Today's watchOS 4.1 beta, seeded to developers this morning, introduces support for streaming music directly to the Apple Watch over LTE and it brings a new Radio app with access to Beats 1 live and other Apple Music radio stations.
We went hands-on with the beta to get a look at the new features, which are primarily aimed at Apple Music subscribers who have a Series 3 Apple Watch.
The Music app on the watch looks mostly the same with access to your Music Library, recently played songs, playlists, and Apple Music mixes, but now all of your music content can be streamed over an LTE connection on the Series 3 Apple Watch models and doesn't need to be downloaded to your device.
With the update, you have access to the full range of Apple Music content, and can ask Siri to play songs with or without a phone and over WiFi or LTE.
The new Radio app houses all of your Apple Music radio stations and provides access to Beats 1 radio content. Siri can also create new radio stations with requests like "Play Taylor Swift" or "Play something fun."
It's not yet clear just how much streaming music over an LTE connection will affect battery life, but when possible, the Apple Watch will use the iPhone's connection or a WiFi connection to conserve battery.
These new features are available in watchOS 4.1, which is only available to developers at the current time. Apple doesn't offer watchOS public betas, so non-developers will need to wait for the update to be released to try out the new music capabilities.
