6 ms·

I really wish they made it independent of the iPhone. I think for people that only use smartphones occasionally, it'd be ideal to have just a watch and a deskt

by nextos 2y ago

I really wish they made it independent of the iPhone. I think for people that only use smartphones occasionally, it'd be ideal to have just a watch and a desktop/laptop. It'd also be a great move by Apple towards reducing distractions of its users. Watches can be much less intrusive than phones.

zactato 2y ago
Thats got to be a super tiny population of the world
- voisin 2y ago
  I suspect OP is also including Android users in the group too.
  - nextos 2y ago
    FWIW, I don't use Apple anymore. But I think this would be a nice product and it'd also stimulate the market. Right now, most expensive fitness trackers rely on smartphones. I think only Garmin and Polar can be set up without a smartphone, but Polar still relies on smartphones for GPS updates.
- Etheryte 2y ago
  I wouldn't be so sure of that. There are many studies showing that age is strongly correlated with reduced smartphone use, additionally, youth only makes up a small portion of the whole population.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    Youth are fewer, youth have an outsized affect on consumption however. Meanwhile, older people tend to slow down consumption a lot, and therefore you can't really make as much money catering to them.
    - Etheryte 2y ago
      I think you have the reasoning backwards. Older people have considerably more purchasing power, after all they've had all their life to make money. There are many industries that do extremely well catering exactly to that fact.
      - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
        You mean like Harley Davidson? Ya, they have more buying power, but they are choosey about what they buy and aren't so interested in new gadgets. Younger people have less buying power but they are full of wants. They also get more money and will buy more over time, whereas baby boomers are going to retire quickly and their buying will fall off.
        lolinder 2y ago
        You're still reasoning backwards. Apple produces new gadgets that appeal to young people, so they don't have as strong consumption from older people. That's a decision they made, but there's nothing baked into the laws of the universe that prevented them from designing around older consumers. > They also get more money and will buy more over time, whereas baby boomers are going to retire quickly and their buying will fall off. You're assuming this is a generational thing and not an age thing. If older people (and to be clear, I'm talking >40 vs <40) naturally gravitate away from smartphones for some more fundamental reason than generational differences, then that high-buying-power market will remain underserved even once today's young people age into that bracket.
        seanmcdirmid 2y ago
        Consumption != purchasing power. To say young people have outside portion consumption compared to their numbers isn't very controversial at all in retail. It is why advertising is geared toward young people, why NBC couldn't make money on Matlock and Golden Girls (they were very popular, but the ad dollars were not there), why you go broke aiming at a 60 yro demographic rather than a 20 yro one. You are just claiming that the market is being inefficient, but they have been burned so many times before assuming that somehow the 40+ crowd is going to drive the market for new things.
- steve_adams_86 2y ago
  I figure if I'm in that group, it can't be that small of a group. I'm a turbo normie and no thought I have is remotely unique or original. There are at least dozens of us out there using our watches as phones. But seriously, probably millions of people would prefer to not carry a phone everywhere yet still have the essentials (texting and calling) handy if need be.
darknavi 2y ago
A friend has his kids use LTE Apple Watches. He set them up with his iPhone and they don't have them. It supports "Kid" mode on the watches and everything. They can call and text him when ever they want, which is really nice.
- latchkey 2y ago
  Walkie-talkie mode is really nice.
  - CalChris 2y ago
    Dick Tracy mode is great for screening calls.
- mgrandl 2y ago
  How old are the kids? My wife can’t find well fitting watch bands for the smallest Apple Watch due to here thin wrists. Can’t imagine finding some for a kid.
  - gdudeman 2y ago
    Many of my daughter's 11-year-old friends have Apple Watches as their mobile device. Some of them have tiny wrists.
  - Nextgrid 2y ago
    You can find handmade Apple Watch bracelets on Etsy. Alongside a lot of dropshipped crap ones from Aliexpress - but the point is it seems like third parties are able to make bracelets that replicate the mechanical “interface” for the bracelets, so you should be able to find any size you want.
    - danudey 2y ago
      You can also get adapters that allow you to connect any standard watch band you can find at a store to an Apple Watch. Example: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07YTN8VY4/ https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07YTN8VY4/ Probably makes it even easier to find watch bands that work/fit kids/that they like.
zardo 2y ago
Apple might have sold me one last month, but I'm not switching phones just because I'm getting a watch.
wilsonnb3 2y ago
