Will you miss the Walkie-Talkie Apple Watch app when watchOS 27 drops push-to-talk?

Apple is quietly eliminating one of the Apple Watch's most distinctive features — a walkie-talkie app that let users communicate instantly without cellular service — as it prepares to ship watchOS 27, a move that signals the company's shifting priorities away from standalone watch capabilities and toward tighter iPhone integration. The discontinuation, confirmed across multiple tech outlets, underscores a broader industry tension: as smartwatches grow more powerful, manufacturers are choosing to keep users tethered to their phones rather than truly independent. For the devoted users who relied on the app's push-to-talk functionality in areas without network coverage, the loss represents a small but real erosion of the device's promise.

9to5Mac·3d ago