs directly to the Watch, saving music offline is impossible and browsing through your library is also not available.
That makes the Spotify Watch app almost a copy of the ‘Current’ app that is standard on every Apple Watch. This app shows a mini player as soon as you play audio on your iPhone, which allows you to control the volume, pause the music, or skip to the next or previous song. The Spotify app doesn’t do much more than that for the time being.
For example, you can choose from the Watch on which device you want to play music, you can give songs a heart and there is a list available with your recently played songs and playlists. Finally, there is a Shuffle button, which strangely enough is not on the main screen but is above the list of recently played music.
Enough to improve
Still, the arrival of the app is good news for Apple Watch users. Unlike other big tech names such as Slack, Instagram and Twitter who removed their watchOS app over time, Spotify still shows that it wants to put time and energy into a watchOS app.
Spotify is right about this, because there are plenty of situations in which a good watchOS app from the music service comes in handy. The most practical feature that would really make the Spotify app worthwhile is storing songs locally on the watch.
This allows you, for example, to keep your favorite playlist on the Watch while exercising, so that you can leave the house without an iPhone in your pocket and still listen to music via AirPods or other wireless headphones.
Now that the Watch app is here, the lack of Siri support for Spotify is also extra noticeable. With the lack of screen space, it would in theory be very useful to turn on your favorite playlist with a voice command on your watch. We obviously cannot charge Spotify for this, because Apple makes it impossible for music services other than Apple Music to add Siri functions.
The company also emphasizes that this is a first version with the necessary limitations in all respects. With software updates, the app will be gradually expanded in the future, although Spotify cannot yet say which functions are planned.