Podcast controls in WatchOS 3?

i don't see a Podcasts app on my watch, even though I have the app installed on my phone and have it set to copy all apps with Watch capability.

Wondering if there is just no Podcast app ready for WatchOS 3

THis does not work. "Now playing" does not control podcasts.

has anyone found a real solution?

Not trolling. I am genuinely trying to find a way for thus which i used so often on OS2 and ios9.

what you described on your post works if i am playing MUSIC on my iphone, but does not work for PODCAST.

Have u actualy tried with podcast? If so, do u have any hint as to why it would not work for me?

Miguel

If I launch Podcasts on my iPhone and they are playing and then I press the side button on my watch, the 'now playing' control shows up in the dock. I can start or stop the phone podcast from the watch.

I DO NOT see a way to transfer the podcast to the watch like you can with a music playlist.

From your post it appears this ability to control the phone podcast app (from Apple) does not work for you.

A few things to verify:

- bluetooth is on and the two devices are paired and communicating

- both are running the latest OS - Watch OS3 and IOS 10.0.2

- your AppleID is the same on both and you have enabled two-factor identification on your ID via the settings app for iCloud on your phone. I only bring this up because it appears more and more that Apple is moving in this direction so it might be something to check.

- you are using the Apple podcasts app

IF the above are not the issue, the only other idea I have is to unpair the watch from the phone and restore it and then re-connect to the phone with a new sync...

neil

I'm experiencing the same situation where I can control Music in watchos3 but not podcasts. This is a big step backwards for me.

I agree with Miguel. The Now Playing app in the Dock showed the little purple Podcast icon and the podcast title just as show in Ghazgkull's screenshot, but for me touching the various controls was not effective. For example, touching the pause square caused it to change to a "play" triangle momentarily, but the podcast playback did not stop and after a second or two the triangle switched back to the split square for pause. It's as if this feature was intended to work but is broken.

I just repeated the test again an it failed again in the same way. Then I forced the podcast app on the iphone to quit (double click the home button and swipe upward on the podcast app image) and started the podcast playback on the iphone again. Now the docked app on the watch does work.

OK, next morning on my workout walk the podcast Now Playing app was ineffective again. (I don't power off my iPhone at night so the same instance of the podcast app would still be running). So again I quit the podcast app and restart it, then the Now Playing app in the dock works. But after about 15 minutes it has become ineffective again (the pause button switches to the play triangle and then immediately back again). Another 30 minutes later the Now Playing app in the dock is completely grayed out and unresponsive to input. This is clearly not reliable.

My observation is different. The state shown on the watch (playing) is accurate, but when I touch the Pause button the playback does not pause. The watch app is seeing my touch since it changes the state of the button temporarily to the triangle for Play, but then it goes right back to the Pause icon to accurately reflect the real status. The skip forward or backward icons and the volume control also have no effect on the playback.

To further extend my ongoing play-by-play here, the podcast Now Playing app on the watch recovered from the grayed-out state and started working again a while after I finished my workout walk. This happened without me taking any recovery action like restarting the podcast app on the phone nor power cycling either device. Perhaps the watch just can't handle running the workout app and the Now Playing app at the same time? That would be disappointing. In WatchOS2 the media control glance worked while the workout app was running although there was always a lag of a few seconds for the action to take effect.

The behavior I've observed for the phone's lock screen has always been as I've expected. The controls are shown whenever music or podcast is playing or has been paused not too long before. It makes sense to me for those controls to be removed after playback has been paused for a long enough period.

It's obvious Apple engineers are not capable of allowing the Watch to sync with podcast NOR allowing you to easily listen to Podcasts on your Watch without your phone. Short answer: "APPLE CAN'T"!!!