Update 11:28 am. ET: Spotify announced that the Apple Watch now offers Spotify downloads for offline listening. Playlists, albums, and podcasts can be downloaded.

Wear OS smartwatch users will soon be able to play Spotify playlists and podcasts offline.

The plan, announced at the Google I/O keynote, means that Spotify's 365 million users will finally be able to download music directly to their watches.

This long-pending feature has been sorely missing from intermittent Wear OS updates and is not available in the latest release of Wear OS. However, according to Spotify, offline listening is in development and will be released soon.

Users of rival brand smartwatches such as Garmin and Samsung have long been able to enjoy Spotify music offline by downloading content to their watches. This feature allows users to leave their smartphones at home, which is especially useful for runners or those who want to keep their phones safe.

It is truly puzzling that it has taken Google's Wear OS so long to catch up here. Especially for something that seems so simple, albeit still important to music lovers, like offline listening.

In other news, the new offline music support has been extended to Google's own YouTube Music, with native support introduced across the Wear OS platform.

And given that Google appears to be marking a new dawn of smartwatch supremacy by merging Wear OS with Samsung's Tizen, it's not surprising that we're jumping headfirst into the shiny allure of the newly revamped Wear OS.

Whether Wear OS has done enough to gain a true competitive edge remains to be seen, but we can still look forward to faster Wear OS devices with longer-lasting batteries and more frequent updates.

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