A Day Without My iPhone: An Experiment with Apple Watch

As I sat at Starbucks, waiting for my order to be picked up, I realized that I had forgotten something my wife had texted me through my Apple watch. She had let me get some teething bones for the dogs, and I needed to go back and grab them. I pulled out my wallet and used Apple Pay to complete the purchase with my watch. The process was seamless, and I was grateful that Starbucks had an Apple Watch app.

As I waited at Starbucks, I felt a bit tired, so I decided to pick up some Starbucks again. Fortunately, they did have an Apple Watch app, which allowed me to use it to pay for my drink through the drive-thru. The process was quick and easy, and I was able to complete the transaction without having to take out my iPhone.

However, as I sat at Starbucks, I couldn't help but feel a bit restless. It's not usual for me to have to sit there and wait for five minutes before getting my order. I felt like a millennial, constantly checking my phone and scrolling through feeds. It was nice to be able to put my iPhone away and just wait.

To break the monotony of waiting, I decided to take a quick jog around the block. I hopped on the bike that was set up in front of my house, which had been tracked by my Apple watch. The workout was brief, but it got my heart rate up and helped me feel more energized. As I jogged, I could still communicate with my wife through our Apple watches.

After my jog, I went inside to start making dinner. As I was setting the table, I realized that using my Apple watch to set a timer would be unnecessary. Instead, I used my HomePod and Siri to set the timer, which was much easier and more convenient. It's amazing how many tasks can be handled with just voice commands.

One thing that did throw me for a loop was needing to look up some substitutions and recipes for dinner. Since I didn't have my iPhone handy, I had to pull out my iPad instead. While it was a bit inconvenient, the Paprika app on my iPad helped me find what I needed quickly and easily.

As the day went on, I found myself missing my iPhone more and more. Giving Harrison a bath is one of my favorite activities, but without my iPhone's camera, I couldn't take any photos or videos to capture the moment. Luckily, my wife was able to take some photos with her phone, but it wasn't the same.

As I sat down on the couch to relax, I wanted to read the news and catch up on what had been happening throughout the day. However, without my iPhone, I couldn't do that. Instead, I found myself doing more activities with my wife and the dogs than I normally would have. We spent more time in our garden, weeding and hanging out with the chickens.

