[Feature Request] Apple Watch Client with Offline Playback

[davmin]

Native watch clients for music apps are a must if you want to leave your phone behind while exercising.

Some like myself regularly run, bike, and hike in areas with poor/no cell reception and only bring their watch. Offline playback enables me to listen to music even when there is no cell service. Additionally even in areas with good reception, offline playback significantly reduces battery drain.

The most common implementation of offline playback on watches is syncing individual playlists and albums. Auto caching songs makes less sense on a device with low storage capacity.

In the selfhosted music server space the only app that I know of that offers offline watch playback capability is AVSub.

[leinelissen]

Hey @davmin, thanks for the input! I understand your use case very well, and I support it fully. Any forthcoming Apple Watch integrations for Fintunes are bound by the following constraints:

1. React Native (which Fintunes is based on) has no support for Apple Watch. Future support is not expected nor likely.
2. A fully custom implementation must thus be made in Swift. This is not unfeasible, but it is a lot of work.
3. I do not own an Apple Watch, so I cannot test any implementations myself.

I wish to see this happen, but I am very unlikely to make this happen myself. If you (or anyone else) would like some pointers on where to get started, I am more than happy to help this effort on the way.

[davmin]

Thanks for the response! I'll have to consider whether it's worth picking up swift for this.

[jameschubbuck]

you would be a hero if you did, sir.

[m-akami]

Hi, I'm considering getting an Apple Watch and am interested in how well it fits with my self-hosted services. I'm experienced with Swift/SwiftUI and would love to create a watchOS JellyFin client if one doesn't exist. @davmin, if you're still interested, I'd like to collaborate, as I also want phone-less playback during workouts and I understand the need for this client.

For those who haven't seen it, SwiftFin is a native Swift client for iOS, iPadOS, and tvOS. It might make more sense to work alongside that project, rather than this one, as building a Swift app alongside React Native might not be ideal.

[m-akami]

In addition, I have an Apple Silicon Mac available to me which I can run a watchOS emulator on - so testing shouldn't be an issue.

[jameschubbuck]

I wish you the best in your endeavors. If there is anything I can do to help let me know.

[m-akami]

Thank you @jameschubbuck, much appreciated. I strongly believe this will be a great feature to contribute to the Jellyfin Project.