alt Hacker NewsHonestly I have owned two Apple Watches and you are missing nothing. They do look nice if that’s your taste, but they are extremely locked down and are pretty useless without an iPhone. I cannot cite even one application that is a killer app on the Apple Watch. Most apps are just a companion for the iOS part of the app.
YMMV, but I have a Watch for:
- checking the time (obviously)
- sleep tracking
- high heart rate warnings
- sleep and heart rate trends over time
- reviewing notifications or declining calls without grabbing phone
None of these are "killer apps" but they're conveniences. I like having an accurate source of time that I don't have to pick something up for. I like being able to track my sleep schedule and duration over time. I like to know when my heart rate is high so I can take steps to quiet down. I don't use many of the other features, maybe some sparingly, but I've never really used the Watch for its apps anyway. And I think only the last feature on my list, maybe the last two, needs iPhone.
I've had to go without my Watch for the better part of half a year because it's refurbished and I've been trying to diagnose an Apple Developer Program enrollment issue, and Apple won't tell me which device was previously used so I have to rule out everything I didn't purchase brand new, etc., but I still constantly feel its absence. It's just a convenience but it was a welcome one.
Note that the Watch did previously require an iPhone for initial setup, but it does not anymore.