WatchOS 10 makes playing music on watch so much more tedious

Newsdude, on the watch, go to setting, general, handoff and turn « enable handoff «  off. It did it for me, but like you, I still have the problem with the app not remembering the last song played, and the shuffle option is real crap, I have 1200 songs on my Watch and sometimes the same song will play twice the same week

I did this today and it worked perfectly fine to play music downloaded to my Apple Watch Ultra on my AirPods Pro:

1. kill the music app on the iPhone by swiping it way in the app switcher
2. disable Bluetooth on the iphone
3. put the AirPods in your ears
4. open the music app on the watch
5. navigate to top, then library /downloads and select your favorite playlist
6. start the first song of the playlist on your watch and when asked, select the AirPods as output device

I hope this helps until Apple has the issue addressed

I've had this issue and/or a similar issue since WatchOS10 and with 10.2 it was the worst.

As others have stated, my watch would constantly try to play through my phone and not my earbuds. On occasion I would get a message that I would need an Apple Music Subscription to play the song I selected. I own all the music I have stored locally on my watch so this was confusing.

Here is what I noticed and did to fix the issue:

I noticed some music was greyed out on my Watch under downloaded and playlists.

I also noticed in the music section on the Watch App on my phone 4 out of 5 of the playlists I previously had were gone. So, I deleted the remaining playlist and re-added all 5 back. Then I rebooted both devises and placed them on the charger. Mainly the watch to re-transfer my music back. (Oddly enough the storage amount under music on my watch did not change from before to after)

Now it does not try to control my phone through Airplay, nor do I see any greyed out music on my watch. When I disconnect and then reconnect my earbuds they start playing where I had left off.

One or more updates somehow broke my downloaded playlists. I think my watch couldn't find the songs so it automatically tried to play them through my phone. When that didn't work it told me I needed a music subscription.

TLDR: Make sure the music you previously put on your watch is still listed under added music on the Watch App on your iPhone. If not, re-add it, reboot, charge and that should fix the issue.

I hope this helps anyone who's been having the same or similar issues as I have had.

This issue had me ready to throw my watch into the ocean and did get me to start transitioning back to Spotify on Watch (after making the opposite transition years ago when Spotify wasn't supported).

Now, maybe this is just me and I got lucky, but the 10.3 update has completely fixed the issue. Well, at least 95%. When I tap on a playlist or album, it does not start playing on my phone. Hallelujah. It doesn't automatically start playing on my APP2 or other connected BT earbuds the way that it used to do before the 10 update, but it's only one screen - basically asks to confirm that I want to play on the APP2, and the other options (phone, etc.) are well down the screen so it's easy to select.

I actually got it to work. It’s not easy but I figured it out. The key is the upper right corner of the music app on the watch. Click on it and select Watch and it seemed to work.

I have precisely the same problem! It is SO ANNOYING. I have found that I need to power down my iPhone before selecting the music to play on my Watch and that stops the phone from being in the loop. I wish I could go back to previous Watch OS.

I ONLY listen to music that is on my Watch, never on my phone. I listen when at the gym and don't even have my phone on my person, its in my gym bag.

Switched to Spotify for music downloads 2 clicks and I can start my run.

Hi hockeybrian,

Instead of playing music from your iPhone and using AirPlay to send it to your Apple Watch, you can try to start the music directly from your Apple Watch. You can also add a widget for the Music app in Smart Stacks. Lastly you can have a playlist start when starting a work out. Checkout these resources and YouTube videos from Apple Support for more information:

• Play music on Apple Watch
• Use the Smart Stack to show timely widgets on Apple Watch
• How to use the Smart Stack on Apple Watch 
• How to start a workout playlist on your Apple Watch

Hope this helps.

Take care.

hockeybrian wrote:

It is as if with WatchOS10, my watch always defaults to controlling my phone and playing music through my phone unless I tell it to use the watch, EACH and everytime.

Okay, I understand what you're saying now.

Hmm. This is not my experience at all. Do you have your headphones connected before you start this process? I just tried without headphones and it wanted to connect to my iPhone. If I connect Airpods first, that doesn't happen.

I too am having the same issue. I shut my Bluetooth off on my phone. I also noticed once I get the music to play off my watch it will crackle or pop as the cellular signal changes. I shut cellular off on my watch and it was much better. Yes, this was all OS10.1

The quickest way I found to force prevailing the watch was to put my phone in airplane mode. Otherwise, whether Bluetooth or Airplay take over my attempts.

