Apple Watch 3
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
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 for participating wireless carriers and eligibility.
So, using it as a cellular device by itself would seem to be impossible.
I was really hoping it wouldn't require a phone at all.
"The eSIM has to be provisioned via the device itself, which is handy if you want to switch between T-Mobile and AT&T in a hurry, but not handy if you want to switch to a carrier not supported by Apple, or sell your device to someone on a different carrier."
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.
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.
Who was doing that? Before the iPad came out I saw tablets used in exactly one place, and it was a university research project on construction management and coordination between building trades.
Even after the iPad came out, the people using them as PC replacements were using them mostly for the same set of tasks like email and web browsing, and (flat iOS 7 redesign aside) the experience for those is basically the same as always.
EDIT - I suppose there have been major additions to iOS since then (like multitasking), but I'd argue it's less because they're threatened by users buying a Surface (or whatever crappy HP tablet existed at the time) instead of a Mac, and more because it's the obvious direction that iOS devices have been steadily improving in regardless of the competition. Apple's perfectly happy to eat the Mac's market with it if there are Mac users who can get by on better iPads.
People collecting "data in the field" is not the hundreds million unit market it is post iPad.
Tablets existed for 10+ years before the iPad, Microsoft especially pushed various monstrosities -- nobody really used them though.
So, no, not common - but not nobody, either.
Yeah, "nobody used them" in casual speech just means very few people. Obviously since they were made some people bought and used them. But the numbers were not worth writing home about -- and one would be hard-pressed to see random people using them in the wild (exceptions by field workers, some kinds of researchers, etc, mostly professional/factory/etc uses).
Motion did pretty well with them and made great hardware.
Nobody was "buying tablets in lieu of PCs" before the iPad.
And by nobody I obviously mean "so few the market didn't matter at all".
Nobody was buying tablets before the iPad.... So I'm not sure what your getting at.
The way I see it now is that many people who now buy iPads would have bought Macs previously, and Apple are happy for this to happen.
Its not really hard to see Apples vision that iPads are the future of computing for maybe 70/80/90% of people, and the remaining 10/20/30% can buy Macs.
Your last statement perfectly represents Apple cannibalizing the iPod with the iPhone.
As to iPads, to the extent that buying a tablet instead of a computer was appealing, it was always going to overwhelmingly bring people from PCs to iPads more than from Macs to iPads. They did deal with a certain amount of cannibalization there, but their tolerance of that was far from a general comfort with any cannibalization possible.
I think that Apple would be uncomfortable with the idea of a $400 watch cannibalizing a $700+ phone. That said, I think that the idea that the watch would significantly cannibalize the phone is silly. Whenever we discuss the watch, it's like everyone suddenly forgets that people fucking love their phones and have consistently demanded larger and larger screens. The idea that suddenly people are going to be all, "No, it's cool, I don't want a screen larger than 1" diagonal" in any substantial quantity is silly.
If you listen to the Jobs official autobiography the iPhone resulted from Jobs / Apples concerns that the phone would become good enough for most people as an MP3 player, and thus would 'cannibalize' the iPod product, and that Job/Apple decided all the phones out at the time sucked and that they could do it better.
The technology for the capacitive screen etc was already in development but for the device that would eventually become the iPad!
But from a high level, nobody in the entire world could be sad if their customers choose a higher-price, higher-margin product over a lower-price, lower-margin product. And suggesting that it's some kind of brave stance to say, "Yes, we'll introduce a higher-price, higher-margin product even though our customers may prefer it to our lower-price, lower-margin product" is absurd, and anyone who tries to sell that line with a straight face should be ashamed of themselves.
My point is that the iPhone took the iPods market from it. Apple had to release a phone to do this, or someone else would have eventually done it.
They did not do it to 'up sell' people, ie the thought process was never, 'lets sell the iPod for 5 years then hit those suckers with the iPhone and up sell them' it was 'lets make the best music player' then 'soon every ones music will be on their phones, we better make a phone, actually the phones we currently use are terrible, we have this interesting touch screen tech from a tablet we're developing, oh shit we can make an awesome phone...'
I'm not saying Apple are brave, I'm saying they are logical, they will release a product that will take sales from another of their product lines, as if they don't someone else will, and any sale is better than no sale. I think they would do this even if the product that was doing the cannibalization was cheaper, eg the iPad is definitely eating some of the Macs potential sales, and I think Apple are very happy about this.
I had visions of never buying another iPhone again and just using a watch, iPad, and laptop.
Much like the iPod and iPhone were tethered to iTunes and then later gained autonomy, I’m hoping they’ll get there with the watch in just a couple iterations.
