When Apple announced the Apple Watch Series 6 and Apple Watch SE, it gave the example of using the Apple Watch as a way to keep in touch and keep track of elderly and young family members without the need for an iPhone, I was sold on the idea. 

My 70+-year-old mom still goes to the farm to tend to the animals every day and help out our nearby family and friends, despite the pandemic, because she still drives. She and I both use an iPhone so we could know where the other is and we can do FaceTime calls. However, her little armoured up iPhone SE is often misplaced in the house or is hopelessly lost in the labyrinthian depth of my mom’s handbag.

The Apple Watch seems like the perfect solution. It can do most of the basic functions of the iPhone like take and make calls, use Find My, and receive messages. As a bonus, it could also track my mum’s health, remind her to wash her hands, and detect if she had a fall and needs help. That last feature can save lives.

To use the Apple Watch to its fullest, it requires an LTE connection, so it can be independant of an iPhone. Some Telcos here in Malaysia offer the service of using the same number on my iPhone as my Apple Watch, for a small monthly fee.

The issue is they do not offer a service for the Apple Watch only and they do not offer the extra Apple Watch service for a supplementary line. That means the only way for this to work is for me to pay extra, upgrade my mum’s phone line to the main account, and pay that monthly fee for the Apple Watch service. 

This also means that Apple’s proposed use case of using the Apple SE as a standalone communication device for elderly and young family members is impossible to implement here in Malaysia. And that sucks. 

Currently, I am using the Apple Watch Series 6 while my mum is using a fully armoured up Apple Watch Series 5. She has it set up to display the time and the date in the largest digits the watch has options for. 

With the iPhone at the bottom of the handbag, she could still receive calls and messages. But, she is still not used to the lag when the phone and the watch makes a connection at the start of a call. She also uses the watch to find the phone. 

There is a lot of potential in the Apple Watch to be a useful tool to keep in touch, staying safe, staying healthy, and saving lives. Potential that his held back by bureaucracy (we still don’t have ECG and Apple Pay) and Telcos (no Apple Watch only Service).

Although in Malaysia the Apple Watch is still tethered to the iPhone, there is still a lot of reasons to get one. My cousin who rides bicycles has an older model to keep track of his activities, some of the photographers at the paper wear the SE because it is an invaluable communication tool while on in the field. 

The Apple Watch can do a lot of things, although limitations are imposed on it, and you might not use all of its features, it can still be indispensable.