I gifted an Apple Watch this Christmas. I checked their site and saw that an iPhone was needed, but somehow thought any up-to-date iOS device would work. Since you can set up the watch for a family member (who doesn't have an iPhone) it has to work, right? Got the newest iPad? F*k you, buy and iPhone. That was a disappointing gift, I can tell you that.

There is absolutely no reason to impose such a limit. I don't understand it. However, I will never buy or recommend another Apple product ever again.

I don't like this mandatory tie between the two Apple product lines any more than you do, but as an FYI nit on terminology:

> somehow thought any up-to-date iOS device would work. [...] Got the newest iPad?

iOS 12 was the last version of iOS where that name applied to iPad as well as iPhone. Starting with version 13, the version of the operating system for iPhone had been the only one called iOS, with the iPad OS called iPadOS.

So, yes, I suspect that any up to date iOS device does work, through the magic of terminology peculiarities, unless currently supported Apple Watches don't support all currently supported iPhones (I haven't checked if that is the case).

As for the operating system for Apple Watch, that has always been called watchOS.

This feels like an Apple problem - their iOS variants being unified is a reasonable expectation from consumers and, additionally, the fact that they EoL devices so aggressively means that unless you're a cutting edge Apple follower a lot of their tech simply doesn't work together.

If Apple wants to sit there and say "Welp, buy the latest iPhone" they're free to do that - but the fact that there is user confusion is completely on them for making their products so inter-incompatible.

This almost reads like a parody of Apple fanboy logic. Allow me to summarize your comment:

"Well, ACKCHTUALLY, on the iPad, it's called iPadOS. Checkmate, all your points are therefore invalid, Apple can do no wrong"

They said it was a nitpick and your tone is really unnecessary. Please think about what kind of conversations you want to have here.

I believe the original comment was edited; I don’t think it had that disclaimer at the time I wrote my comment.

I do often edit my comments to improve wording, but I think in this case I had the disclaimer right in the first draft. I could be misremembering. I am certainly no fan of this product tie between Apple Watch and iPhone.

Lmao how is this nuance related to the point he made at all?

There's not much nuance to "iPad doesn't run on iOS, it runs on iPadOS". You need an iOS device to setup an iWatch. The nuance only applies to how that came to be, historically and strategically.

The above doesn't constitute support for Apple's policies.

They're not making excuses for it— just clarifying why/how easy it can be to misunderstand the marketing material that led to that mistake.

I belive everyone entering an Apple store should complete a test on their insight into Apple nomenclature and product history. Those who fail should f*ck off!

I've been an Apple customer for a decade and have had a number of iPads and this is the first time I've heard this.

Yea, that does suck. They are clear in their documentation when it says "Apple Watch Ultra, Apple Watch Series 8, and Apple Watch SE require an iPhone 8 or later with iOS 16 or later."

But it's buried in a giant page of fine print that you'd have to know to go looking for. Of course if you know to look for it, then you probably don't need the information.

Anyways, I agree that it sucks to have such a limit to JUST an iPhone. It would be nice if it worked with an iPad as well (which is really you're only other option). But the watch, watch app and others make implicit assumptions. For example your iPhone app, which is separate from the iPad app, also has the support for the watch built in (aka the watch specific apps). The iPad apps would currently not have this, because that isn't how it works. Could that change? Sure. But I would guess there are a lot of other implicit assumptions made that we're not aware of.

Lets be honest... Apple would be happy to sell you a watch AND an iPad. You'd be very likely to eventually get the Phone as well. But realistically that's not the direction most people go. They get a Phone first, then maybe they get the watch or iPad.

> There is absolutely no reason to impose such a limit.

regardless, I'm pretty sure that somewhere within Apple, they think it makes them more money this way, for the immediate term at least.

I don’t think so. What it does is ensure they can keep compatible operating systems so that the experience is one they totally control for.

Wow, I would've hoped an iPad would work at least. Thanks for confirming.

Hm, some context here is that Apple Watch apps were — until recently — actually iPhone apps. The iPhone app was treated kind of like if you wanted to make a widget for your app, except it appeared on your wrist rather than your springboard. The whole app architecture really tightly coupled the products.

This has started to change with “set up for family” watches (which is mostly so you can give a kid a watch and no phone) but there are still lots of weird edge cases there.

