Top 8 Music Apps Apple Watch

I recently had someone come up to me and ask exactly how music apps work on the Apple Watch; as in, where the headphones connect, etc. So yes, perhaps it would be best to put it on record: there is no headphone jack on the Apple Watch! Why would you even want to plug headphones into something on your wrist, anyway? Surely that would result in disastrous entanglement, right? Well, there are already a bunch of headphones that support tethering to the Apple Watch, meaning that you can use them in tandem with music streaming apps on your wrist. But as with everything, these apps as you see them on your Apple Watch are merely an extension of what you are seeing on your iPhone, which is still an amazing improvement. As expected, there has been a great deal of interest in the recently updated music apps such as Pandora, with Spotify soon to follow. Apps such as these basically allow you to see what you’re listening to with a glance at your wrist, and control the volume with a tap, as well as received notifications: it’s kind of like having the best remote control ever!

8. Apple Music 

Apple has really pulled out all the stops when it comes to the preinstalled apps that you get with your Apple Watch out of the box, with at least a couple dedicated to fitness and exercise, and hints that more are on the way. One of these is of course the Music app, which ties directly to the same app on your iPhone. As long as your iPhone is in range, you can easily browse your iPhone’s music library, either by artist or album or song, or even your specific playlists. And browsing is easier than ever before with the digital crown, which is the little wheel on the side of the watch that lets you scroll through stuff. What’s more, you can store up to 2GB of music on your Apple Watch’s 8GB of built in storage, which is cool. Again, there’s no headphone jack with the Apple Watch and while there is a speaker, it’s not really up to playing music. – More Info from Apple

7. Shazam (Free)

Just as most people expect, Shazam was quickly one of the first apps updated to support the Apple Watch, meaning you can now identify songs on the go and without the need to hold up your iPhone to the speakers or whatever. The app for the Watch is basically an extension of what you get on the iPhone, though there is some cool functionality included: you can ID the song through your Watch and then pull up things like cover art and lyrics, which is really all most people use Shazam for these days anyway. – Download from iTunes

6. iHeartRadio (Free)

iHeartRadio is one of the more popular music streaming services of note right now, and they too have jumped on the Apple Watch bandwagon by updating their app accordingly. Users will now have the ability to access all of iHeartRadio’s catalogue – that being 800,000 artists and 20 million songs – directly from their wrist, with other stuff such as podcasts, on-demand news and so much more available. The new Watch app functionality means you can browse through your favorite stations and even control playback. – Download from iTunes

5. Pacemaker (Free)

As I’ve mentioned before, its interesting to see the the Get Started section of the apps you can download for the Apple Watch, as designated by Apple. Many of these are apps that the company has some kind of affiliation with, but others are not Pacemaker is one of the more unlikely recipients of this coveted position of  featured app in Apple’s Get Started section for the Apple Watch, and basically extends the DJ functionality found in their award winning iPad app to your wrist. Surely one of the more drastic updates we’ve seen in terms of porting from mobile device to wearable tech, but it works! – Download from iTunes

4. Musixmatch (Free)

This one actually suprised me, since I’ve been aware of apps like Musixmatch for a while but never really bothered to consider them as something I might find useful. This one bases its functionality around the idea of cataloging and searching through lyrics to find a song, which is something that we all take to Google for every so often. With the Musixmatch extension on the Apple Watch, you can search these lyrics and then play the song back with ease, which can be a massive advantage for those times when you have the lyrics floating around in your head but can’t identify the music, or hear snatches of something on the radio and want to find out more. – Download from iTunes

3. TuneIn Radio (Free)

TuneIn Radio has quietly risen to the very top of today’s list of music stremaing, with over 100,000 live radio stations and 4 million on demand programs to choose from. This latest update of the app not only makes it available for Apple Watch but also Apple CarPlay: with the former update making quick access easier than ever before. The app will sync directly to your most recently played streams and of course the list of stations and programs you follow. You can control playback and the volume easily enough, and checking artist or program info is now easier than ever before and can be done with a simple glance.  – Download from iTunes

2. SoundCloud (Free)

For its musical discovery properties alone, SoundCloud remains one of my favorite music streaming apps out there right now. This recent update for the Apple Watch marks the seven year old streaming service’s first real entry into wearable tech, just in the same way that Apple have done. And the updated app extends much of the functionality to your wrist, allowing users to check which song is playing, control playback, add songs to their collection, and a whole lot more directly from their wrist – what more could you want when looking to find some new music to listen to? – Download from iTunes

1. Pandora (Free)

Pandora remains up there as the best music streaming app on the iPhone alongside the likes of Spotify, so it isn’t exactly unexpected to see them roll out what is perhaps the best music app so far for the Apple Watch. That is, until Spotify release their own! When it comes to updating to support Apple’s new wearable tech, it’s interestin to see how many of the world’s bigger developers have priorizied: which ones have gone out of their way to make it a huge deal, and which have put it on the backburner almost, as as to concentrate on what they undoubtedly deem to be more important things. As such, this is a great opportunity for Pandora to increase its market share and push forward. Being an extension of the iPhone app, this Apple Watch version of Pandora lets you see the name of the artist and song you’ve just heard throuh the music discovery service with a simple glance down at your wrist; you can also control playback, and volume, as well as get music-related notifications! – Download from iTunes