AW3 has potential, VAST potential. I wish they would have solved this LTE issue before releasing it. I don't trust my watch without my phone. I thought I had solved it by clearing my network history and not joining any Wifi except my single 2.4g at home but that failed me last night at the park. My watch said it had cell service with 4 green dots, but when I got back to my house my phone had a missed call and three texts on it. None of them hit my watch until my phone was in range, and I only then saw them because I went and looked at the text conversations. Never once did I get an alert that the messages came in, even after it paired with my phone.
Still love the watch, it's my first AW. But I want it to just work as every other apple product has. i'm spoiled, I can admit that.
Adding LTE to the watch was, I believe, a huge improvement. But, it must also be realized that this does not actually add any functionality to the watch. It just makes it a (far) better stand-alone device.
For myself: I wear a Gen 0 throughout my waking hours and use it daily for running, cycling and strength training. While I would love to have a Series 3 (brighter screen, faster processor and more independence from the iPhone), I am still waiting for some actual functional improvements in the Watch before upgrading.
... Right now, there's nothing I could do on a Series 3 LTE that I can't already do on my 1 year old Gen 0.
This is incorrect. The series 0 cannot do the new advanced HR monitoring features in watchOS 4. Hardware difference. Siri voice isn’t possible on 0. And lastly my 0 is just so slow with siri and HK that it’s almost unusable, my screen sleeps before it finishes processing requests, so the 3 gains functionality there too.
Well it is still fat & ugly... and still can’t make phone calls.
The Watch will remain a niche product. Strapping an IPhone to your arm seems more practical, unless you have money to burn.
IOS11 is great (by the way) navigation works well, it’s noticeably faster, and I think battery life has improved.
Can't say anything about fat & ugly - except that it isn't to me - but it does make phone calls - if you had bothered to read the first few paragraphs of the article, you would know that. And as to it being a 'niche' product, I think you need a little help with what a 'niche' is. No definition I've ever come across would describe a product that's sold in the neighborhood of 40-50 million units and one that's now in the top spot in worldwide watch sales a "niche". That would mean that, by your definition, watches are 'niche' products.
LOL...athletes the only market? LMAO or you could just be rich and get it because you want it....such people exist. LOL. It will ne interesting to see if your prognostications come to pass....i am not betting on you because of flawed assumptions and a lack of vision..but thanks for the smile.
You gave me credit for prognosticating - isn't that the definition of vision? I don't see you making any statements about what the future will hold, so it seems to me the descriptor 'lack of vision' applies more to you than it does to me.
As far as rich folks: yes, I'm sure there will be some/many of those that will buy the series 3 with cellular. So what? Newsflash: there aren't that many rich people! The Apple Watch wants to be a mas market device, not a Rolex. LOL. Thanks for your attempt at a critique/troll.
I am very disappointed with the battery life of this product. Especially adding LTE which uses a lot of battery. I was looking forward to the AW3 doing sleep tracking but I do not think it does. If it did, the 18 hour battery charge would not be adequate. Too bad.
Do you really need for your display to connect to your iPhone or the display to automatically turn on when you tilt your wrist while sleeping? I don't think it does so I turn these off at night.
I also only charge while showing and getting ready each day so I'm wearing it most hours in a given day without the battery running out. I'm still on Series 0 so maybe things will be worse when my Series 3 arrives on 05 Oct, but I think it's likely it will be better.
Personally, I'd prefer not wearing a watch to bed, but I'd also prefer not to wear anything at all on my wrist. I do it because it's useful.
Where are all the clowns who said the Watch was a flop?
All those haters are either ignorant, dumb, or lack vision.
Apple once again proving all the haters wrong.
Where are all the clowns who said that Cook wasn't fit to run Apple?
All those haters are either ignorant, dumb, or lack vision.
Apple once again proving all the haters wrong.
Where are all the clowns who said that Cook never made mistakes?
All those haters are either ignorant, dumb, or lack vision.
Keep in mind that Sog wanted Tim Cook's head on a platter and called for Jeff Bezos to take over as CEO. And that's barely scratching the surface of the batshit crazy shit Sog about Cook and Apple when the stock dipped, as it naturally does. I'm sure it won't be long before we see that same ol' Sog declare war on Apple again because of natural market trends.