I do personally wish they were standalone. If they were I would have gifted one to my father in law this Christmas. Instead he got a Garmin.

Being an iPhone + Watch + AirPods user I can say the exact opposite. The Watch is the perfect iPhone companion but it can’t replace it. Its screen is so small it makes me want to complete interactions as quick as possible. I love leaving the iPhone at home when I go for a walk and still listening music and podcasts, but it’s something that requires minimal interactions. Receiving notifications is great, but replying? terrible. Imho Apple should be a bit braver when designing the Watch UI. Put an always accessible now playing widget, let apps create more complex widget etc. (but still, I am thinking about glanceable informations or single tap actions).

And I didn’t mention the fact the iPhone has cameras and it’s not physically attached to you.

This is exactly how I feel. I wouldn’t want the watch if it were for my iPhone as it basically just adds a screen for it on my wrist

> For people who want to use phone less (no social media etc, like what I'm doing now HNing at breakfast)

And that represents a vanishingly small market.

Lol. There is never a market for a nonexistent product. Products shape and create markets, not the other way around.

The overwhelming majority of users have been voting with their dollars: they want bigger and bigger smartphone screens.

Look at what people do on their phones all day. Most of that makes no sense on a watch screen.

This is funny. I am yet to meet a single person with a max-size iPhone, and I met plenty iphone users in the past 4 years. People with little money can't justify the upgrade, people with money don't need to play silly games or watch TV shows on the go when they have iPads, iMacs and comfort of their home/car/private office. So I don't think screen size matters.

But using watch for everything is not about screen size. It's about eliminating circumstances that perpetuate bad habits. Like yoga and meditation and other self-care this is only on an upwards trend, there is a huge unexplored market where people could literally do all things they used to have multiple devices for just with their watch without being tempted to get dopamine rush in toxic social media everywhere they go, and handling the productive stuff on their tablet or laptop. The only reason it's not explored is bc Apple wants to sell more devices with screens.

    I am yet to meet a single person with a max-size iPhone

Well, I agree there. It seems like they are mostly owned by people who carry purses because they are too big for pockets. But it is also true that you almost never see people with smaller SE iPhones or mini Android phones.

The overwhelming preference is not "the biggest screen possible" but is clearly "the biggest screen you can reasonably fit into a pants pocket."

    Like yoga and meditation and other self-care this is 
    only on an upwards trend

That's a funny observation. What it really highlights to me is how personal peoples' preferences are here.

To me a smartwatch is way more intrusive than a smartphone. It's something that's always on my wrist, always on my body. Versus a smartphone which I can mute and leave in my pocket where it doesn't really tempt me.

But, I must stress, I realize this is personal and others might find the opposite to be true. Above all else I am glad that folks are considering what's best for their mental health.

Watch can be intrusive, then you silence it. You can't do much with it except all that matters (emergency calls or messages, music, audiobooks, podcasts).

You can mute the phone but you still know you have a (toxic social media) dopamine dose and whole portable office in your pocket. I type this on a phone during breakfast again, if I didn't have a phone I wouldn't be doing it.

Good habits are as much about putting yourself into situations where you are not tempted as they are about willpower

Nothing's replacing the Smartphone unless it's got a camera in the same ballpark of quality and usability. Several use cases for a smartphone—including a couple major ones—don't really work with a watch, mostly for camera-related reasons. If it's not good as a camera, it's also not good as a scanner replacement, not good for remote check deposit, not good for things like the Measure app (or any other AR stuff), and so on.

For a while I thought I'd go all-watch if they ever released a standalone watch, but paying more attention to how I use my phone, there's just no way. I'd just have to buy a separate camera, then I'd have two things to carry, plus it'd be much worse (since it's not like standalone cameras tend to have e.g. built-in text recognition). I think that's likely true for most people.

Cameras are doubtlessly vital to some users, but almost entirely superfluous to others. I can count the number of times per year I use the camera on my phone with just my fingers.

I agree with you. I guess the question is the overlap / and or market.

I don’t know about anything at the scale of Apple.

But my simplified imagination of any product is: focus on core customer/demo, once you’ve captured a significant portion, expand.

But I also wonder if at apples level, if the customer is “everyone” which I always think of as folly for most business.

Example (which may partially disprove this): I know some people in developing countries, who consider an iPad an essential device. (They have a cheap android phone) and for them, it’s much more valuable than a computer.

