Airpods need Apple Watch Gesture controls

[Juiceboy]

#1
I'm really finding i miss those inline controls of the standard wired earpods. They had everything you need.
I got an apple watch as i knew i wanted the airpods and i knew they didn't come with controls.

No one wants to use Siri on the bus, train and you can't even on a plane. Being Australian Siri barely even understands me at the best of times. The "now playing" app on apple watch is just too annoying to get to. even with complication on the watch face. that's three steps. (Flick my wrist > Tap music and hope it's on now playing > press button to skip)

My proposal is apple needs to create controls for Airpods (or any bluetooth music) when the apple watch screen is off.

• The Crown adjusts volume (Get rid of the slowly adjusting brightness that's useless or leave as an option)
• tap the screen to play / pause
• swipe left to skip track (15 seconds for podcasts / video)
• swipe right to go back a track (15 seconds for podcasts / video).

That's it. All that needs to be done is have that as an option to turn those gestures on when the screen is off and that would be perfect. I'm really shocked Apple hasn't implemented it. No need to use Siri, No need to grab and airpod out of your ear and all the controls that you need.

Surely i can't be the only one who wants this?

 

[Otelm]

I bet that we'll see easier access to now playing in the next watchOS version (it used to be easier to reach in watchOS 2). Maybe they'll also let you use the crown for volume when the screen is off, since using it to set the brightness is not so useful as you say.

It's unlikely that they'll add the gestures you mentioned though, since they could be triggered accidentally quite often (and tap is already used to wake the screen). Apple is also not well known for adding such "major" gestures as optional settings, I wouldn't hold my breath on that.