I hate that whenever I play music on my iPhone, a red dot appears at the top of my watch face (see image below). AI says I can remove it by turning off "auto-launch audio apps", but I think this setting is no longer available. Is there any way to remove this annoying red dot?
Apple Watch Ultra, watchOS 11
Did you check the Settings for Smart Stack -> Live Activities -> Media -> Allow Live Activities -> disabled.
This will remove the "Now Playing" from your watch face again.
At first I didn't want to turn off Live Activities for everything because I want workout info to show on my watch when I workout, so I didn't try turning it off. Then after your suggestion, I decided to try it and see if it worked. Initially it didn't work, but after I shut the watch down and turned it back on, turning off Live Activities did remove the "Now Playing" icon.
Next, I decided to try to turn Live Activities back on, but not turn on Auto-Launch. Doing so did not bring back the Now Playing icon.
Then I wanted to see if I could turn on auto-launch settings, but leave off media apps. I am happy to report that I was able to turn on Live Activities and Auto-Launch Live Activities and leave Media Apps turned off for Live Activities and the annoying red dot icon has not returned.
Thanks for your suggestion.
You're welcome 🙂
Yes, these are the settings that work on my Ultra 2 as well, although Live Activities seem to use more battery life after all.
How to remove red dot icon related to music playing on Apple (Ultra) Watch face