The limits on local music storage remain something of a mystery -- I managed to sync more than 4 gigabytes of music with one playlist and the "Heavy Rotation" feature. But when I attempted to add another playlist, the iPhone Watch app told me I could not transfer anymore, despite the fact that I had a whopping 9 gigabytes of storage available.
So still not an adequate replacement for the iPod nano and shuffle they've discontinued? Odd that they won't just publish the local music sync storage specs.
The Watch will remain a niche product. Strapping an IPhone to your arm seems more practical, unless you have money to burn.
IOS11 is great (by the way) navigation works well, it’s noticeably faster, and I think battery life has improved.
You really think that an iPhone on your wrist is "more practical" than a device designed for your wrist? To each their own, but I much prefer the longer battery life of the Watch and the ability to use while swimming, to name just a couple benefits over strapping an iPhone to my person.
Well it is still fat & ugly... and still can’t make phone calls.
1) Each year it's actually become a little thicker. We've also seen a similar trend with many iPhones in thickness and weight, which goes against this common BS comment: Apple only cares about making products thinner.
2) Why don't you believe that it can't make phone calls when that's the biggest tentpole feature of the Series 3 Watch?
The limits on local music storage remain something of a mystery -- I managed to sync more than 4 gigabytes of music with one playlist and the "Heavy Rotation" feature. But when I attempted to add another playlist, the iPhone Watch app told me I could not transfer anymore, despite the fact that I had a whopping 9 gigabytes of storage available.
So still not an adequate replacement for the iPod nano and shuffle they've discontinued? Odd that they won't just publish the local music sync storage specs.
It's really weird, and pretty dumb, if you ask me. In watchOS 3 and prior, you had the option of choosing between 2GB or 250 songs. That selection is now gone with watchOS 4, and the capabilities of just how much you can transfer to your watch are somehow even more mysterious than before.
I suspect that big changes are coming in watchOS 4.1, particularly with LTE streaming in the mix. I would expect Apple would want to host as much as it can on the device itself to extend LTE battery life. Plus there is the weird "can't browse music library from your iPhone" change that I hope will be addressed.
That said, it makes absolutely no sense to me why Apple doesn't allow users to manage the storage on their device as they see fit. If I have a couple of extra gigabytes free (or in the case of my 16GB LTE model, nine whole freaking gigabytes), let me use it how I see fit. If I want to stuff it to the gills with music and it's not going to degrade OS performance, what does Apple care? The music library management needs to have more options, as I said in the review.
Which also reminds me, iTunes used to have (probably still does, if you use an iPod) an option to downgrade song quality to 128kbps to fit more onto the device. I'd like to see that again to really fit as much music on the watch as possible.
People said the EXACT same things about phones vs laptops in the 90's.............
I don't agree with the analogy. Phones could always do something laptops could not: make phone calls. Over time and as their physical dimensions grew, they could also do lots of things that were previously done by laptop. Compare that to the Apple Watch vs. iPhone: the only thing the Apple Watch does that your smartphone can't is measure your heart rate. And even that feature was already available as an app on the iPhone and in much cheaper activity trackers. What sells Apple Watches is the added convenience of not having to pull your phone out of your pocket every time you get a notification or when you want to read your heart rate. Yes, cellular, adds an additional convenience - but for a relatively small number of people.
The Apple Watch can't grow in size to do more of what the iPhone does. People are never going to run any serious apps on a 1.5" screen. Rather, I think the Apple Watch will grow more useful with ever more sensors (e.g. glucose monitor, oxygen monitor). But sensor data has to go somewhere - the iPhone.
Where are all the clowns who said the Watch was a flop?
All those haters are either ignorant, dumb, or lack vision.
Well it is still fat & ugly... and still can’t make phone calls.
The Watch will remain a niche product. Strapping an IPhone to your arm seems more practical, unless you have money to burn.
IOS11 is great (by the way) navigation works well, it’s noticeably faster, and I think battery life has improved.
I bet your more fat and more ugly - but seriously the bs about searching your iphones music library for ur fave glen Miller orchestra standard or saved talk/am radio podcasts from the watch is r.e.t.a.r.d.e.d.
