You finally did it, Apple
The Apple Watch can no longer control the macOS Music app, and that sucks sucks sucks
There was a time when I didn’t really get the Apple Watch. Nothing about it got me hyped, quite the opposite in fact; I thought it was a waste of time.
Friends, those days are long gone.
What changed the wearable for me was fitness tracking, I wanted something unobtrusive that could log my runs and play audio, and the Apple Watch fit that bill perfectly.
Slowly though, over time, bit by bit, the wearable became an essential part of my daily life.
There are an array of features I could mention that aided this transition, from Shazam’ing songs to using my phone camera from afar, but the thing that really completed me was controlling my music library from my wrist.
My Macbook drives the multiple wireless speakers throughout my house, and a quick fiddle with my Apple Watch lets me do most things I wanted, like switching tracks or changing the volume. When I do so, I feel like a spy. A shit one, admittedly, who spends all day at home playing with technology and listening to music, but a spy all the same.
And yeah, you’ve probably guessed where this going: Apple recently removed this feature. I can no longer control the macOS Music app from my watch.
What a dim bulb, rattling cannister, bollocks-headed move.
As I’ve spoken about a few times before, I still maintain a digital music library. I stream for convenience, mainly for background music, but, for the majority of my active listening, I use my own FLACs and MP3s. While I’ll occasionally use Plexamp, the macOS music app is where I spend most of my time.
Sure, The Software Formally Known As iTunes isn’t perfect, but it’s generally fit for purpose.
Yes yes yes yes yes, I hear you — I could definitely switch to something better, but I won’t. And, yes yes yes yes yes again, I realise there are multiple studies out there showing the reason we avoid this sort of minor change is because we’re evolutionary wired to seek the safety of the familiar over the uncertain and my life would be better if I adopted a different music player, but come on, allow me my foibles. The macOS Music app works fine.
Author’s note: The software is actually quite annoying and increasingly buggy, although it hasn’t reached the This Is A Total Piece Of Crap watermark, meaning it’s not quite bad enough for me to do anything about it. Yet. The macOS music app works to an acceptable level that doesn’t warrant me altering my entire library and process. But this is a tale for another day.
A big reason I stick with the macOS Music app is because of how it integrates with other Apple products. Transferring music is seamless, AirPlay operates flawlessly, and it used to work with the Apple watch.
“Used to,” being the important part.
When watchOS 11 dropped, Apple changed the Remote app icon from the image above into something resembling the Apple TV remote. And changed its functionality too. Surprisingly, it’s now a virtual Apple TV remote.
On one hand, cool. You can control the Apple TV from your wrist. As someone who’s dropped and lost that peripheral countless times, this is a blessing.
But on the far far far less cool side, Apple completely abandoned any integration with the macOS Music app at the same time. It’s a hefty boot into the private parts.
If I had to bet, the most likely explanation is the old remote was a bit of legacy software from the iTunes days, and, when engineers built the new virtual Apple TV remote, they did so from the ground up, meaning there were compatibility issues with the macOS Music app controller, leading to its removal.
Makes sense, right? But that doesn’t stop it being a mountainous act of supreme bullshittery that’s directly antagonistic towards users.
Sure, add new features, but taking away something like this is spiteful.
It shouldn’t be a surprise, really. Apple is a huge business, and its overarching goal is simple: make money. Lest we forget, that’s the driving philosophy at the heart of any company.
Someone, somewhere deep inside Apple probably did an analysis of how much it’d cost to reinstate the Apple Watch Music app remote, checked how many people used, and then swiftly stopped development.
Whoever you are, I hope you’re reading this, and I hope you’re feeling awful.
I wondered for a while whether the visceral reaction I’ve had to Apple getting rid of the Apple Watch Music remote is a by-product of ageing.
As I was writing this piece and pondering what it all means, I couldn’t help thinking about all the tech that’s fallen away. Like Zip Drives. Remember them?
When they were replaced by CDs, I’m certain there were scores of people moaning about the format being taken away. Or how about minidiscs? When the iPod came along, that market was swiftly relegated to an afterthought.
The longer you’re around, the more you see beloved technology disappear. Yet, as I rolled this thought around in my head, I came to the conclusion that dropping the Apple Watch Music app remote is fundamentally different to these types of orphaned or depreciated technologies.
