Apple Watch to sync with multiple devices, including Macs and iPads, report claims

One constant since the Apple Watch launched in 2015 has been the requirement that each Watch must be paired with a single iPhone. (These days each iPhone can pair with multiple watches simultaneously, but each watch must pair with just one iPhone at a time.) Prospective Apple Watch buyers might own a house full of Macs and iPads, but if they run an Android handset rather than an iPhone, they’ve been out of luck… until now.

On Thursday the prolific leaker @analyst941 (who also goes by Anonymous-A.S on the MacRumors forums) posted the claim that the Apple Watch “can sync across more than one Apple device too, finally,” and added the bombshell that this applies across iPads and Macs as well as iPhones.

There are some caveats to this, however. The first is that the timing is unconfirmed: the leaker says they “hope this actually comes this year,” but mentions next year as another possibility. They also admit that they “don’t know how this will be implemented.” Will there be new Watch apps for iPadOS and macOS? Will a Mac or iPad be able to set up an Apple Watch, or only sync with it afterwards, as a secondary companion on top of the iPhone? If it’s the latter, Android users will still be out of the loop–which might suit Apple’s purposes, given the value of gatekeeper devices like the Apple Watch and AirPods in keeping customers inside the iPhone’s walled garden.

For that matter, we should probably add that the idea as a whole must be regarded as unconfirmed because the leaker’s own track record remains distinctly thin. @analyst941 is a press darling right now, with wide-ranging predictions appearing across the gamut of tech media in recent months, but so far they have just one provably correct prediction to point to, having accurately described a privacy feature of the Dynamic Island shortly before the iPhone 14 Pro was announced.

The caveat about timing aside, @analyst941 faces a big reckoning at WWDC on June 5. Is a promising leaking career about to flourish, or tank? Prosstradamus has proved that you can get things wrong and keep on leaking, but it’s difficult to come back after getting a lot of very specific things wrong at the same time. Buckle up, folks: it’s almost crunch time.

For all the latest news and rumors related to the Apple Watch’s software updates this year, check out our regularly updated watchOS 10 superguide.