They'd effectively be expending resources to make it possible for people who want a Watch to not use an iPhone. Doesn't add up in my head why they'd do that (though I'm with you, I'd much rather just have my iPad).
The reality of the market is that either you kill your cash cow (with a hopefully bigger cash cow) or someone else will do it for you.
The reason probably is that it wouldn't be a good product.
That could change though, it would make sense if they manage to pack in enough guts while preserving the battery to make the Watch more stand-alone, no reason it couldn't happen.
I left my phone at home accidentally the other day, it wasn't until the work day was over and I tried to remote start my car that I realized, since almost every feature I use worked over WiFi (the remote start checks for the phone's presence)
My guess is the ability to have an Apple Watch as a standalone device is at least another year away, possible another 2 to 3.
Or Siri dictation.
I really like my apple watch, but this really isn't selling it...
I bet other water sports are using these watches in similar ways. E.g. GPS
For example the Woo device gives you real time info on jumps and tricks. Xsensr does GPS, speed, etc. So the watch is really useful for a lot of water sports.
I'd think that'd require some reconfiguration on their backend service though. I'm not too familiar with how telecoms work.
The new Apple Watch will have it's own actual cellular connection
if I can do that then I am in, but at its price point what is the need of a phone? is the run time too short?
Tmobile charged me $10 for an iPad sim with it's own phone number. I can't imagine it'll be a huge new cost. It seems pretty much exactly like an iPad, except they don't even need an extra number
Fwiw, I am totally jumping on this. I'm not a big watch person, but the utility of leaving the phone home on date nights is going to be a huge win. This is a much bigger game changer than anything else they introduced
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 the Apple Watch. Although it will still display notifications, I personally won't be tempted to browse Twitter or Instagram when I have a free moment.
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.
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.
I don't think that you will need a new plan, I think that it will use your current plan.
Or did I get the wrong end of the stick?
They also can't hold a charge very long. If I charge mine up overnight, by next evening when I go to use them, they're already half dead. Great product except for very poor battery life.
* Independent GSM * GPS * Bluetooth
Basically an internet-connected computer with a 2" screen.
You still need a phone, you just don't have to carry it around.
I want one... but I just can't bring myself to get one because of what people I know have said.
For me, its medical telemetry first, and a phone second.
So for me personally I only have phone calls, SMS/iMessages, and one or two other communication apps enabled to send notifications to my watch, plus score updates from baseball since I follow the sport.
Once you get it configured in a way that fits what you care about it works really well.
Not having to pull out my phone while cooking, or cycling (my daughter alway seems to text me when cycling home from work) is very handy.
It can't replace a phone just yet, but the convenience for many tasks has made it a worthwhile purchase for me.
For me, the tethering angle has always been the major, #1, reason not to get involved. I've been in computers since the beginning; having such arbitrary dependencies has been a significant detractor.
However, as an observer of this segment, I have to say - isn't it about time we just had full-blown computers on our wrists, kind of, .. "anyway"? I mean, yeah .. these artificial boundaries make the machines more marketable - totally get that - but .. don't you think you'd adopt the whole platform a little more willingly - in your postulated time-scale - if it weren't for all the dependencies?
Major improvements with the gear:
- Looks like a watch - Always tells the time - Works with my normal leather watch band - Has a spotify app
I use mostly just as a watch that can do fitness tracking and recieve notifications from my phone.
I hear this constantly and I don't get this. There's a very long tradition of non-circular watches in horology. See the Reverso, the Tank, and the Monaco.
Yes, things turn by turn walking directions on a smartwatch are kinda neat the first time you try them, but the novelty wears off and glancing at your phone twice on a long walk is no bother. But I stopped using pretty much any watch functionality except notifications within a month.
Side note: I'm not sure how well iOS notifications work on fitbit. Apple is notorious for locking out competitors (even going so far as to prohibit mentions of fitbit hardware integration in app descriptions on the app store) and it wouldn't surprise me if this affects fitbit functionality with iOS phones.
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 to deal with annoying notifications. Just turn them off.
There is an entirely optional "going to sleep now" toggle you can flick which will give a "time to sleep" measure and marker on the graph.
Maybe you use the additional features, and that's great. None of us want to make or take calls on a watch (and not-so-secretly loath anyone who does so on the subway).
I like the way I interact with the fitbit. One quick pulse when I get a notification I want to come through. And the screen stays off unless I press the button to see what it is. No constant stream of useless stuff on the screen on my wrist distracting me and those around me.
On the other hand, I have at least 10 friends, family, and/or coworkers that all have an Apple Watch and exactly 0 of them have had an issue where it completely failed and they had to have it replaced. That doesn't count the 1 person that shattered the screen on theirs but was able to take it to Apple and get a replacement the same day.