The limits on local music storage remain something of a mystery -- I managed to sync more than 4 gigabytes of music with one playlist and the "Heavy Rotation" feature. But when I attempted to add another playlist, the iPhone Watch app told me I could not transfer anymore, despite the fact that I had a whopping 9 gigabytes of storage available.
So still not an adequate replacement for the iPod nano and shuffle they've discontinued? Odd that they won't just publish the local music sync storage specs.
It's really weird, and pretty dumb, if you ask me. In watchOS 3 and prior, you had the option of choosing between 2GB or 250 songs. That selection is now gone with watchOS 4, and the capabilities of just how much you can transfer to your watch are somehow even more mysterious than before.
I suspect that big changes are coming in watchOS 4.1, particularly with LTE streaming in the mix. I would expect Apple would want to host as much as it can on the device itself to extend LTE battery life. Plus there is the weird "can't browse music library from your iPhone" change that I hope will be addressed.
That said, it makes absolutely no sense to me why Apple doesn't allow users to manage the storage on their device as they see fit. If I have a couple of extra gigabytes free (or in the case of my 16GB LTE model, nine whole freaking gigabytes), let me use it how I see fit. If I want to stuff it to the gills with music and it's not going to degrade OS performance, what does Apple care? The music library management needs to have more options, as I said in the review.
Which also reminds me, iTunes used to have (probably still does, if you use an iPod) an option to downgrade song quality to 128kbps to fit more onto the device. I'd like to see that again to really fit as much music on the watch as possible.
Have you tried to add to that one playlist or replace that one 4GiB playlist with the 9GiB playlist so you can push it to its limit?
4 hours of LTE up time? I'd call that a failure. No thanks thats ridiculous
That's 4 hours more than the Series 2 while being in the same package. I can't comprehend how you don't realize the amount of innovation that was needed for that to occur with a YoY update.
Couple of questions: 1. Will it connect to more than one bluetooth device at a time? (When jogging I use a Polar heartbeat strap--the watch itself doesn't hold the pulse quite enough--and headphones). 2. Can I load on podcasts, my preferred listening venue while jogging.
It's worth noting that iOS does support the ability to connect multiple Apple Watches to one iPhone. This could allow someone to have a "dressy" edition or stainless steel model alongside a "sporty" aluminum one. It could also allow someone to keep an older model around (say, a first-gen owner who buys a Series 3) and use that one at night for sleep tracking with third-party apps.
What a fantastic idea THIS is. Wow. Never thought of this.
If needed, WatchOS could use the "heartbeat = yes/no" to decide which watch is "active". Man. So cool.
My glasses are like this. My "nice" ones have straight ear-pieces that stop above the ear. Any hot activity where I look down, and they slide. I use the backups (prior prescription) that hook around the ears, for mowing the lawn, working on cars, etc.
Wow. Nice AW + Workhorse AW.
That's so cool I can hardly stand it, and I don't even own an AW!
The limits on local music storage remain something of a mystery -- I managed to sync more than 4 gigabytes of music with one playlist and the "Heavy Rotation" feature. But when I attempted to add another playlist, the iPhone Watch app told me I could not transfer anymore, despite the fact that I had a whopping 9 gigabytes of storage available.
So still not an adequate replacement for the iPod nano and shuffle they've discontinued? Odd that they won't just publish the local music sync storage specs.
It's really weird, and pretty dumb, if you ask me. In watchOS 3 and prior, you had the option of choosing between 2GB or 250 songs. That selection is now gone with watchOS 4, and the capabilities of just how much you can transfer to your watch are somehow even more mysterious than before.
I suspect that big changes are coming in watchOS 4.1, particularly with LTE streaming in the mix. I would expect Apple would want to host as much as it can on the device itself to extend LTE battery life. Plus there is the weird "can't browse music library from your iPhone" change that I hope will be addressed.
That said, it makes absolutely no sense to me why Apple doesn't allow users to manage the storage on their device as they see fit. If I have a couple of extra gigabytes free (or in the case of my 16GB LTE model, nine whole freaking gigabytes), let me use it how I see fit. If I want to stuff it to the gills with music and it's not going to degrade OS performance, what does Apple care? The music library management needs to have more options, as I said in the review.
