×
Gadgets
Lifestyle
Gaming
×
Apple watch on someone's wrist as they are driving

Time for an Upgrade?: The Benefits of Apple Watches

Multitask Like a Pro

The Apple Watch combines nearly all of the capabilities of your iPhone into a wearable wristwatch. It’s a convenience factor, for one. With a quick glance at your wrist, you can you tell the time, and see if you have any incoming messages, calls, and a number of other items.

You might have found this article when trying to discover if you need an Apple Watch. The answer is no, not really. By the end of this article, however, you may want an Apple Watch due to the number of ways they make multitasking a lot easier. It’s literally an iPhone on your wrist. But don’t think of it as an entirely separate device from your iPhone, because ideally, you pair it with your iPhone.

So let’s look at all the capabilities of Apple Watch, so you can decide if it’s the right choice for you.

Placing and Receiving Calls

For many people it’s a little inconvenient to pull out their phone on the street to take a call. Sometimes traffic is so loud we don’t even hear our phones ringing in our pocket. With the Apple Watch, it’s really just a matter of glancing at your wrist and pressing a button to receive an incoming call. Or, if you want to make a call, you just dial the number on the watch’s touchscreen.

Now, you might be thinking, “Wait, so I have to hold my watch up to my face and talk into it? That sounds a bit silly.” It might look a little silly talking into your watch in public, but you’re not limited to that method. You can pair the Apple Watch with a Bluetooth headset, or receive the call on your Apple Watch, and then switch it over to your iPhone to talk normally.

GPS Navigation

Ever get off at the wrong bus stop and wondered where exactly you are? I know I have. With an Apple Watch you can just pull up Google Maps, or your GPS app of choice, and figure things out from there. Then, you’ll just need to look at your wrist every so often to follow the GPS route to your destination instead of holding your phone in front of your face.

Use It as a Remote Control

There are numerous electronics that an iPhone can control, such as Apple TV, Siri, and HomeKit, but nobody really walks around their house carrying their iPhone to control all their lights and fans. With the Apple Watch, you have a remote control for all of those devices on your wrist. It’s that simple.

Fitness and Health Tracking

For the fitness-inclined, the Apple Watch can track all sorts of things about your daily lifestyle: miles jogged, calories burned, heart-rate monitoring, and more. Newer models have improved water resistance, so you can even include swimming in your workout tracking.

The only drawback is that Apple recommends charging you Apple Watch every night, so they don’t have sleep-cycle tracking built in. However, you could download a third-party fitness app for that, but for sleep-cycle tracking you may be better off with a dedicated fitness tracker like a Fitbit.

Paying on the Go

“Tap-to-pay” hasn’t exactly exploded across the United States, though it has in many other countries. The idea is that your Apple Watch stores your bank card information, and when you want to pay for something at a “tap-to-pay” enabled vendor, you just tap a button on your watch and hold it up to the terminal.

This does present a risk factor if ever your Apple Watch is lost or stolen, but you can very easily disable all of your bank information using your iPhone or internet browser. You just open the iCloud app from your iPhone, for example, and disable Apple Pay.

Final Verdict

With all of the above features, and many others not mentioned in this article, it’s hard to deny that the Apple Watch is certainly useful, and offers the convenience of having an iPhone on your wrist. For the sheer convenience factor, especially if you’re carrying groceries or walking the dog and can’t exactly hold your iPhone in your hand, it is worth it.

On the other hand, the convenience factor may not be enough to convince you, and that’s perfectly fine. The Apple Watch doesn’t offer anything that an iPhone doesn’t already do, so it’s not exactly a life-changing device. Instead, it adds a layer of convenience. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide if it’s worth the price tag.