This is a shifting of the company’s priorities and how it views users, not advancement. It’s regression. Deliberate regression.
Effectively, now the iPhone is king. Macs are an afterthought. Apple’s handsets account for around 50% of its revenue, Macs are closer to 8%.
If you want to control the music playing on your iPhone from the Apple Watch, that works flawlessly. No matter what app you’re playing the media from, the wearable can engage with it.
That’s because iPhone users dominate. They’re the core Apple’s dedicated to serving and it will always put them first while sales are strong.
On first reflection, this seems sensible. Why wouldn’t you prioritise the masses? This is the core idea of utilitarianism; producing the greatest amount of happiness for the most people.
But purchasing a €3,000 laptop from a company isn’t a form of charity or political philosophy, I don’t want shit service and features being taken away simply because more people buy iPhones. That’s the behaviour of a nest of pricks.
What else should we expect though?
Companies like Apple are adept at exploiting that human condition of personifying the things we’re close to and resisting change. My laptop or watch or phone don’t feel like a mass-produced items sold at a huge markup. I spend all day with them. They’re closer to companions, rather than the soulless chunks of metal and plastic they actually are.
It’ll take a lot for me to abandon any of my devices and the integration they have with one another. And Apple knows that. And I know that. And we both know that we know that. Yet I’ll probably do nothing about it and Apple will continue to edge as close to the line as it dares in pursuit of more profit.
I wish I could say that removing the Apple Watch macOS Music app remote pushed me close to leaving the ecosystem, but I’m too whipped for that. I’m genuinely hoping they bring it back, and even this article, on reflection, is a sort of Come And Get Me please.
What else can I do? Leave?
Change sucks. And negative change for no upside sucks more. It sucks that the Apple Watch macOS Music app remote is gone but it sucks substantially that there’s no other option to get this functionality.
I’m stuck, and it sucks.
As someone who is 90% full-on invested in the Apple ecosphere (phone, watch, tablets, AppleTVs, growing smart Home with smart devices, all computers are macOS and have subscriptions to some of their services... but use Dropbox in favour of iCloud, Amazon Prime in favour of AppleTV, etc... hence not 100%)
...and also as someone who is trapped in a mishmash hellscape blend of Sonos and Apple speakers, I'm really interested in ... and really confused by this post.
(I totally get all the points you're making about not switching and not doing things better and being wedded to a music library. I have also posted similar sort of ramblings about the importance of digital music libraries in the past... https://www.matt-thornton.net/general/i-finally-moved-my-music-library-to-a-nas/... the point being that if I only ever stream then I tend to 'lose' new music I've found, it comes and go and never seems to stick, and that is disastrous.)
The reason I've never fully cut over to Apple music is I think what you're describing above - the fact there is no way to run a centralised music library in Apple music without having a computer active all the time. Like if I want music on in the kitchen in the morning, I don't want to have to wake up my laptop/computer first. This is why Sonos works well, because although my music library is controlled my Music on macOS on one my computers... the media itself is on a NAS, so Sonos can index it, and I can access it anytime without having to have a computer on.
(This does mean things like playcounts and recommendations etc. don't work so well but hey ho.)
(I also have very strong feelings about what Sonos has become over the last few years and I am not investing in any more of their stuff. But for now, their kit is still better than Apple's.)
So the fact the Watch used to have control over a physical macOS Music app is news... didn't even know there was one which has now been taken away. The thought of basic controls on it seem OK, but the thought of trying to find / start a new playlist or album etc. sounds janky as all hell? I've switched to Siri now which means I can usually instruct 'play <x> album in <y> location' and this works pretty well.
The confusing bit tho - the FLACs/MP3s in your digital library - are they not available on the streaming service(s)? Does Apple music not do an Amazon equivalent of a mirrored library - i.e., any music that you've bought legitimately e.g., as a CD - would then usually mean you have a digital copy of it as well which you can stream?
I don't think it's unfair to say that your specific use case is likely to be in the minority of all use cases. And I would imagine for the mostpart, the people who insist on maintaining high quality digital (or even physical) music libraries are unlikely to be doing that on consumer grade / mass market gear such as Apple or Sonos.