I realize anecdotes don't constitute evidence of anything but even by your own statistics, the FitBit line doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
Edit: I can't say that I'm surprised that other responses here are echoing my sentiments about the FitBit devices. It might be confirmation bias, but I hear and read the same all the time.
Anecdotally, I have lots of friends with failed iPhones and Macbooks. My girlfriend swore Macbooks off after owning the awful white Macbook that had constant motherboard and screen issues and that Apple end-of-lifed way too soon after release because they never were able to release 64-bit drivers for it (seriously... even though it's their own hardware with their own OS). Doesn't mean all Macbooks have that same failure rate or awful product support outside that model.
One thing I have noticed of my friends with fitbits vs smartwatches, they treat fitbits like beater Casio watches and they treat smartwatches like Rolexes. I'm not sure if it's perception of materials or the fact that smartwatches cost 3 to 10 times as much as fitbits. I know I don't worry too much about my Fitbit Surge 2 HR because it only cost me $75.
When I first got it I thought it was really cool with a small computer on my wrist and tried to think of all sorts of things to do with it, but the truth is that your phone is better at almost everything. The only reason to prefer your watch is if you leave the phone at home or if it's quicker to not take it up from the pocket. If you try do make it do too much you'll probably get tired of it, since it won't be a good choice.
I wouldn't recommend the Smartwatch 3 though. It's a pretty good watch, one of the first with GPS, WiFi and NFC (still unused), but it won't get Wear 2.0 and the GPS ranges from pretty bad to unusable. The GPS antenna can't handle when your arm gets wet, like when you sweat, so after about 20 minutes of running the GPS connection deteriorates significantly unless you have a sweatband under it.
Hopefully Garmin will launch a watch with Spotify support in the future.
Or I say nothing and just think about how rude that person is.
And yes, I would rather they pull out their phone than stare at their wrist every 10 seconds. I don't have a problem with someone looking at their notifications, I'm just pointing out that people think they're being sneaky with the watch when they really aren't.
Now my life is dominated by closing those damned circles.
Having the watch, if you don't mind wearing a watch, might be nice, but I can't justify the extra expense.
I can go for a run, a swim, buy lunch, and take an Uber home all without my phone.
I bought the Series 1 and stopped using it because it drained the battery on my phone, especially if I was using something like Uber that needed to continuously communicate to the watch. Would love to read reviews on the battery life of the watch.
When I go for a bike ride, it's nice to track that and be able to check heart rate, distance, etc while riding without pulling out my phone.
The cellular isn't enough for me to upgrade, I don't run so there's never really a time I'd be without my phone.
I've ended up wearing it about 23 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Now I have to at least get out of bed before doing that :)
I'm using Sleep Watch, the times it reports for sleep and wake seem to be pretty accurate for me.
It's great for what it is; personally I use it as a watch (checking date/time/setting timers/alarms) and as a device for filtering notifications. I don't need to keep pulling my phone out of my pocket just to check if the latest buzz was a spam email from work or a text from family/friends. It's just so much more convenient.
The addition of GPS in Series 2 improved accuracy of walking and running distance when I go without a phone. Strangely, the calorie counts of walking multiple miles are generally 20% higher when I just have the watch vs watch and phone, even though the distance, time, bpm are the same with or without the phone. So while I expected to ditch the phone more this has me keeping the phone with me. There isn't as much variety in music or podcasts with just the watch. Finally, if I need to make a call for emergency having the phone present is security.
So, the Series 3 provides another set of features that makes sense for my situation. More music, can make/receive calls if required, maybe more accurate tracking with faster CPU. And with faster, more reliable data connection, maybe some 3rd party apps will become useful as well.
I have rarely had battery issues during the day. Usually, I just take it off and charge it when I sleep and put it on again in the morning. Don't think it something i would want to sleep with it on anyway, so multi day battery life isn't a concern.
Now the standard joke is that I "wish he'd told me how good it was earlier".
Top tip: get yourself another band as soon as you buy a Watch. I splashed out and got the steel with steel link bracelet. I know, it's way more expensive than the standard aluminium/black sports, but it makes me feel like I'm actually wearing a watch and not a generic fitness device.
Of course you don't have to go that crazy, just get a nylon band or one of the leather options. Anything. Just get that black sports thing off immediately.
