The relationship between Spotify and Apple has been…understandably contentious at times. After all, Apple runs the streaming service’s biggest competitor. At the end of the day though, the Apple Watch and Spotify maintain the No. 1 spot in their respective categories by a wide margin. And playing nice ultimately benefits a wide swath of users in that overlapping Venn diagram.
Today Spotify announced that it’s finally bringing to the smartwatch what’s no doubt been one of its most requested features. Starting today, Premium subscribers can download music and podcasts to the wearable for offline listening. That means users will be able to leave their phone at home when they go for a jog.
The new feature works more or less like standard downloading and sharing. Users click the three ellipses next to an album, playlist or podcast and click “Download to Apple Watch.” Once downloaded, green arrows will populate next to the title. With headphones paired, you’ll be able to stream directly from the watch.
Samsung has already offered the feature on some of the competition, including Samsung’s Galaxy Watch line. The service is also coming to Google Wear OS watches soon, per an announcement at I/O. Apple Music, of course, has offered offline listening on the Watch for a while, as has Pandora. Deezer also beat Spotify to the popular wearable by a matter of days.