Overall, my experiment with using only my Apple watch for a day was a mixed bag. While it had its benefits, such as convenience and ease of use, there were also moments when I felt like I was missing out on important tasks or activities that required my iPhone. However, it did give me a chance to appreciate how much technology has advanced and how far Apple's watches have come in recent years.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enI treated this for this for an entire day this is my 24 hour Apple watch challenge welcome everybody to Apple Insider it is Andrew here and I want to ask you a question could you ditch your iPhone and solely use an Apple watch this is something that I wanted to find out if it was all possible so I tried it and these are my results before we get started let's acknowledge a few things and how this whole process worked first I'm using an Apple Watch Ultra if you were using an older Apple watch that had compromised battery life or even just a smaller version of the Apple watch this may not even been possible you may run out of battery life throughout the whole day especially using it as much as I was so that's definitely something to take into consideration the larger Apple watch Ultra made a lot of this possible I also have a cellular data plan if you're leaving your house without your iPhone your Apple watch is going to do deadly without having a data plan you're not going to text you're not going to take phone calls you're not going to stream any music you're gonna do whatever your watch can do and that's it no accessing data in any way so that's definitely a big part of it I would not have been able to do any of this if I didn't have that data plan so those two things are important to know before we even get started for anyone who also has been following this channel for a while you may already know too I'm a type 1 diabetic which means I'm insulin dependent I use an insulin pump and I wear a constant glucose monitor to moderate blood sugar throughout the day right now it's not possible to slowly rely on Apple watch for this the Dexcom g7c GM connects to my iPhone which then transmits that information to my Apple watch there's no direct connection between the Dexcom gcgm and my Apple watch so for this entire day I did not have access to my CGM data on my watch that's a big thing but Dexcom says they're working on it and there'll be an update for the G7 that will allow a direct connection with Apple watch you can move between your phone and your Apple watch leaving your iPhone behind relying solely on the watch but for right now wasn't even possible but I didn't want to go into too much detail on it because I know it's a little bit of a niche situation that said let's go ahead and take a look at my day relying solely on the Apple watch I feel like I started out my day great I woke up in the morning and snooze my alarm that had risen up on my Apple watch I always wear my Apple watch to bed for sleep tracking purposes so I already had it on had my alarm built in great good start to the day I looked through the notifications there was nothing really pressing that I'd come through overnight though there were a couple emails that I wanted to address really quickly so I did do those from bed before I even had gotten up fortunately there's a little of nauseous it's a little hard to type longer emails on the Apple watch the new swiping keyboard definitely makes it easier but it's still not a super easy thing to do I could have done this so much faster had I just been using my iPhone I moved on to the kitchen make some coffee while I was making coffee I do what I kind of instinctually do and go to check social media but I didn't have my iPhone so I tried to use my Apple watch there is no Tick Tock app or anything like that on Apple watch and there's no Twitter native client either so I did use chirp so I could check on trending topics my feed any mentions anything like that from my Apple watch but chirp is still pretty minimal and I didn't get much of a Twitter experience I feel like I barely got my fellow social media the same thing applied to Apple news Apple news on the Apple watch is pretty Bare Bones it shows you like the five major headlines from the day and the lead but if you want to read anything else you gotta transferred over your iPhone especially if I'm using my Apple watch solely without an iPhone I kind of wish I could consume more news on I wouldn't mind sitting there and reading a little bit more while I'm waiting for something whether it's in the car while I'm aiming for my coffee anything else it's something that happened a lot throughout my day I then made my way down to the studio and this is where I felt like I got a good fill for the day because I could just rely on my Mac rather than my iPhone I can text message email check on Twitter everything from my Mac without using my iPhone I swear it's not cheating because your Apple watch is never gonna be a Mac replacement this is solely about replacing your iPhone so I was able to get onto Twitter I was getting onto everything else I would normally do on my iPhone just on my Mac took care of my banking stuff paid some bills worked edited videos all this stuff I would normally do throughout the day I did it on my Mac without ever having to touch my iPhone by the late afternoon it was time to run some errands so I headed out Studio jumped in the car and was on the road unfortunately no car play so I had to listen to the radio in the car uh it was a little Annoying there's like ads and stuff and I don't like it I want to listen to you know carplay I could have paired my airpods my Apple watch and listened to audiobooks through audible or apple music but I didn't bring them with me so I was like I was stuck just listening to the radio I pull up to Petco and I go in to pick up my payhead order I did a mobile order on the computer so I just had to kind of pull up and grab it but I realized I forgot something my wife texted me came through my Apple watch and she let me get some teething bones for the dogs so I ran back grabbed a bag of bones and gonna check out fortunately real easy just use Apple pay complete the purchase with my watch and head out the door I was then feeling a bit tired so I decided to pick up some Starbucks again really nice because Starbucks does have an Apple Watch app so I opened the Apple Watch app showed me how much balance I had my card fortunately I had funds on there and I was able to just scan the barcode pay for my drink through the drive through and be on my way super easy still just use my Watch but again through all these things waiting for my order to be picked up waiting to light at Starbucks I just wish I had something to kind of occupy my time it's not