I last tried to ditch my phone and just wear the watch with a Series 4, so things might be different now, but you give up way too much compared to using a smartphone. Only being able to take calls on speakerphone, not having access to the long tail of apps you might need on occasion, and not being able to effectively input text into the apps you do have are the biggest problems for me. Its alright for the kids and old people thing they have now where you really want a life alert/GPS tracker combo and calling/texting is a nice bonus but the form factor isn't viable for solo use.
- criddell 2y ago
  > Only being able to take calls on speakerphone I was under the impression that if you had AirPods, they would work for phone calls through the watch.
  - gdudeman 2y ago
    Can confirm: AirPods work for calls, music and podcasts.
  - wilsonnb3 2y ago
    You can but in practice this doesn't end up working well. By the time your airpod is out of your pocket, out of the case, in your ear, and connected to your watch, the call has stopped ringing. If you are only worried about placing calls and not receiving them, it works better but you still have to contend with bluetooth, which is less than 100% reliable, being an essential component of your setup.
    - HaZeust 2y ago
      >"You can but in practice this doesn't end up working well. By the time your airpod is out of your pocket, out of the case, in your ear, and connected to your watch, the call has stopped ringing." How is the form factor of this any different than when you connect AirPods to take a call on your iPhone? This exact order of premeditation prior to the action of taking a call is already commonplace if for the iPhone - why not for the Apple Watches too?
onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago
> I think for people that only use smartphones occasionally, it'd be ideal to have just a watch and a desktop/laptop. Apple doesn't want to build a world in which people occasionally use smartphones. They're an iPhone company. They're building things to make iPhone's more valuable and to keep / strengthen their lead / profit engine.
- avidphantasm 2y ago
  Would love to see anti-trust enforcement to force Apple to allow pairing with iPad or Mac. There is no good reason to limit to iPhone.
  - yreg 2y ago
    Ideally you wouldn't need to pair it with anything. iPhones required a computer with iTunes up until iOS 5.
zer0zzz 2y ago
Hopefully it will also work with apple tv
anonymousiam 2y ago
I 100% agree, and this is the only reason that I have not purchased one. I've got an Android phone and an iPad pro (with active eSIM). There is no technical reason for Apple to not allow me to "tether" to my iPad, or even any reason to require me to have another device in order to have/use all the features of the watch. It's purely a marketing decision, so I will continue to pass on the Apple Watch until they untether it, or let me access all features with my iPad.
adastra22 2y ago
The Watch’s operation is independent of the iPhone, especially if you get one with LTE. You need an iPhone for setup, but that’s it.
- nextos 2y ago
  That's the problem. If I'm not going to use an iPhone, it's wasteful. Why not letting me do that, at least, from a Mac or an iPad?
- syspec 2y ago
  You don't
  - adastra22 2y ago
    How do you perform setup without the iPhone?
- difosfor 2y ago
  It's not, many applications don't really work without your iPhone connected via Bluetooth even if your watch can make it's own internet connection. It basically seems like Apple and app developers are not considering people using their watch without their IPhone present as well.
zikduruqe 2y ago
This. I have cellular activated on my watch, and I seldom, if ever, carry an iPhone outside my home. It does everything I need from tech, when I am on the go, and that includes recording hours long bike rides.
- bilsbie 2y ago
  Can you unlock your Tesla? Also can you do navigation?
  - rootusrootus 2y ago
    > Can you unlock your Tesla? Yes but you have to use a third-party app for that, the official Tesla app does not have a Watch version. > Also can you do navigation? Yes.
    - grahamj 2y ago
      Watch App for Tesla is also great in that it can act as a key, so you even get prox unlock with your Watch. A few times I've forgotten about this, went to get something from the car without my phone, and been puzzled why the car unlocked lol
gridder 2y ago
the Apple watch can be independent from the iPhone. Ask a family member or a friend with an iPhone to set it up, there is an apposite function for it. Just buy one with cellular.
mass_and_energy 2y ago
Amen to that. I only bought an Apple watch for the fall detection so that if I have a seizure it calls 911. Even got the LTE one so that I could use it when my phone is dead etc. So imagine my surprise when I switched my handset to Android and my watch reported "no service". Keep in mind that this is marketed as a stand-alone product, that had its own data plan. But once I didn't have an iPhone activated, a soft switch in my watch (read: medical device) was flipped in order to disable it. It was at that time that I sold every apple product in my possession, and bought a pixel watch. My pixel watch does everything better than my apple watch did, without exception. Am I being irrational here, or is it wrong for a company to disable device B because you don't have device A anymore, when they're marketed as independent devices with independent data plans and eSIM etc?

