What Can the Apple Watch Do Without an iPhone?

The Apple Watch is a companion to the iPhone, but if you want to leave your phone at home or in your car and make it mobile without carrying the iPhone with you, there are some things the Apple Watch can do without the iPhone. This is even more practical with the Apple Watch 3 with LTE.

You can’t do everything on the Apple Watch as you do on the iPhone, but you can do a lot. With the new LTE options, you can leave the Apple Watch at home and do more than before. If you buy a WiFi-only Apple Watch, you’ll be limited to what you can do, but there are a few other things you can do without your iPhone, thanks to the built-in GPS.

The list of things the Apple Watch can do without taking your iPhone out of your pocket is much longer, but for those times when you don’t want to carry the iPhone with you, take a look at what the Apple Watch can do without the iPhone. .

Play Music Without iPhone

If you want to work in the garden or go for a run and listen to music on the Apple Watch, you’re in luck. Apple Watch connects to Bluetooth headphones to play locally stored music. This only works with Apple Music, but you can also store some podcasts and your own music on the Apple Watch.

You have limited storage on Apple Watch. You can stream Apple Music to Apple Watch with WiFi or LTE on Series 3.

Apple Watch connects directly to Bluetooth headphones, so you can train with just the Apple Watch and a pair of Bluetooth headphones. You can control the music with your Apple Watch and possibly the buttons on most Bluetooth headphones.

Text and Speech on Apple Watch

If you have a Series 3 LTE model, you can answer a call on Apple Watch without your iPhone. On WiFi-only models, you can also answer a call while near your iPhone, but it still needs to be pretty close for that. With the Apple Watch 3 LTE, you can send texts and iMessages without your iPhone.

Time, Alarm and Clock Functions

Use Apple Watch features that you can do on almost any watch without an iPhone.

It’s no surprise that the Apple Watch continues to work as a watch without the iPhone. Of course you’ll need to keep it charged for this to work, but as long as you have battery life you can see the time, your alarms will work, and you can use watch functions like a timer or stopwatch.

Track Runs by Distance

When you start using Apple Watch for fitness, you need to carry iPhone with you so that Apple Watch knows how far you’ve run. You can also track many other exercises and activities. You get GPS with the Apple Watch 2 and Apple Watch 3. This will follow your specific route and better track your workouts.

Show Photos

See photos without your iPhone at hand.

The Apple Watch screen is small, but you can still use it as a small portable photo frame to show photos.

Apple Watch can hold a small number of photos that you can look at or share with a friend or colleague.

Just remember proper Apple Watch etiquette and keep your little holiday slideshows to a minimum.

This won’t be a big deal as you can only store a limited number of photos on the Apple Watch.

Calendar Reminders and Events

After you set up Apple Watch and connect it to iPhone, Apple Watch will remember your event and calendar information so it can alert you to upcoming appointments.

You get calendar alerts on your Apple Watch even when you’re out and about without your iPhone.

This is especially useful if you forget to take your iPhone with you while running, or if you rush out of the office and leave your iPhone behind. It’s unclear whether you can add a new appointment to Apple Watch without an iPhone, as Siri requires an Internet connection to work.

Using Apple Pay on Apple Watch Without iPhone

Apple Watch supports Apple Pay, which lets you make mobile payments with a credit or debit card linked to your Passbook account. You need to set this up on iPhone and have a compatible Apple Pay bank and a store that accepts Apple Pay or NFC payments for this to work.

Once this is set, Apple Watch should store a tokenized version of your Apple Pay credit or debit card so you can bring your hand near the credit card reader to pay. An important thing to remember about this is that if you remove the Apple Watch, you need to enter a password On iPhone to unlock Apple Watch.

Use Apple Wallet Passes

Use Passbook on Apple Watch without iPhone.

You can use Apple Wallet cards on Apple Watch without an iPhone connected. Assuming you already have your boarding pass or movie ticket on your Apple Watch, you can go to the movies or board a plane without your iPhone. Second, it sounds like a useful feature if you lose your iPhone, but it’s not something we’d implement on purpose.

The wallet can also hold a gift card to use at some stores, to hold your loyalty cards and other pass cards. You will need to install them on the iPhone first.

Use Apple Watch Apps on LTE or WiFi

If you leave your iPhone at the office or at home, you can use your apps as long as the Apple Watch is connected to WiFi or is your LTE model. This lets you browse Instagram, check your email, check the weather, and use any Apple Watch app without your iPhone in your hand or pocket.

What Does Apple Watch Do?

There are many things the Apple Watch can do without the iPhone, but the list of what it can do while connected to your iPhone is much longer. You need an iPhone 5 or later to use the Apple Watch, and if you don’t own an Apple Watch, there’s not much you can use it for.

Check out the slides below to see what the Apple Watch can do with an iPhone.