The Apple Watch will lose the Walkie Talkie app with this fall’s watchOS 27 software update. Do you miss the push-to-talk feature of your Apple Watch?
Apple hasn’t given any reason for discontinuing the Walkie Talkie app.
For years, the Apple Watch was a bit of a playground for quirky ideas, but then they died.
By rotating the Digital Crown from the watch face, you can move data about complications such as weather or calendar events forward or backward in time.
Clicking on the side button initially opened a circle of friends. Although Digital Touch still exists as an iMessage app, it was originally a form of communication exclusive to the Apple Watch.
The Apple Watch face also fades in and out. In some cases, it’s even replaced by watchOS features such as the widget Smart Stack, which essentially replaced the Siri watch face.
Also, licensing agreements may expire (the Toy Story dial couldn’t watch Toy Story 5). Sometimes a perfectly good dial disappears without any explanation or equivalent replacement. I still miss the great Explorer watch face that came with my cellular Apple Watch Series 3.
watchOS 27 update erases Walkie Talkie app and features
Walkie-talkie mode is the latest playground experiment to disappear after an Apple Watch software update. watchOS 27 will arrive this fall and will eliminate the push-to-talk feature that only worked between Apple Watches.
As far as system-level features go, the transceiver was a bit more complex. I had to add a connection specifically for the Walkie Talkie app. I also had to leave walkie-talkie mode on to receive voice messages.
The idea was real-time voice communication occurring during the session. It existed between live voice calls and sending and receiving voice memos.
Walkie talkie apps just weren’t for me. I didn’t like that the yellow app icon always had to be visible on the watch face to receive messages in walkie-talkie mode.
I understand why it worked the way it did. You don’t want your watch to just play voice messages from your contacts without being sure you’re in that mode.
They also didn’t have much faith in walkie-talkies to reliably transmit messages.
The voice messages I sent have definitely been received. I’ve never been sure if the recipient is in a position to actually hear the message playback.
There was something about the playback experience that wasn’t intentional.
If you ask me, it’s surprising that transceivers have existed as a system-level feature for so long. I’m sure it got more adoption by being built-in than the App Store app you download and sign up for, but my experience has been far from great.
Do you miss the push-to-talk feature on your Apple Watch?
But I also knew from discussing walkie-talkie apps on a podcast years ago that a vocal user base relies on push-to-talk functionality for practical communication.
With that in mind, it seems that the demise of the Apple Watch’s built-in walkie-talkie as a dedicated form of voice chat may not be the end of the story. Just this week, I noticed a walkie-talkie icon on someone’s watch face at work.
Perhaps it will return as an Apple platform app in the future. Or maybe it’s just too weird for Apple to invest in today, and third-party apps will fill the void when watchOS 27 wipes out Walkie Talkie this fall.
Anyway, how is your experience using Walkie Talkie app? Share your thoughts in the comments!