I asked Apple to add a simple toggle selector on the watch in the music App to determine which source you want to feed your Airpods (or else).

I have the same issue hockeybrian mentioned in his initial post. It’s how I found this post (searching for the problem to see if I was doing something wrong). It wasn’t easy in watchOS 9 to get my watch to stream to my AirPods without bringing the phone into the picture, but it was more doable than with watchOS 10 (I didn’t do it often but if I remember correctly you could select an album that’s been downloaded to the watch and then select AirPods as an output device and it would play from the watch to the AirPods). Now in watchOS 10, even when selecting an album I’ve downloaded to the watch and selecting AirPods as the output device, it uses the phone as the driver, and the watch basically as a remote. When I walked away from the house out of the AirPods’ range of the phone it stopped playing, and I could then get the AirPods to play music from the watch. Even when I turned Bluetooth off on the phone (back in range of all three devices), when I played a song from downloaded-to-my-watch content, it played it from the phones speaker (since the phone was no longer connected to the AirPods w Bluetooth disabled ... but apparently still connected to the watch?) - watchOS 10 treats the music app on the watch as a remote for the phone.

I’m with hockeybrian - there’s no easy way, and I’d even go so far as to say watchOS 10 almost seems to be designed to interfere with the ability to play music from the watch to the AirPods without bringing the phone into the loop unless it’s turned off or out of range of the first two devices.

I have the full setup: iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods, HomePod and Airplay receivers, Macs, Apple TV, Apple music. I've progressively chosen to go all-in on Apple solutions regarding music, hoping for the state of the art user experience. Sadly it's not the case.

Each technology is quite good in itself, AirPods are fantastic, Airplay is perfectly in sync, but the underlying audio routing part used is flawed when used with all these devices.

- It's very complex. It's difficult to understand, difficult to explain to others, and requires several manipulations to get the right player connected to the right destination(s). So far, I'm the only one in my family really able to get the "Control an other device" thing, which itself have different behavior when controling AirPods and Airplay 2 devices

- Apple Watch is really struggling to take the music player position + takeover the AirPods connection. Every single time, you need to manually request to play from Apple Watch (and not iPhone) and confirm AirPods connection (often several times). I already left the house with only my Apple Watch and AirPods and was totally unable to listen music until I get back home and can reconnect everything to my iPhone.

These two devices are technically considered "iPhone accessories" and require an iPhone to setup at first. But this approach seems to create hard limitations on the promised seamless experience.

- If you try even more complex scenarios, everything crumble...

Siri on Apple Watch is unable to select the device to operate and will always control your iPhone (if reachable) even if music is already playing from Apple Watch or HomePod.

Try to listen downloaded music with limited network, these device can't, you'll need to force airplane mode to properly listen offline music.

Try Siri from Apple Watch when wearing AirPods, it will always use AirPods microphone as input and add a bad delay despite way better microphone and a snappy experience on the Apple Watch itself.

I did not even mention Airplay issues but there's literally tons of work on all of this to get the polished experience we're now expecting from Apple

2197dave wrote:

I hope those at Apple Are Paying Attention This update has me wanting to drop Apple Watch and Apple Music.

No. This is a user-to-user technical support forum. Apple Does not read these forums for user feedback.

But you can send feedback to

Feedback - Watch - Apple

If enough users send constructive feedback, it has a better chance of reaching a decision maker.

Hello again,

This is a build in change, a very bad one. Everyone can reproduce it: if you listen music with a non apple headset. It turns the music player just worthless on Apple Watch during a workout with a non apple headphone. Yesterday I was out for a run and normally I pause (headset button) music every time when coming into high traffic zones and start playing (headset button) again when back in more safe environment. But the play again just never start anymore! Not even from the watch. You need to go searching in menu’s to select the source (watch in stead of phone) and then you can continue listing. This is very badly done. It really looks like a downgrade for the non apple headset users. The same problem appears outside a workout though. So I am sure a lot of users are suffering this issue. Listening music on an Apple Watch becomes just useless this way!

plus: I Was trying to ad a complication to the ‘Now Playing’ app to bypass a bit this problem, but hey..: ‘Now Playing’ can’t be found anymore as a complication. What a coincidence!! Please Apple, update this huge error.