by nextos 2y ago

zactato 2y ago

Thats got to be a super tiny population of the world

voisin 2y ago
I suspect OP is also including Android users in the group too.
- nextos 2y ago
  FWIW, I don't use Apple anymore. But I think this would be a nice product and it'd also stimulate the market. Right now, most expensive fitness trackers rely on smartphones. I think only Garmin and Polar can be set up without a smartphone, but Polar still relies on smartphones for GPS updates.
Etheryte 2y ago
I wouldn't be so sure of that. There are many studies showing that age is strongly correlated with reduced smartphone use, additionally, youth only makes up a small portion of the whole population.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  Youth are fewer, youth have an outsized affect on consumption however. Meanwhile, older people tend to slow down consumption a lot, and therefore you can't really make as much money catering to them.
  - Etheryte 2y ago
    I think you have the reasoning backwards. Older people have considerably more purchasing power, after all they've had all their life to make money. There are many industries that do extremely well catering exactly to that fact.
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      You mean like Harley Davidson? Ya, they have more buying power, but they are choosey about what they buy and aren't so interested in new gadgets. Younger people have less buying power but they are full of wants. They also get more money and will buy more over time, whereas baby boomers are going to retire quickly and their buying will fall off.
      - lolinder 2y ago
        You're still reasoning backwards. Apple produces new gadgets that appeal to young people, so they don't have as strong consumption from older people. That's a decision they made, but there's nothing baked into the laws of the universe that prevented them from designing around older consumers. > They also get more money and will buy more over time, whereas baby boomers are going to retire quickly and their buying will fall off. You're assuming this is a generational thing and not an age thing. If older people (and to be clear, I'm talking >40 vs <40) naturally gravitate away from smartphones for some more fundamental reason than generational differences, then that high-buying-power market will remain underserved even once today's young people age into that bracket.
        seanmcdirmid 2y ago
        Consumption != purchasing power. To say young people have outside portion consumption compared to their numbers isn't very controversial at all in retail. It is why advertising is geared toward young people, why NBC couldn't make money on Matlock and Golden Girls (they were very popular, but the ad dollars were not there), why you go broke aiming at a 60 yro demographic rather than a 20 yro one. You are just claiming that the market is being inefficient, but they have been burned so many times before assuming that somehow the 40+ crowd is going to drive the market for new things.
steve_adams_86 2y ago
I figure if I'm in that group, it can't be that small of a group. I'm a turbo normie and no thought I have is remotely unique or original. There are at least dozens of us out there using our watches as phones. But seriously, probably millions of people would prefer to not carry a phone everywhere yet still have the essentials (texting and calling) handy if need be.

darknavi 2y ago

A friend has his kids use LTE Apple Watches. He set them up with his iPhone and they don't have them. It supports "Kid" mode on the watches and everything. They can call and text him when ever they want, which is really nice.

latchkey 2y ago
Walkie-talkie mode is really nice.
- CalChris 2y ago
  Dick Tracy mode is great for screening calls.
mgrandl 2y ago
How old are the kids? My wife can’t find well fitting watch bands for the smallest Apple Watch due to here thin wrists. Can’t imagine finding some for a kid.
- gdudeman 2y ago
  Many of my daughter's 11-year-old friends have Apple Watches as their mobile device. Some of them have tiny wrists.
- Nextgrid 2y ago
  You can find handmade Apple Watch bracelets on Etsy. Alongside a lot of dropshipped crap ones from Aliexpress - but the point is it seems like third parties are able to make bracelets that replicate the mechanical “interface” for the bracelets, so you should be able to find any size you want.
  - danudey 2y ago
    You can also get adapters that allow you to connect any standard watch band you can find at a store to an Apple Watch. Example: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07YTN8VY4/ https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07YTN8VY4/ Probably makes it even easier to find watch bands that work/fit kids/that they like.

zardo 2y ago

Apple might have sold me one last month, but I'm not switching phones just because I'm getting a watch.

