tjwolf

Good review.

But I don't believe the Apple Watch will ever be the purely standalone product the author sees in its future.  First of all, the use cases for such a product are just too few.  The addition of cellular is a benefit that only athletes with cash to spare (for the extra 'line') and who insist on having their entire music collection available during a workout and who must be on-call at all times - that's a pretty small market.  The vast majority who buy an Apple Watch are happy with its notifications and workout tracking and, maybe, listening to a few favorite tunes while working out.  We don't need (or even want) notifications or calls while exercising.  So the lack of a nearby iPhone during those times does not even register as a negative - besides, most of us are overweight people whose idea of workouts is a swift walk - in which case the phone is with us anyway.

And there's the fact that most of us don't want to spend $10 *every month* for a capability we'll rarely use - and for which we're already paying with our iPhones.  I think Apple should have tried harder to make its watch's cellular and its parent iPhone's appear as one to the cellular companies - certainly, with today's "software SIMS" it seems feasible that cellular could  have beeen 'handed off' between the two devices - i.e. if you're going out for a run, Apple Watch's cellular comes on and the iPhones' turns off - thus avoiding separate data charges from the telecoms.

The analogy to the iPad isn't realistic.  The iPad always had huge appeal as a standalone web browsing/reading/gaming device - it was always a device you actively interacted with.  The fact that initially it still needed to be tethered for initial setup or backups was really just a minor annoyance.  The watch, with its much more limited interaction potential (there's only so much time someone who has a life wants to spend tapping that tiny screen) will never be the center of someone's attention the way the iPhone or iPads have been since their inception.  And that's not a bad thing!

In a couple years, the iPhone will rarely come out of our pockets as we don our new Apple AR glasses, have AirPods in our ears, and have more and more of our vitals measured by our Apple Watch.  The phone will remain the central controller/storage for these wearables.

The problem with workarounds like this - asking folks to disable the setting for now - is that people often don't remember to go back and re-enable it after Apple quietly fixes the issue in the next update. Heck, they likely won't know that Apple fixed it - since Apple doesn't detail every fix that goes into an update.

sumergo said:

My problem with FaceID is that it further degrades our individual privacy and makes us more vulnerable to both over-officious government and predatory marketing.

TouchID is my physical finger on this phone.  FaceID is my face on a potentially global database.  Coming from the UK, one of the most surveilled societies in the western world, I find this worrying.

I'm not interested in being reduced to a target for near-field / face-recognition ads or constant surveilance.

An old fart?  For sure - I actually like being an individual.

You’re not ann old fart - just an ignorant one.  There is no “database” for Face ID, much less a global one.  Just like Touch ID, a mathematical representation of your face is kept on the secure enclave on the phone.  That’s it.  Stop spreading ignorant FUD.  Or are you a politician?  In that case, you’re just acting as expected (this was a reference to an equally ignorant senator asking Apple similar questions, making it clear that neither he - nor you - have bothered to watch/read about it first)

mretondo said:

TimeMachine is still no I take it.

My phone is shared with my wife and vise versa using fingerprints. No problems for two years.

Same here - and, frankly people who say "you weren't supposed to do this" are just making sh1t up - Apple never made such a statement.  They never said "register only your own fingerprints on this device - because this iPhone is only meant for YOU".  So people like you and me did what's really reasonable and convenient between couples.  The same goes even more for the even more 'communal' iPad and/or MacBook - in most families, there's one each of those - not one for every member.  So, of course, you'd register everyone's fingerprint on them.

This "news" is about as useful as "next iPhone will be better than its predecessor" - there's literally nothing to hang a hat on.