Though the Apple Watch first appeared on the scene nearly five years ago to underwhelming sales in its first year, the industry-leading wearable device has flourished in popularity in recent years and is poised for further growth.
As the release of Apple’s latest Series 6 watch looms, Spotify has stepped up efforts to support and improve its capabilities on the device. Despite having an app since 2018 on the watch, Spotify has not created a native wearable experience, instead vastly functioning as a control for the Spotify app on the iPhone.
Until now, Spotify’s Apple Watch app has not supported streaming natively through the device. However, recently users have reported seeing a blue “beta” icon within the watch’s connected devices window, which has allowed them to stream directly through the device with no iPhone connection required.
The feature appears to be in a limited testing stage for the moment, and will hopefully roll out to users in greater numbers in the coming weeks.
Spotify has picked a good time in history to step up its support for wearable devices. The first half of the decade is forecasted to see the entire wearables market grow nearly 20% every year, according to a report by Mordor Intelligence. While 216 million wearable units moved off shelves in 2019, an estimated 614 million are expected to sell in 2025.
Source: Digital Music News
