If you like to listen to music on the go, whether you’re simply commuting or you’re out on a run around the neighborhood, you’ll want to configure your Apple Watch to play music. Here’s a guide to get you up and running with music on your smartwatch, including a look at some of the apps you might want to consider downloading to enjoy the playback of your favorite tunes.
There are two ways to listen to music on your Apple Watch. You can play music from your iPhone when it’s paired with your watch, or you can sync music to your watch and play it back right from your wrist.
Method 1: 3 Steps to pair your Apple Watch with iPhone
The Apple Watch offers significantly more functionality when it’s paired with your iPhone via Bluetooth. Once you’ve paired the two gadgets, follow these steps to view what’s currently playing from your iPhone and control things.
– Step 1: From your Apple Watch’s home screen, open the Music app
– Step 2: Scroll up to choose your iPhone as the source to play music from (as opposed to choosing your Apple Watch as the source).
Then click Now Playing — this will let you view what’s currently playing on your iPhone, and you can then choose to change things up if you like.
– Step 3: At this point, you have a variety of options for controlling playback from your iPhone — the one you’ll choose depends on the music service you prefer to use.
+ Do you use Apple Music? You can tap Quick Play to pull up a random selection of songs from this service’s recommendations for you. You could also listen to the Beats 1 radio station.
+ If you’re not a big Apple Music user, you can instead select My Music to see your music library then select what you’d like to listen to by artist, song, or album.
+ You can also use Siri (provided voice commands are enabled on your watch) to quickly control music playback. Siri will search for music that fits your query on both your iPhone and Apple Watch.
*** Note: Keep in mind that playback will be happening on your phone rather than your watch, so you’ll need headphones plugged into your handset rather than a Bluetooth set paired with your Apple Watch. However, you can control the music playback directly from the watch; no need to take out your phone.
Method 2: Sync music to your watch and play it back right from your wrist
- 4 Steps to how to Add Music to Apple Watch
If you are using your Apple Watch as a standalone device, you can use the wearable as a media player. Just keep in mind since there’s no headphone jack on the Apple Watch you’ll need a set of Bluetooth headphones to listen to music playing from the smartwatch. Here’s how to get a selection of your favorite music ready to go and synced to your Apple Watch for local playback.
– Step 1: On your iPhone > navigate to the Music app.
– Step 2: Tap Playlists > then New Playlist. Create a playlist name.
– Step 3: View your library options by songs, artists or albums to add your desired music to the playlist.
– Step 4: Tap the + icon to add any desired tracks. When you’re done adding an item, tap Done. And when you’re done creating a playlist, tap Done to save it.
- Listening to Music From Your Apple Watch in 3 easy Steps
Once you have created a playlist, you need to sync it to your Apple Watch so you can play it directly from your wrist. Here’s how to do that:
*** Note:
– Make sure your Apple Watch is charging after you set it on its charger.
– Make sure Bluetooth is turned on on your iPhone.
– Step 1: Go to the Apple Watch app on your iPhone. Then tap My Watch > then Music > Synced Music.
– Step 2: Tap on the playlist you want to sync to your watch. You will see “sync pending” when the sync is in progress.
Once the sync is completed, you can listen to the playlist directly on your Apple Watch.
– Step 3: You can tap Now Playing if you already have some music cued up to play or pause the track.
You can tap on My Music to browse your available tracks, or you can select Playlists to bring up a playlist you’ve synced with the device.