About hdow

@Tohuwabohu   I got to wondering about other speaker systems - namely, Sonos & Apple HomePod. Turns out Sonos doesn't have a dedicated Watch app. HomePod does, of course, in the form of the Watch Music app.    I also checked out music sources other than Apple Music - Spotify & SirusXM. Spotify has a virually useless app called Watchify, and Spotify has nothing. Pandora & a couple of other sources seem to have rudimentary Watch apps. Bose actually appears to be the best of the bunch.   I believe that Apple is the only full service hardware/music provider - it has proprietary speakers & proprietary music. Nobody else seems to do this. This might be the basic reason that nobody but Apple has provided us with a decent Watch app for controling music on speakers. No one else has full control over a proprietry speaker/music system.   I think that what you want is a SoundTouch app that has the same kind of "granular" control that the Apple Music app does. But given that Bose does not have own both parts of a proprietary system, there's no reason to expect Bose to make their Watch app a full service app. I'm not even sure it's possible from a business point of view, since it would require so much cooperation from music providers. Maybe if Bose bought Spotify....   Obviously the ecology of the Apple Watch is biased towards HomePod, and that other systems like Bose & Sonos are going to be second class in comparison. Same goes for content providers - Apple Watch is going to be biased toward Apple Music, with other content providers like Spotify & Sirius coming second. So you can't expect Apple to elevate the Watch game for those providers to the level it has for its own products.   Nothwithstanding, Apple has not ignored other sources - you just have to operate through the iPhone. My advice is to stop being concerned about what Bose can't do, & concentrate on what the the Apple Watch app can do. You can start any non-Apple music service on iPhone & then use the Watch to control speaker selection, volume and track skipping.    I'm glad you raised this issue, though I don't entirely agree with your viewpoint. It made me dig into the Watch & figure out what I really want to do with both the Music app & the SoundTouch app. It also convinced me to get rid of Watchify, and to pay more attention to how useful the Music app is in connection with my iTunes/Apple Music content.    The only reason I have to use the SoundTouch app is if I am already listening to something on a Bose speaker using my iPhone's SoundTouch app. When that happens, I can use the Watch ST app to control the volume, skip to the next tune on my Spotify playlist, or switch to a preset. What's missing, & Bose probably could provide, is the ability to choose & group speakers from the Watch.      ... View more

Concerning the Apple Watch, I think Bose would be wasting resources to much increase the functionality the app already has, for two reasons.   One is that there's not much need for any more remote capability than to adjust the volume & skip to the next song on a playlist, because for anything more complicated, the user will find it much easier just to use his iphone. I mean, do you really want to use your watch to switch to iTunes & select songs, or even a playlist? Even if everything were doable on tthe Watch, it would be about ten times faster just to pull out your iPhone & do it, so that's what you would do. About the only thing that I think the app could use is the ability to select a different master speaker, rather than be limited to the last one in use - that's a multiple user need as I see it. But all it really means is that the first thing I do whenever I want to listen to music at home is set thing up using my iphone.    The other is that the ecology of the Watch seems to favor dedicated music apps - that is, apps which control only one music source, & broadcast the music from that source. In that environment, if you really want to have fine tune control over something like iTunes, just use the iTunes Watch app.   The real problem I see is what you point out more generally - Bose doesn't support Airplay in any flavor (unless you have a Series II speaker).  Airplay2 seems to me to be such a big factor in broadcasting music that Bose would be stupid not to incorporate that functionality in its devices. But these things take time - even Apple is dragging things out, & probably not giving much attention to devices it doesn't make itself.   Basically what I'm saying is that it's all doable, just not always conveniently. I note that Bose does somewhat support Apple Music - it just doesn't name it that way. It will allow you to access your iTunes library that's on your computer via Music Library on Computer. What other support do you really want? Anytime you need it, you will be at home with your computer. Any time you are somewhere else, you will have your iphone to use to broadcast to a bluetooth speaker.    I think that what might be irritating you - it sure irritates me - is that the music broadcast situtation is much like what happens when you cut the cord on cable tv. You lose simplicity, and a lot of things seem arbitrary. I  tried to watch a Cubs game a couple of days ago. It was at home, so normally I could get it over the antenna, but in this case, no, because ESPN was doing the broadcast. (MLB is really really stupid about home game blackouts. It's not growing their customer base, in my view.) But hey! I have Sling. However, it turns out that on Sling, you can only watch ESPN on one device, & we wanted to watch on two tvs in different parts of our house. Of course, there might be an ESPN app I could subscribe to & get more devices - but I already pay for this via Sling.    What consumers want, I think, is the ability to go to one place & control everything. In the current economic & technological environment, I don't see where than's happening for us. But for the most part, you can work out something that will work - it's just not as simple as things used to be.    (What really peeves me is that I can't broadcast CD music from my WAVE to my other Bose speakers. That's just dumb.)             ... View more

Thanks - that's very helpful!   Evidently the Watch app is using bluetooth to control my iPhone, which in turn is using SoundTouch to control the grouping & volume of the group, and to channel the music from iTunes (Music Library on Computer) or Spotify, as the case may be.    I'm going to have to play around with this for a while. Apparently I can go the SoundTouch route, or the bluetooth route to play stuff on most of my speakers. But since I have a couple of Series II portable speakers, the SoundTouch route might be best most of the time.   Sweet! ... View more

Well, it's a little bit compatible - it will control one device to some extent.   But it's probably not worth the trouble to program to do much more, except provide for the ability to choose which speaker it will be controling, and to control the volume of all the speakers grouped with the controlling speaker. That should be pretty simple, at least for the volume control.   I've learned that I can connect Apple Music aka iTunes to any device that's bluetooth capable, which includes Series III Bose speakers and the Bose Wireless Link.  What's weird is that superficially, the Watch is using Airplay, but only bluetooth devices can be linked, so far as I have been able to tell.   My supposition is that other services which support bluetooth will eventually be on the Watch, so there won't be a need to funnel their music through SoundTouch to play it on any nearby SoundTouch device. Supposedly Spotify/Watchify can do that - I'm having trouble making that app work, though. At this point, SiriusXM can't.  ... View more