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Apple Watch 3

techcrunch.com

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Re: Apple Watch 3

#131

Post by christinamltn »

URSpider94 wrote: post #111
protomyth wrote: post #93

From the bottom of the page: Apple Watch Series 3 (GPS + Cellular) requires an iPhone 6 or later with iOS 11 or later. Apple Watch and iPhone service provider must be the same. Not available with all service providers. Roaming is not available outside your carrier network coverage area. Wireless service plan required for cellular service. Contact your service provider for more details. Check apple.com/watch/cellular…

Can't tell 100%, but it looks as if you will still need a companion iPhone as the "master" device. So, you won't be able to use the watch as a stand-alone phone.

They explicitly said you could leave your phone at home while running errands and not worry about being out of reach. You need a phone for the cellular plan but not to use the watch as a phone.

Re: Apple Watch 3

#132

Post by gehsty »

jessewmc wrote: post #122
URSpider94 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't tell 100%, but it looks as if you will still need a companion iPhone as the "master" device. So, you won't be able to use the watch as a stand-alone phone.

I wonder if there is a technical reason for that or if they aren't ready for possible cannibalisation yet. I was really hoping it wouldn't require a phone at all.

I think it's technical.

Apple are fairly comfortable with their own products taking over their own products (iPod -> iphone, and pushing people from mac to iPad).

If they thought that the smart watch would cannibalise the phone market I'm fairly sure that they would make sure you didn't need to own an iPhone to use the watch.

Re: Apple Watch 3

#133

Post by Alex3917 »

jessewmc wrote: post #123
Alex3917 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're trying to to detect heart issues in people who don't otherwise have any reason to suspect they have them. Given that the heart rate monitor isn't even accurate enough to be useful for exercising[1], it seems unlikely you'd want to rely on this if you already know you have an issue. http://www.mdpi.com/2075-4426/7/2/3/htm

Curious why you come to that conclusion? That study itself says the watches were within acceptable error for their purposes. Why would you need more accuracy than the roughly 2% error on the Apple Watch?

The error-rate for walking was up to 3.8%, which is roughly 8bpm for someone with a 200bpm max HR. And that error rate is averaged over a minute, so presumably the instantaneous error rate is even greater. If I'm trying to keep my HR at a constant 150 or whatever, I don't want to be speeding up or slowing down on the basis of getting garbage data from my HR monitor. This is an issue even with the Polar chest straps, and those are significantly more accurate than the Apple Watch.

Also, if you look at the protocol the vast majority of participants wouldn't have even broken a sweat, let alone have been sweating significantly.

Re: Apple Watch 3

#134

Post by Xixi »

masklinn wrote: post #108
Xixi wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be a technological issue: standards (GSM, CDMA) and allowed frequencies vary a lot from country to country. The chip in this Apple Watch might be too specific? If it's a purely contractual issue, it should be gone soon (for a fee): too much money to be made from international roaming.

> allowed frequencies vary a lot from country to country They do, but a few "roaming" bands are well-supported worlwide, mostly aside from the Americas and especially the US * LTE bands 1 and 3 will cover Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania, but North and Latin america use LTE bands 2 and 4 instead. * band 7 is well supported in latin america, europe, asia, oceania and canada but not africa or the US * band 28 is well s…

Per https://www.apple.com/watch/cellular/ it's either 2 and 4, or 1 and 3 (and 7). The iPhone 8 supports all [1]. That would confirm that the Apple Watch uses more specialized cellular chips.

[1] https://www.apple.com/iphone-8/specs/

Re: Apple Watch 3

#135

Post by marksomnian »

dionidium wrote: post #82
JohnTHaller wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest thing folks I know like about watches on both the Apple and Android side of thing are notifications. I recently got a fitbit and found I wear it in place of my Android watch now. It's purpose-built for fitness monitoring and does a better job at that than Apple/Android have ever done. And it handles notifications. It lasts days on a battery charge and is lighter weight on my wrist. And it's much much chea…

> "The biggest thing folks I know like about watches on both the Apple and Android side of thing are notifications." I think this is exactly right. Notifications are annoying and the watch reduces the effort required to see and dismiss them. However, I recently solved this problem another way; I turned off notifications (excluding messages and a few other very context-specific apps). This turns out to be the best way…

Since getting my Fitbit I've taken a middle ground - turn them off on my phone, and let only priority apps to my watch. Things I care about I get on my watch, things I don't can wait.

