I’ve been an Apple fan since several years before the first Macintosh made its appearance a day after my birthday back in 1984. I’ve owned almost every piece of hardware Apple ever made, including the Newton tablet. So naturally, when the Apple Watch came on the market I had to have one. It turned out to be a powerful tool for me as a dance teacher. Sadly, with the new 10.x WatchOS system update, inexplicable changes have made using it a frustrating experience.
Like thousands of dance teachers, Zumba teachers and others around the world, I have my iPhone connected to a professional audio system when I’m in the studio. The Apple Watch is then used to start and stop the music, change songs, and change the volume as needed. I’ve done this since the first version of Apple Watch (and it was truly impressive back then). I personally know a number of dance teachers who bought the Apple Watch specifically for that purpose.
Then in 2018, Apple released WatchOS4.0 which broke important functionality when using an Apple Watch to control an iPhone. Someone at Apple had the brilliant idea that to play music on the Apple Watch required you to do so through a Bluetooth device connected directly to the watch. And you couldn’t even select the iPhone! Fortunately, just a couple of months later that issue was fixed with the release of WatchOS 4.3.
While there were still numerous issues with this configuration, there was enough functionality that we were able to live with it. Until now.