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Apple Seeds First watchOS 4.1 Beta to Developers With Apple Music Streaming, New Radio App

Wednesday September 27, 2017 10:00 am PDT by Juli Clover
Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming watchOS 4.1 update to developers, just over one week after releasing the new watchOS 4 operating system to the public.

Once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Apple Developer Center, the new watchOS 4 beta can be downloaded through the dedicated Apple Watch app on the iPhone by going to General --> Software update.


To install the update, the Apple Watch needs to have at least 50 percent battery, it must be placed on the charger, and it has to be in range of the iPhone.

watchOS 4.1 introduces support for streaming music from Apple Music or iCloud Music Library straight to the Apple Watch. There's also a new Radio app that offers up access to Beats 1 live or any Apple Music radio station on the new cellular Apple Watch Series 3 models.

Related Roundups: Apple Watch, watchOS 5, watchOS 6
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[ 79 comments ]


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Jeremy1026
23 months ago

We want a native Spotify app!!!!!


Talk to Spotify!!!!!!!
Rating: 9 Votes
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predation
23 months ago
We want a native Spotify app!!!!!
Rating: 8 Votes
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blairh
23 months ago
If they don't bring back the ability to manage your Music collection with the iPhone connected I will be livid. Why they removed this feature I will never understand. And please don't tell me to push people to get an LTE Watch. That's the last thing it will make me do.
Rating: 5 Votes
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predation
23 months ago

Most parks around here already have public wifi. Unless you are one of those runners that prefer running on the streets

I prefer running in the hood. Keeps my heart rate up. Lol
Rating: 4 Votes
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jonnysods
23 months ago
They need to tighten up on the battery on the S2. Man I miss 3.1, such great battery life...
Rating: 4 Votes
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fatalhorizon
23 months ago

Maybe i’m misunderstanding what you’re asking about, but if you’re playing music from your phone, the Now Playing app on the watch still works and you can control music either from your phone or your watch with it.


That is technically correct, but what you can do there is limited to pause, play, skip and adjust volume only after starting the song on the iPhone. On previous versions of WatchOS, you could browse the entire iPhone library to start playing and/or choose a different song all from the watch. You cloud also start a song playing on the iPhone by using Siri on the Watch. This functionality seems to be removed and is a fairly big deal for those of us who like to change songs in the car while keeping our eyes on the road.
Rating: 3 Votes
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tcellguy
23 months ago
Can someone please confirm that watchOS 4.1 reinstates the ability to choose the iPhone as a music source?

I want to be able to use my bluetooth headphones paired to the iPhone (not the watch) and use the watch to browse through and initiate playing music on the iPhone as it has been in all prior versions of watchOS.

I think it makes no sense to use the watch connected to bluetooth headphones and stream Wifi music all day, eating up the battery when I could previously directly play previously downloaded content.
Rating: 3 Votes
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MrSkoTA
23 months ago

You and me BOTH! (and a ton of other unhappy folks) Go to the bugreport.apple.com and submit a modification request.... The more folks we get to do this the better the chances.


Wow yeah this is pretty crappy you can't access this - hadn't noticed until you pointed it out. I imagine that the music app is a re-write and they had to leave out basic whole library functionality from the phone until they could build the whole thing out completely. Still pretty big loss of feature though! Hopefully it will come back!
Rating: 3 Votes
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840quadra
23 months ago
Really looking forward to this going public. Also wished there was a good Podcasting solution that will work over LTE / wireless. Sadly I didn’t get the version of overcast that supported local downloads, before they removed it again....
Rating: 3 Votes
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Jolson247
23 months ago
I got excited about the “Radio” app thinking it was actually a terrestrial radio station app, perhaps through the use of a chip that nearly every other mobile phone carries. They come in handy while on treadmills and for listening to the TVs at the gym. Also for listening to local sports games. Bummer that this isn’t that kind of app and that the watch doesn’t have the functionality. :(
Rating: 2 Votes

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