AlwaysOnHeadphones can improve the call-taking experience on Apple Watch

Having an Apple Watch is convenient for a bevy of reasons, but one of my favorites is having instantaneous access to messages and phone calls from the comfort of my wrist, even when my iPhone isn’t within arm’s reach.

As wonderful as it is, it’s not without its quirks. Perhaps one of the most annoying processes has to do with how you would take Apple Watch-centric phone calls when you have a Bluetooth headset or headphones connected to your iPhone, and a newly released jailbreak tweak called AnswerOnHeadphones by iOS developer CardboardFace aims to fix this once and for all.

So how does it work? Pretty much as the name implies…

Without AnswerOnHeadphones, answering a phone call from your Apple Watch would mean that the call’s audio plays directly though the Apple Watch’s speaker, regardless of whether you have a Bluetooth headset or headphones connected. You would then need to navigate a clumsy six step process consisting of the following steps to route that call audio from your iPhone to your Bluetooth headset or headphones:

  1. Open Watch call sub menu’
  2. Select “Answer on iPhone”
  3. Unlock your iPhone
  4. Navigate to the cell
  5. Take the call off hold
  6. Switch the output to your headphones

After you install AnswerOnHeadphones, the tweak automatically redirects calls accepted from your Apple Watch to your iPhone and plays the audio on your connected Bluetooth headset or headphones, assuming you have one of these actively connected to your handset. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the audio would play from your Apple Watch as expected if you didn’t have an active Bluetooth headset or headphones connected, ensuring a seamless user experience.

AnswerOnHeadphones doesn’t come with any options to configure because it’s designed to work out of the box from the moment you install it. The developer does note that the tweak appears to work best with Wi-Fi-only Apple Watches, as cellular models are known to have issues automatically transferring the call to your iPhone when the call is being hosted by the Apple Watch’s own LTE connection.

If you’re interested in augmenting your Apple Watch’s calling functionality, then you can purchase AnswerOnHeadphones from the Packix repository for $0.99 via your favorite package manager. The tweak supports jailbroken iOS 13 devices and necessitates that you have an Apple Watch and some kind of Bluetooth audio device connected to work as advertised.

Do you see value in a tweak like AlwaysOnHeadphones, or are you happy with Apple’s native calling implementation on the Apple Watch? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.