WatchOS 10 podcasts lost "Play on iPhone" functionality

I appear to have had this problem on my Apple Watch 7 after upgrading to 10.1 from 9.x. Upon starting a podcast on my connected iPhone, the Podcasts app would launch on my watch, but it would just open to the main screen of that app and the button at the top right to jump to the Now Playing screen, though animating to show audio playback occurring, did not respond to taps.

In contrast, it worked fine for music. Playing a song in the Music app on my iPhone caused the Music app on my Watch to launch and immediately display the Now Playing screen.

I was able to resolve the issue just by restarting my watch.

if you’re talking about playing the podcast on your phone and controlling it on your watch (pause, play, skip 30 sec, etc) I had the same problem. I did find out where they moved all that.

if you start to play the podcast on the phone look at your watch screen to see if podcasts are open. If not, press the crown and select the podcast app.

The app should be on a screen that has “Listen Now” with a list of podcasts from shows you’re subscribed to. Locate the show your playing (not specific podcast date but actual subscribed podcast) and click the circle with three dots in the upper right corner of that specific podcast. Click “Go To Show”. The next screen will show the picture of the podcast with a play button on the lower left of the screen. In the upper right of the screen is a circle with lines moving to show it’s playing. Click that circle with line (upper right corner of watch screen) and the controls will pop up.

if you’re talking about clicking a show on your watch and choosing to play on phone that option is there. On your watch, find the podcast you want to play and click the podcast. It should ask where you want to play (it may have a title “Airplay”. If it’s playing on your watch and you want it to play on the phone, on the watch click the circle in the upper right corner of screen and click “Airplay” then select phone.

Restarting my watch fixed it

I have this same problem. I can’t get my Apple Watch to play its own podcasts with getting iPhone to play. There only way I have found so far is to turn off my phone.

I have same problems. I used to jog only with watches before. And I could control podcasts from watches without needing to have a phone with me. But watch does not allow to pause and rewind podcast. Before the release I hoped to see in Podcast app more information about timeline of a track, but unfortunately it haven't happened. It feels like Apple made the interface change for the sake of change, and only made the user experience worse. I already regret switching to WatchOS 10 :(

I did all that. The play button starts the podcast but then there are no buttons to pause, ff, or rewind. Also, nothing happens when I hit the circle in the right upper corner. As you say, the controls will pop up, but they don't pop for me. Frustrating.

With the feature removed, I have the opposite problem. When I want to play on the podcast on my Watch instead of the phone, there is no way to me to switch to my watch.

Frustrated the heck out of me too so I did the typical computer fix. Turned off watch then followed suggestion from stefashka Author User level: Level 1 4 points Sep 25, 2023 1:10 PM in response to wayne248

It worked for me and I am happy again that I can pause and rewind my podcasts!

This didn’t work at all for me. I am on that screen, with the podcast name showing, the little Play icon in the lower left (which incidentally also seems not to do anything) and then the little circle in the upper right where it shows a tiny representation of an equalizer as the show is playing. And hitting that does absolutely nothing.

I just upgrade my Watch iOS, and I have to say I am dumbfounded that that BROKE the incredibly intuitive functionality of the previous iOS for garbage. Straight up garbage.

I had the same issue back in September, but a software update fixed it. Now it’s happened again in November. I can’t believe they keep breaking this - one of the things I use most on my watch. Maybe next update they’ll remove the time?

It's weird, in the morning there's no player screen with controls, but in the evening it appeared. Now I can control podcast from watches. So I suppose I got an software issue

Same problem here … what do you mean with „I've disabled the automatic opening audio app yesterday and enabled it today“. Is this a kind of switch?

I followed these steps and the tools did NOT show. They are nowhere on the watch now