Re: Apple Watch 3

#136

Post by pavlov »

saagarjha wrote: post #99
pavlov wrote: post #28

Samsung introduced 3G connectivity in the Samsung Gear S2 already two years ago, and added 4G LTE in the Gear S3 last year.

Nobody here is saying that Apple was the first to add cellular capability to their watches. They're just glad to see it as a new feature.

The Apple keynote made a pretty big deal about innovations that enabled the LTE features. They didn't explicitly say that those were Apple innovations, though.

Re: Apple Watch 3

#137

Post by pm90 »

gehsty wrote: post #132
jessewmc wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there is a technical reason for that or if they aren't ready for possible cannibalisation yet. I was really hoping it wouldn't require a phone at all.

I think it's technical. Apple are fairly comfortable with their own products taking over their own products (iPod -> iphone, and pushing people from mac to iPad). If they thought that the smart watch would cannibalise the phone market I'm fairly sure that they would make sure you didn't need to own an iPhone to use the watch.

This is just not right.

Apple didn't cannibalize iPod with iPhone: it recognized that people wanted it to build a phone and did just that.

Apple didn't cannibalize Mac for iPad: it recognized that people were buying tablets in lieu of PC's and thus invested heavily in making iPad's more user friendly.

Having spoken to many Apple engineers, the company is now as corporat-ey as any other BigCo and will NOT actively cannibalize a product unless it sees an expanding/new market.

Re: Apple Watch 3

#138

Post by ozmbie »

sgarg wrote: post #71
mrsmee89 wrote: post #35

I don't want an iPhone (or any phone for that matter). I want this. Being reachable, listening to music and gps is all I want from a "phone". Anyone know if carriers will charge extra for the watch. Cook said something about "great introductory rates" from carriers but I'm not if that refers to the watch or the service.

I'm with you. Before watching the keynote, I was looking forward to the new phones but the presentation made me more excited about the new Apple Watch with LTE. I may be in a minority, but over the past few years, I've been trying to actively reduce the amount of times I pull out my phone. I feel like it will be liberating to leave home without your phone to go to dinner or go for a run, but still connected through t…

Some days my phone feels like an LTE modem I have to carry around for the sake of my Apple watch.

Going to work, listening to music, replying to messages, going for a run and then stopping by the shops to pay for things...all using my wrist. It's a great experience. But I have to keep my phone nearby. And LTE watch sounds great.

There are a lot of UX issues with the watch that makes it frustrating at times. But it's getting better and more capable every OS update.

Re: Apple Watch 3

#139

Post by moonbug22 »

arcanus wrote: post #8
jbob2000 wrote: post #2

A few more iterations of the Apple Watch and we might be in a position to ditch smartphones entirely. Instead of tablets being the ugly middle child, maybe they will become the new smartphones, with people favouring the large screen for intense work, and using the Watch for messaging and music.

Particularly if NLP (and AI assistants) finally start to work well. There is very little one does on phone that could not be performed with voice.

Except for communicating discreetly.

Re: Apple Watch 3

#140

Post by pm90 »

sgarg wrote: post #71
mrsmee89 wrote: post #35

I don't want an iPhone (or any phone for that matter). I want this. Being reachable, listening to music and gps is all I want from a "phone". Anyone know if carriers will charge extra for the watch. Cook said something about "great introductory rates" from carriers but I'm not if that refers to the watch or the service.

I'm with you. Before watching the keynote, I was looking forward to the new phones but the presentation made me more excited about the new Apple Watch with LTE. I may be in a minority, but over the past few years, I've been trying to actively reduce the amount of times I pull out my phone. I feel like it will be liberating to leave home without your phone to go to dinner or go for a run, but still connected through t…

Hmm, the watch really has done just that for me. Most of the times, I leave it in my pocket. When I get a text, I glance at my watch to read it. Any notifications come directly to my watch.

Honestly, I really don't see the benefit of going through the additional burden of getting a new cellphone plan, SIM, paying more for ... what? One advantage is definitely that in emergency situations (i.e. on a run without the phone, hike etc) you can now call from the watch. But I just don't see any other benefit.

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