The Apple Watch is available worldwide as a companion to your iPhone and other Apple devices. However, not everyone should purchase an Apple Watch, depending on where they live. This begs the question, why is the Apple Watch not good for specific regions?
The Apple Watch is not good for specific reasons because features such as Apple Fitness, Music, and SpO2 measurements are unavailable in particular regions. This means you won’t be able to enjoy all the features of an Apple Watch in a region like the U.S.
In this article, we’ll go over exactly why the Apple Watch is not great for every region, alongside all the features that can make or break your experience with the watch.
Why Are Some Features Not Available In Particular Regions?
Due to regulatory and legal issues, you might not have features such as Apple Fitness and Apple Music in your Apple Watch. When Apple introduces a particular feature, it needs to go through some checks and balances for it to be approved in a particular country.
Now, Apple aims its products toward a few markets more than others. These are primarily China, the EU, India, Australia, and the U.S. Almost every Apple feature for the Apple Watch (except a select few in China) is available in the EU, U.S, Australia, and China. But, when it comes to health-related features like an ECG, Apple requires approval from specific regulatory bodies in every region.
For instance, for the ECG function to work in the United States, the FDA needs to approve it for use as a medical apparatus or equivalent. Now, while that is possible for larger regions / countries where Apple sells a good sum of devices, it isn’t possible for smaller countries like Pakistan. Or, the benefit simply isn’t worth it.
So, the reason why you would not be able to use a particular feature is solely because Apple simply has not expanded the feature to that region.
Apple Music
Apple Music is an excellent alternative to Spotify. And, its even better than most other music streaming platforms as you can use features such as Spatial Audio alongside honing a library of millions of songs. An Apple Music subscription grants you the ability to play music on your Apple Watch seamlessly with the help of Siri or the Music application within the application itself.
To see if Apple Music is available in your region, click here.
Apple Pay
Apple Pay has turned into the de facto payment standard for multiple shops all around the globe. But, not every region has the feature enabled. With your Apple Watch, you can perform contactless payments where just a tap of your wrist will transact the required amount accordingly.
This is quite convenient for those who have the feature. However, most Asian / African countries do not have access to Apply Pay just yet. This is due to a culmination of Apple not bringing the service to select regions and the fact that some countries still do not use cashless payments as a medium.
To see if Apple Pay is available in your region, click here.
ECG / Blood Oxygen
ECG and Blood Oxygen both are extremely useful health-related features that are FDA approved and can be considered medically accurate. These features are only present on certain models of the Apple Watch, to begin with. But, due to a lack of approval from certain regulatory bodies, they cannot be used in every region.
With that said, health-related features such as Cycle Tracking and Irregular Hearth Rythym notification both suffer the same fate but to a lesser extent as they’re available in a greater number of regions.
To check if ECG / Blood Oxygen is available in your region, click here.
Apple Maps
Apple Maps is available globally. But, certain features like Real Time Transit and Nearby Routes aren’t present in every city. So, depending on where you live, you’ll either be able to access a sea of knowledge or won’t have much to go about other than satellite mappings.
To see if particular features of Apple Maps are available in your region, click here.
Apple Fitness+
Apple Fitness is the primary reason why some end up purchasing an Apple Watch in the first place. Sadly, the subscription-based service isn’t available everywhere. This is because just like Apple TV, the content isn’t licensed to be streamed everywhere and is therefore inaccessible in certain regions.
To see if Apple Fitness is available in your region, click here.
Purchasing an Apple Watch if a certain feature isn’t available is dependent on your usage. If, for instance, your sole reason for purchasing an Apple Watch was to track your health, then not having an ECG / Blood Oxygen sensing is a bummer. But, if you just want notifications on your wrist – then it wouldn’t matter that much.
To make things easier, we’ve put up a quick table of all the features that aren’t available in particular regions and how important we think they are:
Conclusion
It is easy to take the Apple Watch at face value and expect that everything mentioned in the Keynote will be there. However, if you live in any region other than the U.S, we recommend taking a look at what features are available for your country before you make a very expensive decision.
I bought my first smartwatch in 2018 and have been wearing one ever since. It might get frustrating at times to receive 100 notifications a day. That's why we need to know how to make the best of them and how to use them to improve our daily lives, not the other way around. I write about the newest smartwatches, I create top picks, and I write helpful guides and simply explain complicated things.