Video: Rumors mount for LTE-connected Apple Watch

Posted:
in Apple Watch edited August 2017
Rumors surrounding an LTE-enabled Apple Watch are beginning to pour in, with most claiming a fall launch date for the next-generation wearable. Check out the latest in this AppleInsider video.







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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 22
    mtbnutmtbnut Posts: 199member
    This is great news. The other day I said to myself, "I really wish Apple would work on decreasing the Watch's battery life. It just lasts too long." This is the perfect remedy: adding LTE connectivity. 
    edited August 2017 toysandmejony0
  • Reply 2 of 22
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,844member
    mtbnut said:
    This is great news. The other day I said to myself, "I really wish Apple would work on decreasing the Watch's battery life. It just lasts too long." This is the perfect remedy: adding LTE connectivity. 
    It already gets good battery life, never running out before bed when it’s time to charge the phone it’s an accessory to. Definitely room to enable me to get and receive some texts if I’m on a jog without my phone. Or make an emergency call, etc..
    lolliverstanhopewatto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 22
    bill42bill42 Posts: 131member
    The Dick Tracy Watch will finally be here!
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 22
    mtbnut said:
    This is great news. The other day I said to myself, "I really wish Apple would work on decreasing the Watch's battery life. It just lasts too long." This is the perfect remedy: adding LTE connectivity. 

    Yes, that was my thought as well. LTE in your watch... really? Why?
    What I would like to see is wireless charging (over 5-10 meters) so I don't have to take the watch off at night. Or week-long battery life.
    Sure, it sounds great to be able to take a run with just your watch and still be able to get calls or text, but this is way down on my list of wishes for a watch.
  • Reply 5 of 22
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,844member
    mtbnut said:
    This is great news. The other day I said to myself, "I really wish Apple would work on decreasing the Watch's battery life. It just lasts too long." This is the perfect remedy: adding LTE connectivity. 

    Yes, that was my thought as well. LTE in your watch... really? Why?
    What I would like to see is wireless charging (over 5-10 meters) so I don't have to take the watch off at night. Or week-long battery life.
    Sure, it sounds great to be able to take a run with just your watch and still be able to get calls or text, but this is way down on my list of wishes for a watch.
    Well I hate to break it to you but you’re going to get LTE for conservative data sipping long before you get “week long” battery life. 
    lolliverpatchythepiratewatto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 22
    paxmanpaxman Posts: 4,729member
    mtbnut said:
    This is great news. The other day I said to myself, "I really wish Apple would work on decreasing the Watch's battery life. It just lasts too long." This is the perfect remedy: adding LTE connectivity. 

    Yes, that was my thought as well. LTE in your watch... really? Why?
    What I would like to see is wireless charging (over 5-10 meters) so I don't have to take the watch off at night. Or week-long battery life.
    Sure, it sounds great to be able to take a run with just your watch and still be able to get calls or text, but this is way down on my list of wishes for a watch.
    I don't think LTE in a watch is aimed at making calls. To have a data connection can be useful. A couple of scenarios - find a friend could be useful, diabetics who 'share' (parents that can get immediate blood glucose changes in their diabetic children who wear a Dexcom sensor), texts and email and all the other useful data services that currently require an iPhone. There are many situations where it would be nice to leave the iPhone behind, if just for a few hours.
    lolliverpatchythepiratestanhopewatto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 22
    Make AirPods case as a charger for Apple Watch, that would be great.
  • Reply 8 of 22
    mac_128mac_128 Posts: 3,454member
    mtbnut said:
    This is great news. The other day I said to myself, "I really wish Apple would work on decreasing the Watch's battery life. It just lasts too long." This is the perfect remedy: adding LTE connectivity. 
    Isn't that what people said about GPS? And yet somehow it doesn't decrease the watch battery life more than before. It can also be turned off if you don't need it, thereby increasing your battery life. What makes you think Apple would provide a function that causes the battery life to decrease during normal operation, when they have already added battery hungry features that didn't? And have never decreased battery life as far as I know for any product they've released before?
    patchythepirateGeorgeBMacStrangeDaysstanhopewatto_cobra
  • Reply 9 of 22
    kevin keekevin kee Posts: 1,289member
    mtbnut said:
    This is great news. The other day I said to myself, "I really wish Apple would work on decreasing the Watch's battery life. It just lasts too long." This is the perfect remedy: adding LTE connectivity. 
    Apple fall asleep during the product design that they let their new feature LTE draining more battery and shorten the watch battery life. Tim Cook: "why my new watch only last 3 hours from the previous 24 hours?" Team: "Because we added LTE, its more important than battery life." TC: "Okay, that's good. Carry on." 


