watchOS 9 Breaks Spotify Streaming, Apple Watch Users Urged Not to Update
Apple Watch owners who stream music from Spotify have been urged not to update their devices to watchOS 9 because of a bug that causes streaming on the watch to stop working.
Spotify has been sending its users emails warning of the problem, which began to emerge soon after Apple released watchOS 9 to the public on Monday. The message from the company reads:
Apple WatchOS 9 introduced a bug that causes Spotify streaming on the Apple Watch to stop working. We urge Spotify Apple Watch users not to install the WatchOS 9 update until Apple has implemented a fix for the issue. Users who are already affected can instead download their content to their Apple Watch and listen offline or stream from their phones.
According to user reports, streaming on Apple Watch stops working within the first minute, and yet the track progress bar continues to move, just minus audio. The problem occurs on both Wi-Fi and cellular connection, but there is no issue with Spotify media downloaded to Apple Watch.
Apple seeded the first beta of watchOS 9.1 to developers on Wednesday, and there are unverified reports that the point release fixes the Spotify streaming problem. However, Apple does not mention the issue in its release notes so users won't know for sure until Apple rolls out the next Apple Watch update to the public.
(Thanks, Henrik!)
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Top Rated Comments
As someone mentioned above.. there's been months of betas available. Did they not do any internal testing?
[HEADING=2]Spotify have not updated their software to work with watchOS 9[/HEADING]
Now they want to cry wolf? Please
Why do nothing, and then blame apple and tell customers to not update their watches?
They've had more than enough time. Blame them not apple
Edit: Why I say it's not fully Apple's fault. Here's an example. I use Bluetooth to connect my iPhone to my car's audio system. If I'm listening to an audiobook in Audible at a speed faster than 1X, everything works well. If I listen to an audiobook at faster than 1X using another app, the material plays but there is no sound until I put the playback speed back to 1X (Libby also works but any others that I've tried do not). I've contacted the devs of these other apps and they didn't want to try and fix the issue because my experience is possibly just an outlier (although it doesn't affect only my phone but does all other phones that connect to my car), although it's not just my car because I've tried this with other cars including various rental cars over the years and they all have the same issue. Audible and Libby can play books back at more than 1X but other apps cannot.
Is that the car manufacturer's fault? Not really, because it works for some apps. It's primarily the developers' faults for the other apps. This is like the Spotify situation, although again, Apple is at least partially to blame.