This iPod-shaped case will change how you consider the Apple Watch

The tinyPod, an Apple Watch case that synthesizes rising curiosity in dumbphones and retro tech into one trendy gimmick, has made me assume loads about my wrist.

I’ve grown accustomed to carrying a watch since I began carrying one in center faculty, and in the previous couple of years, I’ve gotten extra hooked up to the Apple Watch than I anticipated to. My wrist feels empty with out one. On reflection, that is not all that stunning — it acts as every little thing from a bedside clock to a health tracker day-after-day.

The tinyPod’s capacity to show that smartwatch into one thing that appears and works extra like an iPod, however continues to be able to most of the duties of an iPhone, is an attention-grabbing experiment in restraint. However utilizing the tinyPod, I used to be much less shocked to study that you should utilize the Apple Watch as a second, extra distraction-free telephone, and extra shocked at how not having my Apple Watch made me really feel.

There is a decidedly mechanical element to this case

The tinyPod appears like a traditional iPod. That is completely intentional. The case is available in three sizes; 41/40mm, 45/40mm, or 49mm relying on the scale of your Apple Watch (tinyPod helps the Apple Watch Series 4 and up). In case you’re wanting to avoid wasting cash or aren’t enamored with the case’s key gimmick, there’s additionally a mushy rubber model of the case and not using a scroll wheel known as the tinyPod Lite.

The tinyPod prices $79 for the 2 smaller sizes, and $89 for the bigger 49mm possibility. The tinyPod Lite is $29 for the smaller sizes, and $39 for the 49mm mannequin. New orders for the tinyPod are speculated to ship in three to 6 weeks, providing you with loads of time to supply a brand new or refurbished Apple Watch in the event you do not have already got one. For my functions, I opted to place my Apple Watch Series 7, which has been a devoted companion for years, at this level.

In accordance with its creator Newar, the tinyPod went from an experiment to an precise product on the again of its scroll wheel, which emulates the resistance of the mechanical scroll wheel on the very first iPod. It feels good, with a clean movement, however a textured floor that feels attention-grabbing to swipe throughout, even when it takes some getting used to. It is also one of many extra sophisticated components of the case.

From what I can inform, there is a pulley connecting the scroll wheel on the backside of the case to a gear that rests in opposition to the Digital Crown alongside the within. Scrolling one scrolls the opposite, with the Apple Watch haptics vibrating by means of the case so as to add to the impact. The middle of the tinyPod scroll wheel is stable plastic and does not click on, however in any other case the case affords 1:1 management over the Digital Crown. You are still capable of push the Apple Watch’s foremost button on the facet of the tinyPod, and its bigger facet button, too. The remainder of the case is shiny plastic, rounded corners, and a easy backplate that holds the Apple Watch in place and retains the entire thing collectively.

You need to do issues like flip off wrist detection and rotate the orientation of your Apple Watch to make it work within the case, however when you do, you will have somewhat, phone-like machine to play with. It was proper round then that I spotted that the Apple Watch actually needs to be a watch.

The Apple Watch can do loads, but it surely’s restricted

You have already got a smartphone in your wrist

The tinyPod remedy of the Apple Watch as a standalone machine is predicated on actuality. Smartwatches are very advanced in 2024. They will have mobile radios, run shrunken-down variations of highly effective cellular apps in your Calendar, Reminders, and Mail, and even have their very own App Retailer. Apple is extra devoted than most to letting the Apple Watch work like a separate machine if you’ll want to. The tinyPod is simply recontextualizing issues a bit by taking it off your wrist.

I’ve no good excuse for why I’m going for my iPhone when an Apple Watch can do the identical issues, simply barely in another way or slower. Utilizing my Watch within the tinyPod case, I used to be struck by how phone-like the Apple Watch is from the leap. Its display screen appears huge and shiny for one factor. Utilizing it on a stroll, I used to be in a position so as to add one thing to my procuring record for my grocery run later that day and play a podcast I had downloaded with out counting on my telephone. At house, I made a name and used voice dictation to shoot off a couple of fast messages. It felt, at occasions, like there was one thing to the concept that an Apple Watch might step in as a extra purposeful sort of telephone. However over time, issues added up.

watchOS isn’t designed to switch iOS

In contrast to iOS or iPadOS, watchOS doesn’t deal with the Apple Watch’s grid of apps as its house display screen. You will get there with the press of the Digital Crown, however when you’re inside an app, you’ll be able to’t return to that grid straight. Urgent the Digital Crown once more takes you again to your watch face. The Apple Watch is a watch, so displaying the time must be its first concern, however that places a fairly large hamper on the goals of the tinyPod.

There are methods round it. If the app you’ll want to swap to is already operating within the background, you’ll be able to press the Digital Crown twice and pull up the app switcher and entry different apps that manner. You would additionally put your most used apps as problems in your watch face to make it simpler to leap again into them. However neither possibility feels as simple or affords as a lot flexibility as a traditional house display screen with a grid of icons.

By default, watchOS needs to inform the time. You possibly can alter settings in order that it waits longer earlier than switching again, however finally, in case your Apple Watch show is asleep for lengthy sufficient, you will finish again up on the watch face relatively than no matter electronic mail you had been . These limitations bothered me, however primarily, I missed the watch-y issues I used to be utilizing my Sequence 7 for day-after-day:

• As a silent alarm clock within the morning
• As a nudge to truly use my standing desk
• To trace my steps after I go for a day stroll
• To offer me some perception into why I really feel horrible after staying up too late.

Contained in the tinyPod case, you aren’t getting to benefit from the issues that the Apple Watch is uniquely good at, simply the issues that it is surprisingly able to. It is the smartwatch in reverse, targeted on the smarts (particularly the smarts that come from the smartphone) and never the watch.

The tinyPod makes me wish to rethink how I take advantage of my Apple Watch

I have never been utilizing the smartwatch to its fullest

It seems like we’re removed from that world now, however at one level, the Apple Watch was anticipated to step in in your iPhone much more than it does proper now. Lots of the Watch’s expertise are remnants of the machine it was at launch, a wrist-bound communication machine that was a quasi-replacement in your smartphone.

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tinyPod

The tinyPod is an Apple Watch case that makes the smartwatch appear to be an iPod with a working scroll wheel, that is designed to benefit from the Apple Watch’s smartphone-like skills.

I do not assume the tinyPod’s intelligent design makes the Apple Watch one thing it is not. Moreover how enjoyable it’s to play with, the primary factor the tinyPod has achieved for me is make me notice I am not utilizing my Apple Watch to the fullest. I must be letting my watch step in for my iPhone extra typically, particularly since I more and more have an issue utilizing my smartphone for one job and placing it down. I’ve realized I have already got a possible reply to among the issues of consideration the tinyPod claims to unravel, and I do not even want a particular case to make use of them.