    Do you really think so?
    /s
    edited August 2017 patchythepiratewatto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 22
    I would just like to say that unless I'm doing something wrong, using the watch as a phone is really not a great experience at all.  I've done it once or twice and outside of just the novelty of it...it didn't offer anything useful to me.  I'm sure if Apple does allow data through the watch without  iPhone it will be very nominal amounts of data that is pulled.  Maybe stock prices, weather, and 100 characters of a text message.  Hopefully then the battery life will not be very much taxed.  

    You know the other thing is that the Apple Watch is just a beautiful piece of hardware/accessory.  My 1st generation still looks amazing and does everything I need it to do.  I really don't know what else they need to provide on this thing.  I mean I can control my music with it, check the weather,  get my heart rate, get news alerts, get Text Messages, the timer is indispensable to me, and ultimately I know what time of the day it is.  

    Fine, if they want to add new things they can, but honestly I got everything I want even with my 1st generation Apple Watch.

    Oh and as far as charging goes...honestly it is now just routine before I go to bed.  Just plugged it in until next day.  Done.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 22
    tshapitshapi Posts: 369member
    bill42 said:
    The Dick Tracy Watch will finally be here!
    I hear madonna has even signed on to do a commercial... 
  • Reply 12 of 22
    mattinozmattinoz Posts: 2,299member
    http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/07/05/first-battery-free-cell-phone-makes-calls-by-harvesting-ambient-power/

    A phone that requires no battery at all and can cover 50ft. The developers say the biggest power drain in establishing cell signal is the analogue to digital conversions for voice  which is already covered by the watch's power budget. They had it running on a solar cell the size of a grain of wheat. So in the watch it comes down to can they get this type of radio equal or better to the other radio option at various tasks.

    Given these LTE cat-m systems are designed from the beginning to suit notification and intermittent type workloads I wouldn't be suprised if they are better battery wise than holding a wifi or bluetooth connection to the host device. 
    patchythepirateStrangeDaysstanhope
  • Reply 13 of 22
    mtbnut said:
    This is great news. The other day I said to myself, "I really wish Apple would work on decreasing the Watch's battery life. It just lasts too long." This is the perfect remedy: adding LTE connectivity. 

    Yes, that was my thought as well. LTE in your watch... really? Why?
    What I would like to see is wireless charging (over 5-10 meters) so I don't have to take the watch off at night. Or week-long battery life.
    Sure, it sounds great to be able to take a run with just your watch and still be able to get calls or text, but this is way down on my list of wishes for a watch.
    So let's say you roll over in bed while sleeping. Either your watch stops charging.. or it charges through your body. Sounds healthy to me. 
    rotateleftbyte
  • Reply 14 of 22
    mtbnut said:
    This is great news. The other day I said to myself, "I really wish Apple would work on decreasing the Watch's battery life. It just lasts too long." This is the perfect remedy: adding LTE connectivity. 

    Yes, that was my thought as well. LTE in your watch... really? Why?
    What I would like to see is wireless charging (over 5-10 meters) so I don't have to take the watch off at night. Or week-long battery life.
    Sure, it sounds great to be able to take a run with just your watch and still be able to get calls or text, but this is way down on my list of wishes for a watch.
    Well I hate to break it to you but you’re going to get LTE for conservative data sipping long before you get “week long” battery life. 
    Maybe so. I will settle for wireless charging. But until that happens I will just stick with my analogue Seiko.
  • Reply 15 of 22
    macguimacgui Posts: 2,350member
    tshapi said:
    bill42 said:
    The Dick Tracy Watch will finally be here!
    I hear madonna has even signed on to do a commercial... 
    She'll be marketing the whole kit and caboodle.
  • Reply 16 of 22
    macguimacgui Posts: 2,350member

    mtbnut said:
    This is great news. The other day I said to myself, "I really wish Apple would work on decreasing the Watch's battery life. It just lasts too long." This is the perfect remedy: adding LTE connectivity. 