(Though, the people I am thinking of are “high” earners in their country, making 20-40k a year. Even if an iPad is almost double the cost.)

I think for in the range of 98% of smartphone users the phone is the least useful feature. In truth they’re often really crap phones and my old flip phone had better all around phone quality and utility. But at this point I feel annoyed when I have to speak to a person. If I were meant to speak to people I wouldn’t have been born an engineer.

> I think for in the range of 98% of smartphone users the phone is the least useful feature.

Part of the reason this number's so high is that if a phone feature is really important to you, you're liable to get a standalone VoIP line and a headset to go with whatever handset you have rather than using a smartphone.

Yeah certainly the fact they’re universally bad phones makes them less useful as a phone, and phone phones are better at being phones.

But I would also hold that phones generally suck, but that’s opinion.

> But I would also hold that phones generally suck, but that’s opinion.

Technically compared to e.g. internet-native voice communication, or you just think that remote voice communication is bad?

Voice is for jocks.

If those "others" are a small minority, then the parent's point still stands.

I don't think we're that small of a minority. Quite a few people don't actively use any social media, and taking memento photos is an unusual activity for many people, done mostly when going on rare vacations if at all. That leaves purely utilitarian photo taking, like uploading checks or taking a picture to help you remember where you parked your car.

Those people perhaps don't buy fancy smartphones though, but more like "purely utilitarian" ones? Whereas this subthread is about the possibility of the Apple Watch replacing the smartphone for iPhone users...

No, a lot of people like I describe buy iphones simply because they're fashionable. If fashions change, they could be well served by a smart watch instead.

But there’s no technical reason a stand-alone watch couldn’t be an option for those who actually want it.

Sure, but

> The Apple Watch could be the next big thing that replaces the smartphone

I simply don't think is true.

You might not, but I have gone entire days with only my LTE Apple watch.

I can take calls, play music (wirelessly through my airpods), crudely reply to messages (it's only a little awkward, surprisingly usable) and pay for things without my phone.

For web-browsing, I don't need to do that all the time.

I use my camera a sum total of twice a month.

I don't think I'm special.

There are people who'd be able to get by with a watch, but as an alternate perspective:

- 99% of my messaging is through text, the other 1% is video calling - Most of my causal web browsing is on my phone - I've taken thousands of pictures on my phone in the last year.

Most of my friends are like this as well.

I’m sure thats true, in fact, I’m certain of it.

most of the use of my phone is mobile web-browsing.

I can honestly live without that sometimes, especially as phones are getting large enough that you might as well have a tablet that you lug around sometimes.

And it indeed exists: PineTime.

I don’t think either can do it alone, but Watch + [ AR glasses or tablet + earbuds ] could more directly replace a smartphone.

Yeah, AR glasses are what will actually be the Next Smartphone, as far as rapidly attaining ubiquity. If they can fix the bulkiness and battery life issues, anyway. And sure, decent chance that'll involve tethering the glasses to some kind of watch where the actual brains and long-range radios live. Or to a smartphone or tablet that you can leave in a pocket or bag all the time (why wear a watch when the AR glasses could just paint a fake one on your wrist?)

But won't people feel uncomfortable being seen with AR glasses, at least for the next few years? They would have to be completely transparent, no impediment to eye contact, very small and fashionable, and so incredibly useful people would be willing to deal with any judgemental glares they got.

Depends what kind of form factor they can get them to. I've got a pair of these, and they look close enough to regular Ray-Bans that nobody realizes there's cameras on them: https://www.ray-ban.com/usa/ray-ban-stories

Smartphones drew the same judgmental glares for a few years. If you were holding them up to use them, people'd think you were recording and would be irritated or upset. If you were recording, they're really be unhappy with you. People talking on or looking at cell phones in public at all were usually coded as "asshole" in basically all media in the 90s and 00s, and that pretty much reflected popular opinion.

By the early 20-teens, though, all that was just normal and everyone was doing it.

I am more thinking the next 10 years than 30.

AR glasses have issues with UI, comfort, style, and durability even if you fix the more core issues of weight, battery life, etc.

Until they have rainbows end tech I don’t think this will be true. Wearing glasses is a bug, not a feature.

