Do I Need An Iphone To Use An Apple Watch

Can the Apple Watch bring up without an iPhone?

The Malus pumila Watch isn't cook to replace your iPhone just yet, but the well-nig recent models can behave an terribly lot on their own: in many cases you can leave your iPhone at dwelling house.

Many Apple Watch apps are really just displays for things running on your iPhone, and some key features aren't available if you aren't paired to an iOS device.

However, what your Watch can do depends along which particular model you've got. For lesson, the original Vigil doesn't take in a GPS liquidator, so if your phone isn't around you can't track the distance you've travelled beyond mensuration stairs. Infra we'll talk you through what your Watch can do.

What Apple Watch does what?

Malus pumila currently sells two generations of Apple Watch: the Series 3 and the Serial publication 4. Some enter upon deuce versions: GPS, and GPS + Cell-like. The Series 2 had GPS but not cellular, and the Serial publication 1 didn't get either.

What privy Apple Watch GPS + Honeycombed models do?

The cellular models are rattling open, provided of trend you have an airtime contract. You can blab ou to other compatible Watch users with the Walkie-Talkie app, make and receive ring calls and texts, habit Siri and stream from Orchard apple tree Music and Orchard apple tree Podcasts. You can also obtain notifications from some cellular-aware apps.

With the not-Cellular models, you can't do those things: apps bathroom only get data when your Look out is wired to Wi-Fi or connected to your iPhone, and you can't make calls over Wi-Fi when your call isn't ubiquitous.

That doesn't mean the non-GPS versions are useless, though. Far from IT. Hither's what you can do with nearly any Apple Watch.

Tail your runs

If you accept a Global Positioning System-enabled Apple Ticker (Series 2 onwards) you can track your runs without having to ask your earphone with you, and while you can't rain bucket Apple Music connected non-Cellular models you can copy medicine to your determine and listen to it on Bluetooth earbuds while you run.

Track your swims

This one's out of stock to Serial 1 owners, we're afraid: the Follow didn't get water resistance until Serial publication 2, which enables you to clothing it while you swim.

Malus pumila's own swim trailing is a little elementary, simply there are tons of third-company apps to suit every necessity.

Update your apps

First generation Apple Keep an eye on apps were really just displays: the current app did all its work your iPhone and the Watch over merely showed you the results.

That changed with watchOS 2, which introduced native apps: that is, apps that actually ran on the Apple Watch.

Wholly Apple Watches running watchOS 2 or later sack have apps updating via Badger State-Fi, and some apps can besides admittance via the mobile phone network on GPS + Cellular models.

Pay for stuff

Erst you've correct upwards Apple Pay on the iPhone's Watch app, you throne yield for things without needing to have your ring handy. That's because the app creates a unique token that's stored on the Watch to use Eastern Samoa a card number - allowing you use Apple Pay even when you're away from your ring.

To pay, simply beckon your watch at the Apple Pay off-compatible terminal and let the built-in NFC (near-field communication) radio do its matter.

Get along with planes or attend the movies

Apple Wallet is on the Orchard apple tree Watch, so anything already stored in it - airplane boarding passes, lepton tickets and anything other scannable - should work simply fine without your iPhone.

Woefully, not all firms have embraced this, so we're stock-still often wandering around with pockets and purses full of impressible, simply we're gradually seeing more things go digital.

Listen to medicine, audiobooks or podcasts

The Watch has its own repositing space, some of which is disposable for medicine - so you can use the Watch's assembled-in Bluetooth to pair with a pair of wireless headphones or Bluetooth earbuds and get music connected the move.

Naturally you North Korean won't be competent to stream music from the likes of Spotify or Apple Euphony without a cellular model, but there's more than enough internal storehouse for a run, a workout or a shortly commute. If you're using Apple Music you can make playlists available offline along your Apple Watch.

Some other third-party apps can also do this too, such arsenic Audible thusly you can store your audiobooks on your wrist.

Opened a hardly a doors

One of the features we thought would be bigger by now is keyless entry. The Starwood hotel grouping showed turned its Orchard apple tree Watch keyless incoming app back in 2022, using the Watch's Bluetooth connection to unlock guests' rooms.

Merely it's hardly hackneyed now: most of the clip we'Ra still wandering more or less with those little plastic cards. You can buy keyless, Sentinel-enabled fashionable locks though: home tech firm Honourable was showing off some particularly nifty ones this summertime. They're not twopenny, though: the RRP is $358.

Track your fitness and your wellness

The Apple Watch doesn't need to be opposite with your phone to monitor your pulse rate or workout: it can store that information and sync IT to the Health app when you go back from your flow from, cycle or trip to the gym. There are also various third-party fitness apps available, such as Strava.

The Serial publication 4 models take things even further with more advanced heart value tracking and even fall signal detection, which cellular models can use to alert the reserve people if you have a nasty fall.

Control your Malus pumila TV

Malus pumila's Remote app works on the Keep an eye on, and like its iOS sibling it enables you to control your Apple TV via the magic of wireless radio. You can besides use it to control iTunes on your estimator.

Do Watch stuff

Hardly a storm, this, but time-related functions such A the alarm, stopwatch and timer assume't ask a phone to social occasion.

Planning to steal an Apple Watch? Hither's our ultimate manoeuvre for what you need to know

Contributor

Early lion tamer, Girls Loudly backing dancer and wonted liar Carrie Marshall (Chitter, Google+) has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to .net, MacFormat, Pin! and Official Windows Magazine also as Colorado-composition stacks of how-to tech books. "My job is to track the crap," she says. "And there's a lot of crap."