usual that I had to sit there and just be patient you know I felt kind of very much like a millennial like I couldn't sit there for five minutes and just wait but it does kind of remind you how much of an importance and how much of a addiction your phone can be sometime that you just have to keep looking at it and keep scrolling through feeds so it was kind of nice not doing that for just even a day meeting at home I want to get in a quick workout so I did a very brief jog just to get my heart rate up a little bit before coming back inside use my Apple watch to set my workout scene which would close our front Shades and turn on the lights in the living room hopped on the bike started doing a workout there all tracked via my Apple watch no issues I could still be in communication while I was on the jog I was still at home so I had everything there I could even control my Apple TV using the remote app on the Apple watch though it's a more laborious and I eventually just got up and grabbed the Siri remote because it was easier than constantly moving between it and swiping ground on the Apple watch as I said about making dinner I started to go to set a timer on my Apple watch and I realized that's a dumb idea why use that when I have better devices for it so I just used my homepod using your voice using Siri it was a lot easier that way now one thing that I did run into here was I needed to look up some substitutions and a recipe and I couldn't do that on my iPhone I didn't have it so I did pull out my iPad I swear again it's not cheating people have iPads around their house so I did use my iPad to look up some substitutions and a recipe using the paprika app it got me where I needed to go without having to pull my iPhone out it was by the end of the day that I felt like I missed my phone the most there's a lot of activities that I just couldn't partake in giving Harrison a bath I usually play it's like 90s music while he's getting his bath time and I couldn't play him any music because I didn't have a homepod in there and I didn't have my iPhone speaker I also want to take photos of him as he's crawling around and learning new skills and I couldn't do that either my wife was able to luckily do it on her phone but I couldn't take any pictures because I just had my Apple watch on me and even just as I sat down on the couch to relax I wanted to read things read the news read you know whatever else had been going on throughout the day and I had no way to do that I can move to my iPad but I was really trying to stick with you know not finding workarounds for everything and relying on my Apple watch as much as possible I found myself doing more things that I normally would do just a little longer my wife and I talked more than we normally probably would have you know in the evenings as we're both kind of unwinding for the day I spent more time time in my Garden's weeding that I probably normally would have even spent more time hanging out the chickens while I was feeding them and cleaning their Coop so it was nice to just be away from your phone a little bit and connect with these activities that you do even if you miss out on things like playing music or taking photos I think Apple watch was a great tool and while it's still not going to replace my iPhone yet it is impressive how far it's come in all these years and all these new features let me know what you guys think do you think you could replace your iPhone with an Apple Watch even for a day let me know in the comments or on Twitter at Andrew underscore OSU otherwise stay tuned I got a lot more videos coming your wayI treated this for this for an entire day this is my 24 hour Apple watch challenge welcome everybody to Apple Insider it is Andrew here and I want to ask you a question could you ditch your iPhone and solely use an Apple watch this is something that I wanted to find out if it was all possible so I tried it and these are my results before we get started let's acknowledge a few things and how this whole process worked first I'm using an Apple Watch Ultra if you were using an older Apple watch that had compromised battery life or even just a smaller version of the Apple watch this may not even been possible you may run out of battery life throughout the whole day especially using it as much as I was so that's definitely something to take into consideration the larger Apple watch Ultra made a lot of this possible I also have a cellular data plan if you're leaving your house without your iPhone your Apple watch is going to do deadly without having a data plan you're not going to text you're not going to take phone calls you're not going to stream any music you're gonna do whatever your watch can do and that's it no accessing data in any way so that's definitely a big part of it I would not have been able to do any of this if I didn't have that data plan so those two things are important to know before we even get started for anyone who also has been following this channel for a while you may already know too I'm a type 1 diabetic which means I'm insulin dependent I use an insulin pump and I wear a constant glucose monitor to moderate blood sugar throughout the day right now it's not possible to slowly rely on Apple watch for this the Dexcom g7c GM connects to my iPhone which then transmits that information to my Apple watch there's no direct connection between the Dexcom gcgm and my Apple watch so for this entire day I did not have access to my CGM data on my watch that's a big thing but Dexcom says they're working on it and there'll be an update for the G7 that will allow a direct connection with Apple watch you can move between your phone and your Apple watch leaving your iPhone behind relying solely on the watch but for right now wasn't even possible but I didn't want to go into too much detail on it because I know it's a little bit of a niche situation that said let's go ahead and take a look at my day relying solely on the Apple watch I feel like I started out my day great I woke up in the morning and snooze my alarm that had risen up on my Apple watch I always wear my Apple watch to bed for sleep tracking purposes so I already had it on had my alarm built in great good start to the day I looked through the notifications there was nothing really pressing that I'd come through overnight though there were a couple emails that I wanted to address really quickly so I did do those from bed before I even had gotten up fortunately there's a little of nauseous it's a little hard to type longer emails on the Apple watch the new swiping keyboard definitely makes it easier but it's still not a super easy thing to do I could have done this so much faster had I just been using my iPhone I moved on to the kitchen make some coffee while I