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Comment by rygine | Hacker News Reader

A bit OT, but does anyone have insight into why Spotify has refused to make an Apple Watch app for offline playback like Apple Music offers? This is definitely possible as a lone developer was able to do it rather quickly a while ago (search: Spotty later renamed Snowy). That developer was eventually hired by Spotify and the project was scrapped. Spotify's new iOS SDK specifically says it's not to be used to create apps for offline play.

It seems to be a major pain point for Apple Watch users that's easily addressed. It's really confusing why they haven't done it yet.

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I suspect it's less Spotify's unwillingness but instead structural difficulties on the Apple Watch platform. Maybe Apple isn't interested in allowing a competitor...

As a point of evidence, Marco Arment's podcast app had to remove Apple Watch support after the approach he had used was eliminated[1-2].

1. https://marco.org/2017/09/24/what-watch-podcast-apps-need

2. https://marco.org/2017/08/10/removed-send-to-watch

That makes complete sense based on my personal use. I have a Music subscription purely because I can use it with my series 2 watch offline. I use Spotify the rest of the day. If Spotify had a watch app where I could download songs offline, I'd drop my Music subscription immediately.

I am curious... what would be the benefit of offline music in a watch? AFAIK you can play downloaded songs in the smartphone with Spotify while offline

You could go for a run with just your watch and a pair of bluetooth headphones...

The Series 3 with LTE is even better for runners than the Series 2 offers.

Many stores and vending machines accept Apple Pay if emergency food/water/medicine is required on the run. You can also make phone calls or hail an uber/lyft in case you twist your ankle or another a different minor injury while running.

The combination of offline music on the Apple Watch plus AirPods is the first thing that's improved on the experience of the clip-on iPod Shuffle and headphones. Despite some UI lag issues it's basically running nirvana.

You can listen to music while you exercise without having to take your phone.

As all of the other posters mentioned - it's exercising without carrying around a phone.

>Maybe Apple isn't interested in allowing a competitor...

Wouldn't be the first time Apple has done this

iOS, Apple Watch, HomePod, Apple TV all have limitations that prevent competitors to imitate or improve on the Apple Music experience. The lack of Spotify support is the reason I didn't buy an Homepod when I was in the market for a speaker system for my office though, so I'm not sure if it's working for them.

I wonder whether they could chunk up an audio file and play the chunks sequentially to get more control of the playback.

While I don't work for Spotify and can't say for sure, reports from other third-party developers are that the background audio APIs on Apple Watch are pretty badly broken right now. For example, see Marco Arment's experience with Overcast standalone playback: https://marco.org/2017/08/10/removed-send-to-watch

I tried apple music only because of this. And really tried making it understand what music I like by copying the discovery playlist from Spotify and actively liking and disliking songs for months. But it's really useless in comparison. Also podcasts are missing, weird that it's taking so long

Spotify’s offline mode in the app is already quite crappy. I get so frustrated everytime I get the “you are not connected to the internet” (or similar) message. Well, if the app can detect that, why does it not automatically fallback into offline mode? That’s exactly what I want, eg when I’m sitting on a plane with no reception. I don’t get it

No idea, but Spotify doesn't support offline music on Android Wear either, something that Google Play Music has had for years.

Spotify does support offline music on Samsung Gear G3 though, maybe Samsung was willing to pay for the privilege.

The developers I know who have removed their Apple Watch support have done so simply because there are just so few users that it's a poor investment of development time. I don't know if all those sold Apple Watches are sitting in drawers or being used as pure fitness trackers or what, but people just aren't using apps.

Possibly DRM requirement to comply with promises Spotify has made to labels.

I returned my watch because of this.

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