Now playing on Apple Watch does not stay open

Hey LilyRose86,

If Up Next is not working as expected on your Apple Watch, the steps below may help.

1. Restart your iPhone and Restart your Apple Watch, since restarting can often help resolve unexpected behaviors.
2. Updates can also contain fixes, so be sure that both devices are fully updated. Update your iPhone or iPad & Update your Apple Watch
3. If the issue continues, contact Apple directly to Get Support. They will be in the best position to support you.

We hope this helps!

Sincerely.

Agree with Summy78.

Something changed with the Apple Watch software. Until the update, any audio playing on my iPhone would automatically bring the Now Playing app up on my Apple Watch so I could control the volume, speed, ff, rew, etc.

Now I need to manually open Now Playing, and select the source of the audio… and then Now Playing goes away (times out?) and I need to manually open it again to control my audio.

In the past, it worked fine with Podcasts, Spotify, NPR, Pandora, etc.

How do we change it back??

That's the worst response I've ever seen. Not even remotely close to answering the OP's question