Now you can start playing 9to5Mac’s Happy Hour podcast from your Apple Watch
Watch OS 1.0 ( and 1.0.1 ) decidedly omits certain iPhone apps like Podcasts and Reminders from the Apple Watch, leaving third-party apps to fill these spaces for users. Today a new version of Instacast for iPhone [1] was released, adding an Apple Watch app with a Now Playing Glance, playback from notifications, and more as a free addition in the update.
While it doesn’t bring iTunes-based podcast management and playback to the Apple Watch, the alternative podcast player does support syncing between iPhone [2] , iPad [3] , and Mac [4] versi ons of Instacast. Now you can control iPhone podcast playback from Apple Watch with these features:
+ Now Playing Glance
+ Grey progress bar means app is not running or audio is not loaded
+ White progress bar means app is running and audio is loaded
+ Play/Pause, Skip Backward, Skip Forward
+ ‘Unplayed’ episode list (can be reconfigured on the Phone)
+ Switch episodes from ‘Unplayed’ list
+ Force touch to get chapter list and skip chapters
+ Also force touch to get to Speed and Timer playback options
Instacast on Apple Watch has been one of the apps I spend a lot of time with as you can see in my review earlier this week with a beta version of the app present.
While you can’t yet download podcasts to Apple Watch for playback with Bluetooth headphones or speakers (WatchKit-based apps don’t allow this, maybe in the future with a real SDK), the ability to start playing a podcast on my iPhone from a notification on Apple Watch is really convenient.
Overcast [5] is another popular podcast client with an Apple Watch app, but its current lack of streaming in favor of smart speed features prevents adding a play button on the alert. You can also start a podcast from Apple’s built-in Podcasts app on iPhone, then control playback from the Now Playing Glance on Apple Watch, but you won’t be able to navigate to other episodes or play from a notification.
Instacast for iPhone is available for free on the App Store [6] with 99¢ in-app purchases for both search and dark mode features, now with Apple Watch support added for free.
Links
- ^ Instacast for iPhone (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ iPhone (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ iPa d (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Mac (vemedio.com)
- ^ Overcast (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ available for free on the App Store (itunes.apple.com)
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