When buying a new Apple Watch, one of the questions you may ask yourself is whether your iPhone is compatible to be able to link them. There are some limitations when it comes to external hardware that you may be unaware of. In this article we explain all the iPhones that are compatible with the Apple Watch.
iPhone compatible with Apple Watch
Among one of the requirements that are needed to use the Apple Watch is necessary to have a fully compatible iPhone and all are not. To give you an idea, the list of devices that are compatible with Apple smart watches is as follows:
- iPhone 6s and 6s Plus.
- iPhone SE.
- iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.
- iPhone 8 and 8 Plus.
- iPhone X.
- iPhone XS and XS Max.
- iPhone XR.
- iPhone 11, 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max.
- Second generation iPhone SE.
In any of these devices, as long as they are updated, the corresponding ‘Clock’ application will appear to make the pairing. If you have a previous device, you will not have access to these functions and therefore you will not be able to configure any type of smart watch. This can be basically due to the limitations in terms of operating systems that those older computers have as they cannot be updated anymore, and some have even been left without support.
Requirements in the watchOS version
In addition to there being limitations at the hardware level, it is logical to think that there are also limitations at the software level. But at the moment it is not like that, since at the moment all versions of the operating system for the Apple Watch, watchOS, are compatible with all the devices that we have previously discussed. Until watchOS 7 the requirements to be installed is to have an iPhone 6s or later with iOS 14. The problem will eventually come to an end when an older device does not update to the latest version of iOS. This is where the bottleneck will be present, since as this requirement is not met, a clock will not be able to be used nor can it be updated to the latest version due to the dependency that exists between both operating systems to function.
Dependency between iOS and watchOS
One of the problems that occurs when a new version of watchOS comes out is its dependency on iOS. Both operating systems go hand in hand at all times and it is always required to have the generations that have come out together installed. For example, if you are using an Apple Watch with watchOS 6, you need iOS 13 installed on the iPhone.
This may be due to the fact that to link the clock to the iPhone it is necessary to have the native iPhone application ‘Clock’ to be able to perform the configuration. It is also a reality that they are dependent computers to function by collecting data and copying notifications from the mobile itself. That is why you always have to have both computers fully updated so that they work correctly to the latest version available. Otherwise, the two computers may not be paired or may not work properly. This can be a problem for jailbreak lovers or who just don’t want to keep evolving with each update for fear of bugs. This means that if a new watch is acquired, it must be obligatorily updated so that the pairing can be carried out.