    Yes, that was my thought as well. LTE in your watch... really? Why?
    What I would like to see is wireless charging (over 5-10 meters) so I don't have to take the watch off at night. Or week-long battery life.
    Sure, it sounds great to be able to take a run with just your watch and still be able to get calls or text, but this is way down on my list of wishes for a watch.
    So let's say you roll over in bed while sleeping. Either your watch stops charging.. or it charges through your body. Sounds healthy to me. 
    I won't need even half a night to charge from dead. I never let my Watches drop below 50% and they charge up very quickly.
  • Reply 17 of 22
    macguimacgui Posts: 2,350member

    paxman said:
    I don't think LTE in a watch is aimed at making calls. To have a data connection can be useful. A couple of scenarios - find a friend could be useful, diabetics who 'share' (parents that can get immediate blood glucose changes in their diabetic children who wear a Dexcom sensor), texts and email and all the other useful data services that currently require an iPhone. There are many situations where it would be nice to leave the iPhone behind, if just for a few hours.
    Agreed. There are a lot of reasons data would be useful and that alone could be enough to merit an additional purchase for me.

    Using LTE for phone calls has zero appeal to me. I've taken a half dozen calls or more because my phone wasn't immediately handy and I didn't want the call to go to voice mail. I really like that convince but if I don't thing the call is important I let it go to voice mail. If they hang up instead I'll call back when convenient.  I've never used it to make a call and won't unless it's a dire emergency. It's not a good experience to me.

    The biggest consideration to me is the cost of a data only plan for the Watch. I'd be hard pressed to pay over $10 a month.
    stanhope
  • Reply 18 of 22
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    mtbnut said:
    This is great news. The other day I said to myself, "I really wish Apple would work on decreasing the Watch's battery life. It just lasts too long." This is the perfect remedy: adding LTE connectivity. 
    It already gets good battery life, never running out before bed when it’s time to charge the phone it’s an accessory to. Definitely room to enable me to get and receive some texts if I’m on a jog without my phone. Or make an emergency call, etc..
    Or call for help if you get injured on that jog...
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 19 of 22
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    amarkap said:
    I would just like to say that unless I'm doing something wrong, using the watch as a phone is really not a great experience at all.  I've done it once or twice and outside of just the novelty of it...it didn't offer anything useful to me.  I'm sure if Apple does allow data through the watch without  iPhone it will be very nominal amounts of data that is pulled.  Maybe stock prices, weather, and 100 characters of a text message.  Hopefully then the battery life will not be very much taxed.  

    You know the other thing is that the Apple Watch is just a beautiful piece of hardware/accessory.  My 1st generation still looks amazing and does everything I need it to do.  I really don't know what else they need to provide on this thing.  I mean I can control my music with it, check the weather,  get my heart rate, get news alerts, get Text Messages, the timer is indispensable to me, and ultimately I know what time of the day it is.  

    Fine, if they want to add new things they can, but honestly I got everything I want even with my 1st generation Apple Watch.

    Oh and as far as charging goes...honestly it is now just routine before I go to bed.  Just plugged it in until next day.  Done.
    I've used the AW as a phone when my iPhone was not easily accessible -- like on a bike ride when it was tucked away in the rear trunk.   It worked perfectly well -- although it felt strange talking to my wrist.
    stanhopewatto_cobra
  • Reply 20 of 22
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,844member
    mtbnut said:
    This is great news. The other day I said to myself, "I really wish Apple would work on decreasing the Watch's battery life. It just lasts too long." This is the perfect remedy: adding LTE connectivity. 
    Yes, that was my thought as well. LTE in your watch... really? Why?
    What I would like to see is wireless charging (over 5-10 meters) so I don't have to take the watch off at night. Or week-long battery life.
    Sure, it sounds great to be able to take a run with just your watch and still be able to get calls or text, but this is way down on my list of wishes for a watch.
    Well I hate to break it to you but you’re going to get LTE for conservative data sipping long before you get “week long” battery life. 
    Maybe so. I will settle for wireless charging. But until that happens I will just stick with my analogue Seiko.
    So you don’t even have the devices you’re criticizing. Brilliant. 

    Good luck playing music, receiving notifications, making payments, or controlling homekit scenes with your, uh, Seiko. 
    stanhopewatto_cobra
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