One thing that's bewildered me is attempting to use Siri on Watch to start a song playing on my phone while I'm driving and phone is in shirt pocket. (Only the AM still works in my 2001 Silverado.) Watch wants to know if I want to use AirPods (which are in case in pocket) or pair a new device. So, I can use Siri on phone to start playing song (sometimes) but not use Watch as a remote.
First World Problem for sure, but frustrating.
In the UK you're not allowed to touch your Apple Watch while driving, it comes under the use of mobile devices while driving law.
What bewilders me @king editor the grate is why you would interact with an Apple Watch when you are in control of a motor vehicle. A child runs out onto the street in a neighbourhood chasing a ball ... the 2 seconds that could have been used to react is instead squandered and everyone's life changes in an instant.
Buh ... the interaction consists of raising left arm and talking to it while right hand remains on wheel and both eyes remain on road. If a child chases a ball into the highway, I’ll do my best to at least leave swerve marks.
I just use mine to tell the time now as Apple have started to make things to awkward or hard t use. Apple used to be all about ease of use, now they don't care. Take iTunes, its getting worse by the upgrade. If I could find something else to use to store and play my 100s of albums, I'd happily walk away from the Apple Watch and iPhone. Apple products are no longer better than the competition. The S9 is just as good as the XS but half the price. IOS isn't any better than Android these days and as stated before iTunes is now utter crap.
BTW I just spent £999 on the iPhone XS for my wife.
Go get an S9 and put your music on that then. Have fun!
Likewise, when I plug the phone into the car, with nothing at all playing... the phone will choose a random track from my entire library, and stream it over cellular, and play it in the car. This, in SPITE of the fact that I have all settings related to Music and streaming set to OFF, and NO cellular. The tracks it picks are so random, and unwanted, too. Look, I have 35 nieces and nephews. My library has some Barney and Sesame Street in it... that DOES NOT mean I want to hear it when they're not present, yet that's all that the phone does.
I've spent hours on the phone with Care, and it's always the same line... this is unexpected behavior, and it will be escalated to the next tier - who will (NEVER) call you back. Not once.
In my experience, it it is the car's head unit that makes the requests to a plugged-in iPhone, which they may also recognize as an iPod instead, but in either case use the iPod Music Controls API to request music off the device.
I don't know that it's possible for your iPhone to playback from cellular if you have that feature off. Note that this setting is not in "Settings > iTunes & App Store > Use Cellular Data", but is instead:
Settings > Cellular > [scroll down to Music] > off...once you turn Music off from cellular there, it cannot use cellular data.
Ahh... but it does. I know quite well the songs that are in my playlists on my phone, and with great certainty, some that are not. For example, I downloaded a bunch of Hawaiian songs for a luau themed party we had 10 years ago. I paid for them, so I'm not deleting them from my library. I know they exist. I also know for absolute CERTAIN that they are NOT present on my phone, or in any playlist. ALL settings related to streaming of music are OFF (as I originally said)... yet, if I connect this phone in my sister-in-law's Ford Escape, we're dancing the hula within a minute.
I'm VERY well aware that it should NOT be behaving this way... but it is. As I said in my original post, I've spent HOURS on the phone with Care, they hear the behavior, and even see the behavior through phone screen sharing... they ALWAYS say it will be escalated to engineering, and I'll get a call back... there has NEVER been a call back. Not once.
I have similar problems with the watch. It is SO HARD to get it just the shuffle the ONLY playlist I have on the watch. If I'm playing from the watch, it's to work out. If I'm working out, I ONLY want the one playlist. If I walk close enough to the locker room in the gym, that has my phone in the pocket of my jeans... out of nowhere, I've got some totally random song that is not only NOT on the watch playlist, but not on ANY playlist on my phone!
As an avid music user with both purchased iTunes as well as an Apple Music subscription... who uses both airplay and bluetooth to multiple devices, I've had zero confusion operating the Music features on my Apple Watch...
As an avid music user with both purchased iTunes as well as an Apple Music subscription (and has experienced the Music app on both LTE and non-LTE Apple Watches)... who uses both airplay and bluetooth to multiple devices, I find the interface perplexing and frustrating at times and I'm grateful for this article.
howver I would like to be able to start out a playlist in shuffle mode. Right now my workout playlist starts at the same song when I open it, and then I have to manually turn on shuffle mode and skip to next song.
This drives me nuts! And I hate how if you're listening to a song that happens to be way down a long playlist, when you enter the screen with the shuffle icon at the top, the AW zips you straight down to the song title forcing you to scroll back to the top to choose Shuffle. At least I have Fall Detection for when I faceplate on the treadmill trying to shuffle will running.
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“Hey Siri, play ‘workout playlist’ shuffled”