Yet another streaming service beats Spotify to the Apple Watch offline listening punch

Apple, Amazon, and even Google’s music streaming platforms have been in the limelight of late for a couple of different reasons, and now it’s Deezer’s turn to make headlines as it (ineffectively) tries to keep up with the world heavyweight champion of the thriving industry.

Unfortunately for audiophiles, the French service, which is mainly popular on the old continent and less so stateside, is not ready for an Apple and Amazon Music-rivaling discount of its existing HiFi tier… just yet.

While you still need to pay $19.95 a month (in the US) to access a library of around 36 million tracks in FLAC quality, the latest killer feature added to Deezer’s Spotify-challenging arsenal is available completely free of charge… for “premium” subscribers.

We’re talking about offline listening functionality delivered straight to your wrist by the Apple Watch Series 6, and in case that doesn’t sound like such a big deal, you may want to know the world’s most popular smartwatch is actually not in the same boat as far as Spotify integration is concerned.

Of course, Deezer is not breaking entirely new ground here either, following in the footsteps of Apple Music (duh) and Pandora while beating the likes of YouTube Music and Tidal in addition to Spotify to the offline punch (the latter of which doesn’t even have an official Apple Watch app to begin with).

As long as you own the newest high-end edition of the immensely successful Apple Watch and are already paying Deezer for a Premium, Student, Family, or HiFi subscription, it should be extremely easy to start using the feature.

All you have to do is choose the playlist you want to download to your intelligent timepiece, and depending on its amount of free storage space, you can then listen to your favorite tunes on the fly without keeping your iPhone nearby or staying connected to the internet.

The Apple Watch Deezer app was obviously already capable of controlling your iPhone’s music streaming action, and on top of everything else, each member of a paid Family account can now download playlists and favorites from their own individual profiles.

In case you’re wondering, Deezer also allows offline listening on select Tizen-powered Samsung Galaxy Watches while lacking the functionality on Google’s Wear OS platform, which could well change in the very near future.