Apple Watch to get Activation Lock with watchOS 2
Apple's upcoming watchOS 2 will bring Activation Lock to the Apple Watch, the company quietly revealed on Monday via a new webpage for the operating system.
As on devices with iOS 7 or 8, Activation Lock will prevent someone from re-activating a lost or stolen Watch without a previously-linked Apple ID. One difference is that owners will need to turn on the feature using the Watch's companion iPhone app.
The lack of anti-theft measures for the Watch has been a recurring complaint. While there are some security measures in place, such as passcodes, Find My Watch, and automatic data wipes, these are more focused around protecting personal information and won't stop a thief from reusing or reselling the product, which can cost anywhere between $349 and $17,000.
watchOS 2 will add a variety of features, such as native app support, third-party complications, a Nightstand mode, new faces, and public transit directions. Third-party apps will also have access to more hardware features, such as the accelerometer, microphone, and Digital Crown.
An early beta of watchOS 2 is currently available for developers, but the final software won't reach the public until this fall.
As on devices with iOS 7 or 8, Activation Lock will prevent someone from re-activating a lost or stolen Watch without a previously-linked Apple ID. One difference is that owners will need to turn on the feature using the Watch's companion iPhone app.
The lack of anti-theft measures for the Watch has been a recurring complaint. While there are some security measures in place, such as passcodes, Find My Watch, and automatic data wipes, these are more focused around protecting personal information and won't stop a thief from reusing or reselling the product, which can cost anywhere between $349 and $17,000.
watchOS 2 will add a variety of features, such as native app support, third-party complications, a Nightstand mode, new faces, and public transit directions. Third-party apps will also have access to more hardware features, such as the accelerometer, microphone, and Digital Crown.
An early beta of watchOS 2 is currently available for developers, but the final software won't reach the public until this fall.
Comments
Oh good! Activation lock will make my $11,000 gold watch a less valuable target for thieves! /s
Not really. Get a $349/$399 Sport and swap the gut...You get yourself an Edition...well sort of...again.
People will just complain how it should have been there in the first place. Or complain about how much the Edition models cost or complain that they have to put the stock apps in a separate folder or complain about Google apps not having system access or complain about..... That lot are never happy.
This feature will come in handy when you have 2 watches --a Sport & Watch/Edition. It's key to have one for exercise & sleep, another for everything else. So, you'll have a watch that's not on your wrist, vulnerable to theft. Why make it easy for some doosh bag to enjoy your gear. They can take the long road to reap value from it.
But I saw no details about allowing 1 iPhone to support 2 watches simultaneously in watchOS 2...
Activation lock is a nice feature and I'm glad they're adding it. But it also wasn't the end of the world that it wasn't ready for v1. People were suit jackets and shoes that cost $500+. Things they take off and leave unattended frequently. Where is the outrage that those manufacturers don't provide any kind of theft deterrents? Where is the theft deterrent on the galaxy gear, the pebble and on other smart watches? LOL - they don't exist - and they're not coming in the next version - so why do all these companies get a pass, but Apple is the focus of outrage? It's ridiculous.
Good. It was a missing feature. Hopefully it will mean that thieves learn quickly that the Watch isn't worth messing with and stealing them never even becomes an issue.
I doubt that. There will still be thefts of opportunity, and those types of thefts may well be easier to detect, recover and prosecute. They may even go down once in a while. Meanwhile, the pro thieves will just chuck those they can't unlock and unload. I would sort of assume that most of the pro thefts that happen in the U.S. go overseas anyway.
...so we might only see a bunch of bands, internals & sapphire covers for sale then. meh. Losing an edition would suck, but chances are if you can afford to lose one or get it stolen, you can afford to go buy another...which you will in 18 months anyway when the line refreshes.
This feature will come in handy when you have 2 watches --a Sport & Watch/Edition. It's key to have one for exercise & sleep, another for everything else. So, you'll have a watch that's not on your wrist, vulnerable to theft. Why make it easy for some doosh bag to enjoy your gear. They can take the long road to reap value from it.
But I saw no details about allowing 1 iPhone to support 2 watches simultaneously in watchOS 2...
Good point - iPhone support functionality for multiple watches.
This would be a feature worth developing, if it doesn't happen then one would have to sell, give away or keep an unusable watch.
iTunes supports/updates multiple devises - doesn't seem impossible for the iPhone to have this functionality.
I wouldn't mind having a repair service toss a sapphire cover on my sport model. The ion glass is garbage and always scratches; my iPhone looks like crap. Sapphire the only way to go.
because thats not a normal use case. i have only one AW paired to my phone -- the Watch, which i wear for daily use and exercise. it even has 50-60% battery when i go to bed, so i could wear it for sleep tracking if there were an app for that, i imagine.
technically you can pair multiple watches to your phone. i paired both mine & my girlfriend's -- it kept a backup of each so when i re-paired the other it asked if i wanted to use the backup. but you can only have one paired at a time, and it takes time to do the pairing.
I knew somebody was going to find it necessary to point that out. I think that's pretty much obvious to everyone and therefore didn't need calling out. It may not be "worth" $10,000 to the thief - although it was obviously "worth" $10,000 to the original purchaser! Either way, the exact value wasn't pertinent to the point I was making.
I also didn't think it was necessary to tell thieves how to maximize their income on a stolen edition. Apparently you did.
technically you can pair multiple watches to your phone. i paired both mine & my girlfriend's -- it kept a backup of each so when i re-paired the other it asked if i wanted to use the backup. but you can only have one paired at a time, and it takes time to do the pairing.
technically, no you can't pair multiple watches to a single iPhone. You can only pair one watch at a time. If you re-read your comment, it conflicts with itself... backups: sure...backup as many watches as you please. But once you pair a single watch, that's all you get.
And while pairing takes 5-7 minutes, there's nothing innovative here. Straight up annoying if you actually pair & unpair everyday like I do. Can anyone tell me this is intuitive and a sustainable business model when only 1 watch per iPhone is allowed? If Jobs was still alive, you'd be able to pair 5 watches to a single iPhone; just like devices tethered to an iTunes account. Limiting devices is counterintuitive on at least a couple levels and we all know this is going to change. The most prominent being that of the watch app developer for a sleep app. Guess what: you'll need 2 watches to make this idea work. Or charge your Apple watch during the day, but who's going to do that. And for serious athletes who train lengthy sessions, the battery drains quickly, mark my words. I mean seriously, they make dedicated watch models for specific purposes. One for exercise (& a great candidate for sleep monitoring) and another for all day use. ..This will eventually be a normal use case. And to deny it is to say that basically you have nothing better to do but take the other side of an argument you can't win.
Anyone who finds owning 2 watches egregious, spare me the bleeding heart. There will always be starving poor people while tech junkies rock out with 7 iPads in their house. Same conditions on our planet went down when the Mac Lisa went on sale.