Nah, we don't want a bunch of Android users, running around with the AW, let them stay in their own fantasy bubble 😊
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Future Apple Watch Update to Enable Pairing With Multiple Apple Devices Rather Than Just One iPhone, Claims Leaker
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
This would be plus for kids that have iPads but no iPhone.
The lure of the Apple ecosystem is it's seemless interactivity between devices. The Apple Watch becoming standalone wouldn't change that. It would still be better used with an iPhone, but if you no longer needed an iPhone to have an Apple Watch, then that would lower the barrier to entry and encourage more people to get one
Everyone at my job uses Android while I'm the only iPhone user. They made it clear they love the Apple Watch but since they prefer Android they unfortunately cannot get one and are stuck with Samsung Gears and FitBits. Once the standalone Apple Watch comes then they could be able to get one like they wanted.
Apple Sheeps made the same argument back in 2002 with the iPod. Back when the iPod launched it was exclusive to Mac. Could only be setup on a Mac, and could only have music loaded onto a Mac. Then a year later Steve Jobs announced "hell hath frozen over" and iTunes would be coming to Windows and with it iPod support for Windows. Many kicked and screamed that it removed the lure of switching to Mac. However once iPod became available for Windows, it's sales skyrocketed and helped make Apple the juggernaut it is today. If the iPhone was exclusive to Mac, it wouldn't have seen the numbers it makes nowadays and Apple would not be the richest company in the world.
The fact of the matter is, locking the Apple Watch to an iPhone isn't necessary anymore. Apple Watch is the most popular watch in the world now, outselling the entire Swiss Watch industry. However there's only so far you can go with selling the watch as it is, so the obvious solution is making it available for other devices starting with iPad and Mac. Not everyone wants an iPhone, and that's fine, but you can't keep a good thing like the Apple Watch locked to it forever. The Apple Watch is too important to do that, especially with how many lives it's saved. We don't need to gatekeep good things from people.
Plus, if we opened up the Apple Watch to more devices, it will lure more people into the ecosystem. I know a lot of Android users made the switch when they had a taste with an M1 Macbook Air or an iPad, or the defunct iPod Touch RIP.
r/Gatekeeping
Between this and a Health app coming to the iPad, I really hope that macOS gets all the fitness related applications as well.
If I’m given to understand these days, if they bring it to the iPad, it’s really not that hard to bring it to the Mac as well.
Happened last year with weather, came to the iPad and Mac at about the same time.
If I’m given to understand these days, if they bring it to the iPad, it’s really not that hard to bring it to the Mac as well.
Happened last year with weather, came to the iPad and Mac at about the same time.
Yeah, but as long as you still have to have an Apple device to set it up, Apple still wins.
Especially when it comes to services, if you can get someone with a Mac or iPad to get an Apple Watch and sign up for fitness plus, Apple’s not gonna care they don’t have an iPhone.
But also, it’ll make the customer more likely to buy an iPhone as their next phone so it’ll work with their Apple Watch.
My elderly mother has no need for an iPhone, but we had to get one for her to pair her watch. She has an iPad that she uses every day, and it would be convenient and cheap to be able to pair the watch with it. The phone just sits on a table, unused.
The Apple Watch needs a better procedure for creating device backups, and a better procedure for device migrations as well. Super inefficient and such a huge pain in the ass as it currently exists. If the Apple Watch can now pair to multiple iPhones, that would at least solve the device migration issues.
You know what I would really love? If a timer I set up my AW would appear in the dynamic island...
This would necessitate significant changes to the Health app.
A while back I got the idea to make a clone of the Health app in iPad, because I thought the additional screen would make for much better graphs and reporting. So I went through the trouble of learning about the API — there are big restrictions and permissions that you have to jump through to edit the data — and got a dump of the database from my phone so I could import to an XCode and get to work.
The data is massive. This was a few years ago and my memory is a little hazy, but IIRC the "steps" were in a series of XML files that recorded EACH AND EVERY STEP WITH A TIMESTAMP. It took at least a day to export off the phone because USB 2 and I don't think it was even copying the files, just reading them and exporting to some usable format.
This all turned out to be a waste of time, because I assumed that data was on iCloud, and could be read by other devices. It's not, it's all there on the iPhone, and any developer can tell you that a database synchronized between multiple clients is exponentially more complex than single-client databases.
I don't doubt that Apple has the chops for it, but it's a big undertaking.
A while back I got the idea to make a clone of the Health app in iPad, because I thought the additional screen would make for much better graphs and reporting. So I went through the trouble of learning about the API — there are big restrictions and permissions that you have to jump through to edit the data — and got a dump of the database from my phone so I could import to an XCode and get to work.
The data is massive. This was a few years ago and my memory is a little hazy, but IIRC the "steps" were in a series of XML files that recorded EACH AND EVERY STEP WITH A TIMESTAMP. It took at least a day to export off the phone because USB 2 and I don't think it was even copying the files, just reading them and exporting to some usable format.
This all turned out to be a waste of time, because I assumed that data was on iCloud, and could be read by other devices. It's not, it's all there on the iPhone, and any developer can tell you that a database synchronized between multiple clients is exponentially more complex than single-client databases.
I don't doubt that Apple has the chops for it, but it's a big undertaking.
What I would like to see is data from multiple Apple Watches aggregated - for example, steps, minutes of exercise, heart rates, etc. I own an S8 and an S4, and I wear the older S4 when working in the yard, on the car, etc. So, I might wear both watches in the same day. I'd like to see the data from both combined on each. The aggregation could be done when switching from watch to watch, on the phone.
Why would you want your personal health and other data synced to your work phone?
This already happens and has for years. Something is going wrong in your setup...
But, if I abandon the iPhone (which may happen in a year or two) then Google's Pixel watch looks very tempting indeed and as far as I can tell it can do all that I'd need of it. Being able to use an Apple watch yet carry an Android device might well mean me keeping the Apple watch, though.
Of course, I have no idea how widespread such sentiments are.
How about we have some better notification sync? I want to see activity notifications on my phone and get rid of stagnant email notifications on the watch. If I’ve deleted an email on the phone the watch notification needs to disappear.
This, more than anything else. It's so frustrating that notifications that come through when your phone is unlocked don't go into the watch's Notification Center and stuff like the Activity notifications never go to the phone.
I just want to have one Notification Center that is the same across all of the devices signed into my Apple ID and stays in sync the way notifications from iPhone to Apple Watch work when the phone is locked. And when I dismiss or clear them from one device, they should be handled accordingly across all devices.
It simply means more handoff functionalities. You are still required to have an iPhone to pair with Apple Watch.
Now, a YouTube video on Mac can be controlled with Apple Watch for volume and skipping.
A notification from iPad can be forwarded to Apple Watch.
Why would you buy an Apple Watch if you don’t have an iPhone yet? Life priorities?
Would certainly make the dream of walking around with a cellular enabled iPad mini instead of an iPhone more attainable. I'm for it!