was making coffee I do what I kind of instinctually do and go to check social media but I didn't have my iPhone so I tried to use my Apple watch there is no Tick Tock app or anything like that on Apple watch and there's no Twitter native client either so I did use chirp so I could check on trending topics my feed any mentions anything like that from my Apple watch but chirp is still pretty minimal and I didn't get much of a Twitter experience I feel like I barely got my fellow social media the same thing applied to Apple news Apple news on the Apple watch is pretty Bare Bones it shows you like the five major headlines from the day and the lead but if you want to read anything else you gotta transferred over your iPhone especially if I'm using my Apple watch solely without an iPhone I kind of wish I could consume more news on I wouldn't mind sitting there and reading a little bit more while I'm waiting for something whether it's in the car while I'm aiming for my coffee anything else it's something that happened a lot throughout my day I then made my way down to the studio and this is where I felt like I got a good fill for the day because I could just rely on my Mac rather than my iPhone I can text message email check on Twitter everything from my Mac without using my iPhone I swear it's not cheating because your Apple watch is never gonna be a Mac replacement this is solely about replacing your iPhone so I was able to get onto Twitter I was getting onto everything else I would normally do on my iPhone just on my Mac took care of my banking stuff paid some bills worked edited videos all this stuff I would normally do throughout the day I did it on my Mac without ever having to touch my iPhone by the late afternoon it was time to run some errands so I headed out Studio jumped in the car and was on the road unfortunately no car play so I had to listen to the radio in the car uh it was a little Annoying there's like ads and stuff and I don't like it I want to listen to you know carplay I could have paired my airpods my Apple watch and listened to audiobooks through audible or apple music but I didn't bring them with me so I was like I was stuck just listening to the radio I pull up to Petco and I go in to pick up my payhead order I did a mobile order on the computer so I just had to kind of pull up and grab it but I realized I forgot something my wife texted me came through my Apple watch and she let me get some teething bones for the dogs so I ran back grabbed a bag of bones and gonna check out fortunately real easy just use Apple pay complete the purchase with my watch and head out the door I was then feeling a bit tired so I decided to pick up some Starbucks again really nice because Starbucks does have an Apple Watch app so I opened the Apple Watch app showed me how much balance I had my card fortunately I had funds on there and I was able to just scan the barcode pay for my drink through the drive through and be on my way super easy still just use my Watch but again through all these things waiting for my order to be picked up waiting to light at Starbucks I just wish I had something to kind of occupy my time it's not usual that I had to sit there and just be patient you know I felt kind of very much like a millennial like I couldn't sit there for five minutes and just wait but it does kind of remind you how much of an importance and how much of a addiction your phone can be sometime that you just have to keep looking at it and keep scrolling through feeds so it was kind of nice not doing that for just even a day meeting at home I want to get in a quick workout so I did a very brief jog just to get my heart rate up a little bit before coming back inside use my Apple watch to set my workout scene which would close our front Shades and turn on the lights in the living room hopped on the bike started doing a workout there all tracked via my Apple watch no issues I could still be in communication while I was on the jog I was still at home so I had everything there I could even control my Apple TV using the remote app on the Apple watch though it's a more laborious and I eventually just got up and grabbed the Siri remote because it was easier than constantly moving between it and swiping ground on the Apple watch as I said about making dinner I started to go to set a timer on my Apple watch and I realized that's a dumb idea why use that when I have better devices for it so I just used my homepod using your voice using Siri it was a lot easier that way now one thing that I did run into here was I needed to look up some substitutions and a recipe and I couldn't do that on my iPhone I didn't have it so I did pull out my iPad I swear again it's not cheating people have iPads around their house so I did use my iPad to look up some substitutions and a recipe using the paprika app it got me where I needed to go without having to pull my iPhone out it was by the end of the day that I felt like I missed my phone the most there's a lot of activities that I just couldn't partake in giving Harrison a bath I usually play it's like 90s music while he's getting his bath time and I couldn't play him any music because I didn't have a homepod in there and I didn't have my iPhone speaker I also want to take photos of him as he's crawling around and learning new skills and I couldn't do that either my wife was able to luckily do it on her phone but I couldn't take any pictures because I just had my Apple watch on me and even just as I sat down on the couch to relax I wanted to read things read the news read you know whatever else had been going on throughout the day and I had no way to do that I can move to my iPad but I was really trying to stick with you know not finding workarounds for everything and relying on my Apple watch as much as possible I found myself doing more things that I normally would do just a little longer my wife and I talked more than we normally probably would have you know in the evenings as we're both kind of unwinding for the day I spent more time time in my Garden's weeding that I probably normally would have even spent more time hanging out the chickens while I was feeding them and cleaning their Coop so it was nice to just be away from your phone a little bit and connect with these activities that you do even if you miss out on things like playing music or taking photos I think Apple watch was a great tool and while it's still not going to replace my iPhone yet it is impressive how far it's come in all these years and all these new features let me know what you guys think do you think you could replace your iPhone with an Apple Watch even for a day let me know in the comments or on Twitter at Andrew underscore OSU otherwise stay tuned I got a lot more videos coming your way\n"