This is likely, but I'm willing to bet any Apple AR device will require an iPhone for the foreseeable future too though

What does any of that have to do with Apple requiring people to have an iPhone to use their watch? Maybe you don't want an iPhone and are satisfied with the functionality of the watch alone. Maybe you have one of the zillions of Android phones out there and don't want an iPhone for that reason. Literally no other smart watch that I know of requires that you have a phone of any kind, so I just don't see any reason for Apple to require it with their watch.

I don’t use any of those features and the smartphone has become garbage for web browsing so I’m not sure I need one at all.

I'm sorry your comment doesn't apply to 99% of the general population.

I would be more concerned about this if the competition in this space was not so disappointing this far. I think there are good smartwatches in the Android space, but none of them are great, and none of them have challenged the Apple Watch in terms of feature set and quality. And Apple hasn’t sat on its laurels here. They keep making the watch a more desirable device. To me, it seems like they know they can get people to consider switching if they want the watch. And the market keeps rewarding them. I had a Moto360 early on and loved it. It was a competitor to the Apple Watch only by virtue of being an electronic watch.

It would be nice if Apple would make the watch accessible to people without iPhones. I would certainly believe their rhetoric about the importance of health tech if they did that.

> I would be more concerned about this if the competition in this space was not so disappointing this far.

Why does less competition make you less concerned about anti-competitive behavior? Such behavior is never good, but it's self-correcting in a market with lots of choice, and not so in a market where there's only one great option (a judgment for which I have to take your word—a Casio F-91W is the right level of watch technology for me).

Anti-competitive behavior is absolutely bad, no question, but the problem doesn't come across to me as Apple pushing competitors out of the market. It feels like other Smartwatch makers don't care to match the feature set or don't care to do it as well as Apple. When viewing market from an ecosystem point-of-view, there aren't comparable pairings of Android-phone-with-wearOS-Watch to iPhone-with-Apple-Watch. There are similar pairings: Samsung's watch products with Samsung phones, and the Pixel Watch with a Pixel phone. But are either of those comprehensive in their respective ecosystems?

My point is, nobody seems to be fighting for this market except Apple. I could just be naive here, but it doesn't seem like anyone else cares enough for Apple to be anti-competitive.

> My point is, nobody seems to be fighting for this market except Apple. I could just be naive here, but it doesn't seem like anyone else cares enough for Apple to be anti-competitive.

You're right; I used the term "anti-competitive behavior", but that was the wrong word for what I was trying to say. I meant rather the lazy behavior of an established giant that doesn't have to compete, and so is content to let standards slip since they can be reasonably confident that it won't lose them any, or many, customers.

> think there are good smartwatches in the Android space, but none of them are great

How much of that is limited by the API that Google is surfacing? Watches simply cannot compete with an Apple Watch because Apple doesn't surface the same functionality for any other device.

It seems like Apple is an "all or nothing" kind of thing. Either you have everything by Apple and it is great, or you have none of it.

A very common reason Apple fans give for why they buy Apple is that all their devices work so well together. And I tend to agree with them. This is their market, they don't want to make efforts to accommodate others.

And why would they? They already have the best market, loyal customers with a lot of money to spend. They don't want to bring in cheap people, offer them a subpar experience because they won't enjoy the benefits of a tightly integrated ecosystem, just to have them complain and never buy again.

Competitors will arrive, and Apple will gladly let them feed on the bottom, but Apple is still safe in its market. And I can't really see the Apple TV serve as a "gateway drug" to the Apple ecosystem like the iPhone can. As for the Apple Watch, like any smartwatch, it is simply too small to stand alone. It is hard to find phones less than 6 inch now, because people want bigger phones for a variety of reasons: bigger screen, better camera, bigger battery, etc... You definitely won't replace it with a 2 inch watch.

I agree with your point, except that I think this is a poor example of your point. This is pretty clearly just a poor implementation of this particular user interaction. I have a feeling their legal department decided they needed to send out this terms of service requirement and they didn’t have any decent UI in the Apple TV to let you view and accept terms. This modal is probably the best thing they could throw together on their end. I’ve been an Apple TV user for many years and this is the first time I remember seeing a modal like this pop up out of nowhere.

