Now Playing Plus solves a corner complication on the Apple Watch

Apple Watch aficionado Craig Hockenberry of The Iconfactory has scratched his own itch with a new app we can all appreciate.

The complication

Apple provides a Now Playing complication to tap and control audio playing from any app on your iPhone or Apple Watch. Well, that’s true if you’re using a watch face like Modular with a big wide complication slot or an analog face with an complication slide within the dial.

The most common complication slot these days is perhaps the corner complication, which is especially true on analog faces where you generally have four slots. Some watch faces like Meridian and Infograph even have circular complications within the dial.

The problem

It turns out, Apple doesn’t actually provide a Now Playing corner complication for these newer styles. Granted, they’ve only existed for — checks calendar — about four years. What you get instead is called Music and Podcasts, while the other is called Now Playing.

Not so helpful for every other app that isn’t one of those two. It also means you need two complications for the same function if you want to control music and podcast playback and not just one.

The fix

Enter Now Playing Plus, the new and free app by the makers of Twitterrific and other great apps.

“Now Playing Plus provides corner and circular complications for your Apple Watch face,” the app’s description reads. “This gives you easy access to audio controls, without needed to hunt around in the App List or Dock.”

That’s it. App does what it says. It’s a now playing corner complication. Download it for free and give yourself a solution that should come with watchOS 10. Or watchOS 9.1. Or watchOS 9.0.2. You get the idea. It’s the best Now Playing complication money can buy … and did we mention it’s free?

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