Why can’t I control my iPhone music from my Apple Watch after the update? Anyone who doesn’t use bluetooth headphones is going to find this to be an issue.

Hi

Under watchOS 4, for controlling playback of music from your iPhone rather than the synced playlists on Apple Watch, then - other than by using Siri - it is necessary to first start playback on your iPhone before being able to control playback on your Apple Watch.

When you are already playing supported audio on your iPhone (whether via the Music app or a third-party app), the Now Playing app is shown automatically in the Dock on your Apple Watch and can be used to control playback on your iPhone.

If desired, Now Playing can be added to the Dock permanently and/or added to a watch face as a complication.

Follow the instructions here:

• Now Playing
• Play music
• Change your watch face - Apple Support
• Use the Dock on your Apple Watch - Apple Support

If the Music and/or Now Playing apps no longer offer all of the features that you would prefer, then you can submit a feature request to Apple here:

Feedback - Apple Watch - Apple

So now I have to use my watch battery if i want to browse and control my music? All I can do with 'Now playing' is skip tracks or pause. I could already do that with my headphones.

That is really unfortunate. That was my favourite feature. Extremely disappointing. I really regret upgrading my watch now.

+1 to this. Pretty horrified that Apple removed the ability to browse library and playlists directly from the watch. I just don’t understand why they’d remove this. I have no desire to sync tracks directly into the watch and Bluetooth connect headphones to them. What I liked was having my phone in my pocket, headphones synced to my phone and then walk to work casually listening to my tracks and being able to jump from playlist to playlist by use of the watch. I wonder if they will put the feature back as it sounds like they are more interested in sims in new watches and doing the Apple Music streaming thing. No good for those of us uninterested in Apple Music. I still use old traditional iTunes Match and prefer to use locally stored music from my phone.

I am very dissapointed in Watch os 4. Am also unimpressed that I got the initial release of the watch only 2 years ago and it is already several generations behind. The rate of new models released is ridiculous. Perhaps they should of made the original release not able to beyond os 3, it struggles a bit with the demands of os 4 and to be honest my watch was ticking along just fine on os 3 (it certainly had bugs but is much better than os 4)

Be sure to submit your feedback to Apple via the link in my previous reply.

You are not talking to Apple here - this is a user-based technical support community.

Thank you. Done.

Just venting to see if others feel the same.

You're welcome! 🙂

Other users have certainly expressed similar frustrations - and have also submitted their feedback to Apple.

I have the same problem and the same concern. The best feature of the watch was being able to pull up playlists and individual songs using the watch as a controller.

Then be sure to submit your feedback to Apple via the same link in my previous reply.

Also my favorite part of Apple Watch music app.Much rather have that than Apple Music. Put it back in the next update please

Then be sure to also submit your feedback to Apple via the same link in my previous reply.

You are not talking to Apple here - this is a user-based technical support community.