Which also reminds me, iTunes used to have (probably still does, if you use an iPod) an option to downgrade song quality to 128kbps to fit more onto the device. I'd like to see that again to really fit as much music on the watch as possible.
Have you tried to add to that one playlist or replace that one 4GiB playlist with the 9GiB playlist so you can push it to its limit?
Sometimes when I try to sync a second playlist, I get an error saying that there isn't enough space. At one point, I turned on Heavy Rotation and had like 4.3GB worth of music on the watch. The next day, I woke up and the Heavy Rotation had adjusted (Apple controls it via algorithm) and I was down to like 2.5GB of music on the watch. It's screwy.
But really, there shouldn't be any hard cap. If someone wants to have their watch be all music and no apps, let them.
Comments
Still love the watch, it's my first AW. But I want it to just work as every other apple product has. i'm spoiled, I can admit that.
Can't say anything about fat & ugly - except that it isn't to me - but it does make phone calls - if you had bothered to read the first few paragraphs of the article, you would know that. And as to it being a 'niche' product, I think you need a little help with what a 'niche' is. No definition I've ever come across would describe a product that's sold in the neighborhood of 40-50 million units and one that's now in the top spot in worldwide watch sales a "niche". That would mean that, by your definition, watches are 'niche' products.
As far as rich folks: yes, I'm sure there will be some/many of those that will buy the series 3 with cellular. So what? Newsflash: there aren't that many rich people! The Apple Watch wants to be a mas market device, not a Rolex. LOL. Thanks for your attempt at a critique/troll.
Where are all the clowns who said that Cook wasn't fit to run Apple?
All those haters are either ignorant, dumb, or lack vision.
I also only charge while showing and getting ready each day so I'm wearing it most hours in a given day without the battery running out. I'm still on Series 0 so maybe things will be worse when my Series 3 arrives on 05 Oct, but I think it's likely it will be better.
Personally, I'd prefer not wearing a watch to bed, but I'd also prefer not to wear anything at all on my wrist. I do it because it's useful.
1) Each year it's actually become a little thicker. We've also seen a similar trend with many iPhones in thickness and weight, which goes against this common BS comment: Apple only cares about making products thinner.
2) Why don't you believe that it can't make phone calls when that's the biggest tentpole feature of the Series 3 Watch?
I suspect that big changes are coming in watchOS 4.1, particularly with LTE streaming in the mix. I would expect Apple would want to host as much as it can on the device itself to extend LTE battery life. Plus there is the weird "can't browse music library from your iPhone" change that I hope will be addressed.
That said, it makes absolutely no sense to me why Apple doesn't allow users to manage the storage on their device as they see fit. If I have a couple of extra gigabytes free (or in the case of my 16GB LTE model, nine whole freaking gigabytes), let me use it how I see fit. If I want to stuff it to the gills with music and it's not going to degrade OS performance, what does Apple care? The music library management needs to have more options, as I said in the review.
Which also reminds me, iTunes used to have (probably still does, if you use an iPod) an option to downgrade song quality to 128kbps to fit more onto the device. I'd like to see that again to really fit as much music on the watch as possible.
The Apple Watch can't grow in size to do more of what the iPhone does. People are never going to run any serious apps on a 1.5" screen. Rather, I think the Apple Watch will grow more useful with ever more sensors (e.g. glucose monitor, oxygen monitor). But sensor data has to go somewhere - the iPhone.
But then - that's just my view.
make a playlist, sync, run, cure ur own obesity
1. Will it connect to more than one bluetooth device at a time? (When jogging I use a Polar heartbeat strap--the watch itself doesn't hold the pulse quite enough--and headphones).
2. Can I load on podcasts, my preferred listening venue while jogging.
If needed, WatchOS could use the "heartbeat = yes/no" to decide which watch is "active". Man. So cool.
My glasses are like this. My "nice" ones have straight ear-pieces that stop above the ear. Any hot activity where I look down, and they slide. I use the backups (prior prescription) that hook around the ears, for mowing the lawn, working on cars, etc.
Wow. Nice AW + Workhorse AW.
That's so cool I can hardly stand it, and I don't even own an AW!
E.
But really, there shouldn't be any hard cap. If someone wants to have their watch be all music and no apps, let them.