When you share a podcast or specific episode, the Google Podcasts app on Android generates a /podcasts URL. A web experience at is now in development and already supports listening, syncing, and browsing episodes. The YouTube Music announcement starts at 2:38, and the Spotify demo starts at 12:50 in the video below.Since last year’s launch, Google Podcasts has primarily focussed on Android and Google Home devices. You can check out the Spotify and YouTube Music app reveals for yourself in Google’s Wear-specific session from I/O. Some other watches have had offline Spotify playback in the past, though, like Garmin’s flagship Forerunner sports watches and some Samsung Galaxy wearables. But now, Google’s Wear watches could potentially even leapfrog the Apple Watch when it comes to offline Spotify playback - to get your Spotify on an Apple Watch without carrying around your phone, you currently need an active internet connection to stream it to one of Apple’s pricier cellular Apple Watch models, a feature added late last year.

Since the shutdown of Google Play Music, Wear OS users haven’t had many options for offline music. When Gizmodo put out an article last November on how listen to music phone-free on smartwatches, its Wear OS recommendation was more or less an app that acted as an MP3 player, requiring the transfer of local files that you already own. The Apple Watch has been able to play songs downloaded through Apple Music when away from a phone for years, and it got to the point where Google decided to release its YouTube Music app for the Apple Watch before its own Wear OS. Google’s smartwatch OS has lagged behind Apple’s in many ways, including offline music listening. YouTube Music will also support downloads. The YouTube Music app is also getting an update, which will similarly add the ability to download music directly to Wear devices, allowing users to listen without a phone nearby. Spotify: /wpZFJh8hVN- Kirubhas Shankar May 18, 2021

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