wilsonnb3 2y ago

I last tried to ditch my phone and just wear the watch with a Series 4, so things might be different now, but you give up way too much compared to using a smartphone. Only being able to take calls on speakerphone, not having access to the long tail of apps you might need on occasion, and not being able to effectively input text into the apps you do have are the biggest problems for me. Its alright for the kids and old people thing they have now where you really want a life alert/GPS tracker combo and calling/texting is a nice bonus but the form factor isn't viable for solo use.

criddell 2y ago
> Only being able to take calls on speakerphone I was under the impression that if you had AirPods, they would work for phone calls through the watch.
- gdudeman 2y ago
  Can confirm: AirPods work for calls, music and podcasts.
- wilsonnb3 2y ago
  You can but in practice this doesn't end up working well. By the time your airpod is out of your pocket, out of the case, in your ear, and connected to your watch, the call has stopped ringing. If you are only worried about placing calls and not receiving them, it works better but you still have to contend with bluetooth, which is less than 100% reliable, being an essential component of your setup.
  - HaZeust 2y ago
    >"You can but in practice this doesn't end up working well. By the time your airpod is out of your pocket, out of the case, in your ear, and connected to your watch, the call has stopped ringing." How is the form factor of this any different than when you connect AirPods to take a call on your iPhone? This exact order of premeditation prior to the action of taking a call is already commonplace if for the iPhone - why not for the Apple Watches too?

onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago

> I think for people that only use smartphones occasionally, it'd be ideal to have just a watch and a desktop/laptop. Apple doesn't want to build a world in which people occasionally use smartphones. They're an iPhone company. They're building things to make iPhone's more valuable and to keep / strengthen their lead / profit engine.

avidphantasm 2y ago
Would love to see anti-trust enforcement to force Apple to allow pairing with iPad or Mac. There is no good reason to limit to iPhone.
- yreg 2y ago
  Ideally you wouldn't need to pair it with anything. iPhones required a computer with iTunes up until iOS 5.

zer0zzz 2y ago

Hopefully it will also work with apple tv

anonymousiam 2y ago

I 100% agree, and this is the only reason that I have not purchased one. I've got an Android phone and an iPad pro (with active eSIM). There is no technical reason for Apple to not allow me to "tether" to my iPad, or even any reason to require me to have another device in order to have/use all the features of the watch. It's purely a marketing decision, so I will continue to pass on the Apple Watch until they untether it, or let me access all features with my iPad.

adastra22 2y ago

The Watch’s operation is independent of the iPhone, especially if you get one with LTE. You need an iPhone for setup, but that’s it.

nextos 2y ago
That's the problem. If I'm not going to use an iPhone, it's wasteful. Why not letting me do that, at least, from a Mac or an iPad?
syspec 2y ago
You don't
- adastra22 2y ago
  How do you perform setup without the iPhone?
difosfor 2y ago
It's not, many applications don't really work without your iPhone connected via Bluetooth even if your watch can make it's own internet connection. It basically seems like Apple and app developers are not considering people using their watch without their IPhone present as well.

zikduruqe 2y ago

This. I have cellular activated on my watch, and I seldom, if ever, carry an iPhone outside my home. It does everything I need from tech, when I am on the go, and that includes recording hours long bike rides.

bilsbie 2y ago
Can you unlock your Tesla? Also can you do navigation?
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  > Can you unlock your Tesla? Yes but you have to use a third-party app for that, the official Tesla app does not have a Watch version. > Also can you do navigation? Yes.
  - grahamj 2y ago
    Watch App for Tesla is also great in that it can act as a key, so you even get prox unlock with your Watch. A few times I've forgotten about this, went to get something from the car without my phone, and been puzzled why the car unlocked lol

gridder 2y ago

the Apple watch can be independent from the iPhone. Ask a family member or a friend with an iPhone to set it up, there is an apposite function for it. Just buy one with cellular.

mass_and_energy 2y ago

Amen to that. I only bought an Apple watch for the fall detection so that if I have a seizure it calls 911. Even got the LTE one so that I could use it when my phone is dead etc. So imagine my surprise when I switched my handset to Android and my watch reported "no service". Keep in mind that this is marketed as a stand-alone product, that had its own data plan. But once I didn't have an iPhone activated, a soft switch in my watch (read: medical device) was flipped in order to disable it. It was at that time that I sold every apple product in my possession, and bought a pixel watch. My pixel watch does everything better than my apple watch did, without exception. Am I being irrational here, or is it wrong for a company to disable device B because you don't have device A anymore, when they're marketed as independent devices with independent data plans and eSIM etc?