I don’t think this has anything do with trying to force Apple TV users to have an iPhone. It’s a buggy and annoying user interaction even if you do have an iPhone. For one thing, it seems to require every user on your Apple Family Sharing plan to accept the terms, which means it will show me the modal for my wife’s account when she’s not around. She has an iPhone, but this is still an absurd experience. Also, it’s just clearly buggy and inconsistent. Sometimes I’ll be watching something for an hour and when I go to the home screen it will show three identical modals one after the other.

Apple isn’t interested in that. They want you to “buy in” into their ecosystem wholesale. Making Apple products easier to use independently would also make it easier to leave their ecosystem. They rely on the extra friction caused by combining Apple with non-Apple products.

This.

I seldom, if ever, carry my iPhone outside my house. My Apple Watch with cellular is enough for internet connectivity when away from home.

In my perfect world, I could provision my Apple Watch as a standalone device, and I could get a MacBook with an eSIM.

> I seldom, if ever, carry my iPhone outside my house.

This is such an extreme outlier behavior, nobody is designing products around it. Pretty much everyone who owns a smartphone carries it around everywhere, because why not.

Not OP but I know quite a few people who really do not like to carry their phone around.

I couldn't understand this for the longest time until I asked my sister, who kept handing her phone to me to hold on to while on a family trip, about this one day. Apparently, a lot of women's clothing doesn't have "usable" pockets (they're tiny or fake...)! And with the size of modern phones, it's actually often quite a nuisance to carry around a phone.

While this may not be OP's situation, I would guess this might be one reason for the proliferation of cellular-enabled smart watches...

I think macbook with eSIM could land once the OS has good controls over the network usage. Carriers aren’t gonna let those things run wild

Just bill me by bandwidth used. It is ridiculous that one cannot buy a MacBook Pro with a cell modem. I fight with tethering at least once a week.

I think its less about money and more about network capacity and also ensuring your average mac user can leave it on without running up a surprise bill. Until users have good control with sane defaults it wont happen

You can buy a Dell with a cell modem. It’s more likely about the patent/royalty situation with Qualcomm. If Apple starts making their own cell modems, they will start putting them in laptops.

Dell also cares less about users sim card bills. Apple is the kind of company that just wants it to be done right.

I remain unconvinced that it has anything to do with Apple thinking about the user’s mobile data bill. Watch what happens when Apple is no longer entangled with Qualcomm royalties.

Though I do like the idea that this is why tethering to my iPhone is so flaky. It isn’t due to bugs, it is because Apple cares about my mobile data bill!

i had a windows laptop with inbuilt 4G modem, was great fpr business travel. Had better reception than a phone.

Many business people use mac and would love this. Really weired

Yep. I am very, intimately familiar with the inner workings of carriers. But one can dream.

> Having worked at Apple I feel like this is a mortal risk they are taking.

Serious question: On this business topic, how does it matter that you were a software engineer (according to your HN bio) at Apple?

Just trying to briefly qualify my viewpoint with my experience of apple. But your right, anyones opinion here as a consumer is equally valid.

I’ve built my product career working on projects that present risks to the status quo for companies.

This isn’t unique to Apple. Not to defend them specifically, but a company willing to focus on long term is the exception.

Most companies have leaders that are given goals that constrain them to short term gains. It drives truly suboptimal long-term decision making, but it also usually aligns with their incentives.

Changing that view takes (1) an existential threat, (2) a lot of data, and (3) a team that can execute quickly and reliably once a window opens.

The iphone started out as a dependent of a computer (mac only at first? I don't remember). There are a number of settings on the watch that can be modified on the watch, but originally could be modified only on the phone.

You can set up a watch for a family member who doesn't have a phone, but you do have to do that from your iphone.

Not that I have any thoughts on where Apple might go with this; this is just FYI.

Except, the Apple Watch with its own cellular data plan is a standalone device, sending and receiving phone calls, emails, and texts. I like to leave my iPhone at home when I leave my house if I don’t need a camera.

They will cut the cord eventually.

Remember, iPods required a Mac at first. Then a Mac or a PC. Then neither.

You worked for Apple yet you don’t know how tightly the Apple Watch is tied to the iPhone for functionality to offload responsibilities to save battery life for instance

They're doing the same with Mac and iPad - by denying some software on each platform, they're forcing you to buy both if you want both classes of software.

To be fair Google is doing the exact same thing, I was interested in their new Pixel Watch but it requires an Android device to use..

> The Apple Watch could be the next big thing that replaces the smartphone

I feel like this is a technological limitation of sorts.