Being able to track my runs and listen to my music without needing my phone is awesome. The notifications are great once you filter out the noise and turn off the ones you don't care about but that may also inspire you to uninstall some apps. I also use the timers all the time for cooking and working out and the actual Workout app is great as a diary for me. I can look at the Health app and see everything I did and I use that in conjunction with MyFitnessPal. I also like the general motivation I get from the activity rings. They're so stupid and simple but there's no feeling quite like closing all 3 of those damn things out or getting the occasional ring to loop back around itself.
I dunno... I feel like it's definitely changed my life for the better and I really don't see much technology advances making similar changes. I mean, it's great and all to have a Retina display on my phone to see all the pictures on Instagram as clearly as possible but that's just not as big of a deal as having a device that actually motivates me. I've had Fitbit and heart monitors and even pouches and clips for the iPhone and none of them keep it dangling in front of me like the Apple Watch does.
But that's just, like, my opinion, man...
"... and anyone who is influenced by it is a dummy."
(Speaker's final remark at a meeting, many moons ago.)
Should I be more or less inclined to agree with his opinion? Not being a dummy (of course ;-) I'm not being influenced, just rational, right?
(Thanks for the watch info, it was interesting. But I'm not being influenced ;-)
Another alternative would be an iPhone SE but sadly we are in the era of oversized phones.
I would also love it to have more Bluetooth integration (continuous glucose monitoring is a good first step), and continuously monitor more health data in general: hydration, temperature. Omron is working on a watch that measures blood pressure. The last step is food intake monitoring but I guess we will need a couple more iterations and more sensors (onboard camera?) to get the Watch record that
It is amazing how hard multi-homing has ended up being. Facebook Messenger has it working correctly, and the new chat apps that store all state in the cloud, e.g. Slack or Microsoft Teams, also pull it off.
Maintaining reasonable battery life with an always on LTE is also to be commended. Wireless is a huge power drain, providing low latency, low power, messaging is hard. FWIW, just having an LTE chip that never needs to turn on is easy, a fresh install of any mobile OS with no messaging apps installed will last for days. Put a single app that needs real time(ish) messaging delivery on board and watch the battery life drop in half.
You can finally leave your phone at home in more scenarios.
(1) it's much more of a distraction because it's so much more accessible and is more likely to be buzzing regularly. There's a mental and physical barrier to pulling my phone out of my pocket that makes it easier to disconnect; there's almost no barrier with the Apple Watch, it takes much more mental effort to limit its disruptiveness.
(2) someone looking at their watch frequently (more than about every 15 minutes) is often interpreted socially as a sign that the conversation is boring or going too long or they are otherwise anxious about the time. I generally found that looking at the Apple Watch was more disruptive socially than pulling out my phone (partly due to #1)
(2) You can't look at your Watch for that long comfortably. It's good for glances and that's what I end up doing most - glancing. I think this is far better than getting sucked into your phone. You get the information you need quickly and get out quickly. That's not the case with my phone.
EDIT: From your comment, I wasn't sure if it was to get rid of the physical phone, or to have a simpler life without all of the distractions a smartphone brings. Sorry about that. It was too late to delete my comment after you replied.
EDIT: All good :) Actually right now my phone already has minimum number of apps installed exactly in attempt to avoid unnecesary use/distractions, with watch only it may be even better (plus one less thing to carry (pocket or not))
Sony RX100 $1000
Canon G9X Mark II $500
Panasonic Lumix ZS100 $600
Panasonic Lumix ZS50 $300EDIT: Forgot about GoPro Session or those miniaturized action cameras (such as Mobius and Polaroid Cube)
That said, they're still working around a microscopically tiny sensor and lenses. So if you can compromise on size a bit you can get a RX100 V which shoots great pictures.
Sadly, still no Live Photos, but you could shoot video and grab stills from it. I agree that these are a way more impressive feature than camera makers give credit for.
the iPad Pro has let me sunset my laptop.
The Watch / iPad Pro / Desktop combo would be ideal for me.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cardiogram/id1000017994?ls=1... cnbc.com/2017/05/11/apple-watch-uses-cardiogram-to-screen-for-heart-rhythm-abnormalities.html
Also, when I first tried it I had wrist pain, and learned that I actually was "wearing it wrong". Moving it further up my arm fixed it, and now it's literally my favourite device.
So my guess is it will be the same: just as good as my Polar chest strap when snug, and off when, well, off.
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.
Further, the only way you can accurately measure your rate of improvement is by comparing average watts across time at a fixed HR. So if your HR isn't at your target level then not only are you not going to be making progress at an acceptable rate, but you're not even going to know that you're not on track until it's already too late.
And I certainly expect the app would easily be able to show you average watts vs heart rate over time. Given weight, height, pace via GPS, and heart rate for every run you could definitely do the necessary analytics.
And that the gobblygook of UT1, UT2, etc, is actually meaningful.
