“A survey of how U.S. consumers use their smartwatches produced mostly unsurprising results,” Ben Lovejoy reports for 9to5Mac. “Notifications and texts are of course the most frequent use, with activity-tracking number two.”
“But one stat did rather jump out at me: NPD’s data, collated by Statista, claims that a full 26% of smartwatch owners use them ‘daily’ for phone calls,” Lovejoy reports. “”
“While current Apple Watch models don’t have the ability to handle standalone calls, they do allow you to make or receive iPhone calls on your watch provided that it’s within range,” Lovejoy reports. “This isn’t expected to change even with the upcoming LTE model, which is reported to limit use of the eSIM to data connections.”
Read more, and participate in the poll, here.
MacDailyNews Take: We only find ourselves taking phone calls on Apple Watch when our iPhone isn’t handy (buried in a pocket or bag) and, especially, when we expect the call to be a quick one. It’s definitely not a daily thing for us, but it is, perhaps, a weekly occurrence. Frankly, we don’t use voice calling that much anyway, even on our (misnamed) iPhones or any other “telephone.” We conduct more voice calls on our Macs than we do on anything else.
We do want to be able to make/take any emergency calls while without our iPhones (say, on a run) with our Apple Watches, but we’ll settle for data – as long as we can communicate via text with our Apple Watches (as we do now, but without our iPhones present), we’ll be all set.
Excellent and well-reasoned Take, MDN!
If you work where there is a WiFi LAN you can leave your iPhone in your desk, locker, etc. and if your iPhone is on it, the Watch will as well and can follow you around the campus.
I work in a Hospital where use of personal phones is frowned upon in any public area. When I get to work I put my iPhone on the local WiFi and put it away. The Watch will follow.
Here is the Apple Support info for doubters
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204562
That’s cool. Have you experienced any kind of lag/latency in the voice when you make/accept calls on your Apple Watch?
I personally only use my watch to occasionally receive phone calls if I am away from my iPhone, like in another room. If I am sitting at my desk in my office, my preferred method of taking calls is on my iPad Pro