Garmin: cannot select song to play from playlist

[not_will_arnett]

Plan

Premium

Country

Canada

Device

Garmin Forerunner 955

Operating System

N/A

My Question or Issue

In the Spotify app for Garmin devices, if you go to the Library and select a playlist that isn't currently playing, the app starts playing the playlist either from the beginning, or in shuffled order (if shuffle is enabled). There is no way to select a song to play or to list the songs in the playlist, except indirectly, by pressing the next track button in the app or the next track control on your earbuds.

Since the app is able to list podcast episodes when the user selects a podcast (and the user is allowed to select a specific episode to play), it would be nice if the app could also list songs when user selects a playlist. If the concern is that the user needs a way to just play the playlist from the beginning or in shuffled order, the app could display a big play button at the top of the list (similar to what the iOS app does).

[not_will_arnett]

Plan

Premium

Country

Canada

Device

Garmin Forerunner 955

Operating System

N/A

My Question or Issue

In the Spotify app for Garmin watches, there are a couple of issues with adding new playlists/podcast episodes to sync:

1) Actually selecting a playlist or podcast episode is very slow. Only 6 items are loaded at a time (starting with the most recent playlist/podcast/episode), and you have to wait several seconds for the next page to load as you scroll down. This means that selecting older playlists/podcasts/episodes is incredibly tedious. For playlists, the workaround is to set a custom order in the Spotify desktop app and arrange the playlists you want to sync at the top of order, or to just make custom playlists to sync with Garmin. There isn't really a workaround for podcasts

2) You can only add 1 item (playlist or podcast episode) to sync at a time. After selecting an item, you have to wait for the item to sync before adding the next item

These issues make adding new content to sync with Garmin devices painfully slow and tedious.

In an ideal world, there would be a way to add content to sync with Garmin devices through the iOS app (similar to how it works with Apple Watch). But I'm guessing this will never happen.

Here's how I think the process could be improved:

- When showing the user a list of playlists, podcasts, or episodes to add, instead of loading 6 items at a time, load as many items as possible. If this means that album art can't be loaded, I'm personally ok with that. If possible, preload the next page(s) of items in the background (maybe this could include album art, if necessary)

- Allow the user to select more than one item to add at a time. Maybe when the user selects an item, they're given a little "action menu" (popover menu) which lets them choose between adding the item to the download/sync queue or downloading the item (and other queued items) immediately

- Allow the user to select all episodes of a single podcast at once. Maybe there could be an "Add All" button at the top of the podcast episodes list?

Thanks for reading!

[not_will_arnett]

Plan

Premium

Country

Canada

Device

Forerunner 955

Operating System

N/A

My Question or Issue

The Spotify app for Garmin watches has a few UX issues when it comes to playing songs and podcasts:

1) when the current podcast episode finishes playing, playback just stops.

2) if I want to play the next podcast episode, I have to open the library and select the podcast. This always takes me to the top of the episode list, regardless of the last episode that was played. Now I have to manually scroll all the way down to the next episode, which is kind of a pain for podcasts with lots of episodes, especially when you're trying to listen on the run

3) There's no indication on the "now playing" screen of the current time (hh:mm:ss) of playback, which makes "scrubbing" through a long podcast episode tougher, and also means that the user doesn't have a good idea of how much time is remaining in the current episode (or song)

4) In the extra controls menu (accessible by pressing the UP button) there's no indication of the current song or playback time, which makes the Previous [Track] (for songs) / Rewind 15 [s] (for podcast episodes) buttons less useful

5) When you are listening to a song there's no controls to scrub within the song, but there are controls to go to the previous or next song. When you are listening to a podcast episode there's controls to scrub within the episode, but no controls to go to the next or previous episode. I get that this how the corresponding functionality is mapped to the physical earbuds controls, but it would be nice to have these additional controls in the control menu.

6) On MIP watches (such as Garmin Forerunner 955) the button hints next to the START, UP and DOWN buttons obscure the playback progress bar (which forms a circle just inside the bezel). This means that the user can't see the playback position changing when the current endpoint of the progress bar is "under" a button hint. I get this is probably a Garmin thing though.

7) This is probably also a Garmin thing, but the UI for the Now Playing screen on 5-button + touch watches like Forerunner 955 seems limited by the fact that all the functionality has to work with touch disabled. While I totally get this, it would be nice if there was additional "bonus" functionality which worked only with touch (like extra "touch-only" buttons.)

Some suggestions for improvement:

1) When the current podcast episode finishes playing, automatically play the next episode

2) If the user opens the library and selects a podcast, automatically highlight the most recently played episode instead of the first episode in the list

3) On the "now playing" screen, show the current playback time (in hh:mm:ss) for both songs and podcast episodes

4) On the extra controls menu (displayed when you press the UP button), show the current song / podcast episode and the current playback time (in hh:mm:ss)

5) It would be great if the controls menu had some additional controls:

- for songs: scrub backwards and forwards within the current song

- for podcast episodes: previous episode, next episode

iow, the controls menu should be able to do even *more* than what can be done with the physical earbuds controls

6) Not sure if the problem with the button hints is under Spotify's control, but I wish someone could suggest to Garmin that the button hints shouldn't obscure the full width of the progress bar for the parts of the bezel that the hints cover. Maybe the progress bar and button hints could "blend" together or maybe part of the width of the progress bar could be drawn beside the button hints, idk.

Seems that they fixed this for AMOLED watches (like Forerunner 965, where the hints and progress actually do kinda blend together), but not for MIP watches like Forerunner 955.

7) For Garmin 5-button + touch watches, add "bonus" touch-only functionality to the Now Playing screen like touch buttons for the volume controls and previous track. I get that these functions still need to be available in the extra controls menu (accessible with buttons), but it would be nice if touch users would get functionality that takes full advantage of the touchscreen. I get that this is a limitation on the Garmin side, but I think it would be great if Spotify could make some of these suggestions to Garmin on behalf of their users.

Thanks for reading!

[Dessi]

Hi there @not_will_arnett,

Thanks for reaching out!

Hope you don't mind, but we've gathered all of your posts in one place, since they're all related to your Garmin-device and it'd be easier to keep track this way.

We've tested what you mentioned in all your posts on our end and agree with your feedback. We're regularly looking for opportunities to enhance the user experience for everyone, so this is greatly appreciated!

Take care.

[not_will_arnett]

Thanks @Dessi! I actually debated whether or not I should've made these as a single post or not, so this def works for me too.

I should add that I almost always run without my phone (same with many runners I know), so having Spotify on my wrist is a huge bonus, and I would love for the experience to be even better.