> A: Apple Watch Series 3 (GPS + Cellular) does not support international roaming.
From the FAQ section of the Apple Watch page in the Store. I'm wondering why the device has to support roaming, isn't that just a feature of the cellular provider?
https://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/
There is some additionally complexity in that many of these can speak GSM, so have some ability to work in degraded modes. And then another round of complexity in that the CDMA versions usually can be unlocked into GSM mode, losing the CDMA functionality but allowing for more general use (but not generally 4G).
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 supported in latin america, asia and oceania but not NA, europe or africa
7 and 28 are considered the best "global roaming" bands right now, and 1 and 3 ideal for ITU 1 and 3 (basically anywhere outside the americas)
I wouldn't hold my breath on that, for a few reasons:
- The sensors likely aren't good enough yet
- To be prescribed and paid for by insurance cos and medicare, it would need to be an FDA approved device, an onerous and years(maybe decade) long process that I doubt apple would want to go through. You can't have an FDA approved device that you constantly update for example
- There is no evidence that this kind constant vital stats recording is medically useful. You'd think it would be, but the literature suggests otherwise
So, there are a ton of hurdles for medical use. They would need to establish the utility with a years long peer reviewed study, get FDA approval, convince payers to cover it, convince doctors to prescribe it, and brand it as a health device. I'm not convinced that this is feasible.
Question is then, will Spotify and Google Music ever come to Apple Watch?
That size/battery life stuff is what took all the work, and why Apple waited until it was able to ship without the compromises.
The size increase in Gear S3 was more dictated by fashion than necessity -- after the Gear S2, Samsung had market data that their primary buyer group favors larger watches in general, so they decided to bulk it up and increase battery life. (A lot of men actually like that "yo-yo on the wrist" look, for reasons I don't entirely fathom. I guess it's sporty.)
This isn't a complaint in the least, good to see Apple making products that don't feel old 2.5 years later.
Much of the improvement on series 2 was invisible, but it helps.
The red crown signals you have the new watch.
Don't get me wrong: it's a cool gadget and the LTE and music streaming makes it quite desirable. But this is also a fashion accessory, unapologetically.
Give people 1-week battery life. Otherwise just stay a gizmo.
The market spoke. We care more about weight than charging frequency. Sorry for those of you who have other preferences but this is not changing any time soon.
I wonder why so many Apple "defenders" are passive aggressive... Being a user is one thing, but being passive aggressive over a tech product have no explanation.
Everyone wants long battery life but it's not that simple. If the tradeoff is having a huge, ugly watch then most people opt to simply charge daily like we already do for our phones.
Sounds great.
Here's the list of countries and carriers that it will work with: http://live.arstechnica.com/apples-september-2017-iphone-8-l...
Not looking at a new smartwatch until my pebble dies, and not that excited about $70 for built-in LTE (especially if there are ongoing monthly charges), but I'm curious.
Plus the current generations work fine in alpine conditions, from personal experience.
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.
I think that could be a viable option for a lot of people (not all people - I can't imagine on the go emails and messaging on a watch) and not for a few years. If and when Siri becomes great, then the iPhone could become obsolete for many people.
In an ideal world, this would stop people from inhabiting the purgatory that is currently phone ownership. You're not going to browse reddit on your watch in the elevator - maybe you'll make small talk and save the reddit for your own toilet. In an ideal world.
An Apple Watch that can play my music through my Bluetooth earphones is a game changer for me.
The only thing this changed is allowing you to use LTE to stream music instead of having a static playlist.
As far as I'm concerned, the LTE Watch cannot arrive fast enough.
Anyone know?
Apple Watch 3 in Cellular, iPhone X, & the Wireless charging mat.
I wear a Garmin vivoactive HR watch that does a lot, but certainly not all that an Apple watch does; but it goes about a week on a charge. One feature I like of smartwatches is the sleep tracking. But with the Apple watch, wouldn't you need to charge it while you slept? Otherwise you'd be taking it off some part of each day to charge it.
- charge when you notice you're low (weekly or more)
- charge as a matter of routine (daily-ish)
- obsessively hunt your tiny overlord's next power fix, living life as a series of trips from outlet to outlet (multiple times daily)
You mean a Tesla?
The no home-button iphone feels like 'meh, I don't mind having a button there at all actually', the 4k apple tv might be nice for people who enjoy sports, while this is the feature everyone has been waiting for.
It appeals to women because fashion, and appeals to men who don't need to check social media/message/calendar on a daily basis.
A total win for everybody involved. The pricetag for what it is, I find to be too much, but it's Apple, so.
How extraordinarily sexist.