Each time the Apple Watch has the largest wings to fly just without the need for an iPhone mom. With series 3 the cellular version was introduced, a success. For three years you can leave the iPhone at home and keep your watch connected and operational.
And little by little the developers take advantage of this autonomy to apply it to their respective apps. Today it is the turn of Overcast. The popular podcast player has updated its application for the Apple Watch. From now on, it will no longer download the podcast that you are listening to through the iPhone's bluetooth, but it will do it directly through Wi-Fi or LTE data. Today the wings of the "Cellular" are already a little bigger.
The popular podcast player Overcast for iOS and WatchOS has received a new technically interesting update today. The transmission route has changed when downloading a podcast from the internet to be played.
The App Store release notes for Overcast only mention "Most Trusted Apple Watch Downloads" and bug fixes. At first glance, you may think that it is a simple update that improves some "bugs" found in the application. Luckily, Overcast has explained with more details in Twitter the new improvement.
Will use iPhone as last option
And this new progress means that podcasts can be broadcast on the Apple Watch through the LTE line or wifi rather than via Bluetooth from the iPhone, as it did until now. If you don't have an Apple Watch Cellular and you are at home connected to your Wi-Fi, you will download the podcast directly via Wi-Fi.
Obviously, if the watch cannot download the file directly via Wi-Fi or LTE, it will continue to do so via iPhone through bluetooth as it did before the update. The novelty is that before you always used the iPhone as a transmission route, and now you have other options to choose from.
This new system has two advantages. The first is obvious to the naked eye. You can use Overcast away from your iPhone if you have an Apple Watch Cellular. And the second is that if you are connected by Wi-Fi, you save your iPhone battery by not having to act as a digital "bridge" by Bluetooth.