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Apple Plans to Release a Cellular-Capable Watch to Break iPhone Ties
- MBCook 9y agoI love my S2, but I have a hard time seeing why I should pay the cell phone company $120/yr to connect my watch. I don't go without my phone and I don't think this would change that. For people who want to run and listen to Spotify this may be great. But that stupid cell company fee will keep me away. Just like it keeps me off cellular iPads.
- Filligree 9y agoSome cellular companies allow you to get multiple SIMs, specifically for this purpose. Maybe it isn't an option in your area, but a lot of people do have the option.
- MBCook 9y agoI've never heard of that, but I'm in the US with Verizon and fully trust they'll either want $10/mo (because it's a device) or $20/mo (if it can make phone calls). Because they're nice like that.
- digi_owl 9y agoWell Verizon is a special kind of "evil" from what i can tell. In most places that's not as balkanized as the US carrier market, you basically get multiple SIMs for your plan and that's it. Nobody gets to question what kind of device you put those SIMs into.
- MBCook 9y agoFrom what I've read I've always got the impression that cell networks are one of the things the US is furthest behind in. Even when we are more or less technologically up-to-date, the customer experience part is still terrible.
- rodonn 9y agoGoogle's project Fi is great about letting you get extra data only sim cards for free.
- archvile 9y agoVerizon has an exclusive Android wear watch that has cellular connectivity and it is (only?) $5 extra/mo.
- krzyk 9y agoIn Poland you can get a "sub" simcard that will use your cell/data plan from the main one, for just 10 pln/month (sometime ago it was 5 pln/month probably some of the carriers can have it even cheaper) ~ 2.8 $/month. It is used mostly for tablets here(main simcard is in the phone) or a mifi for car.
- MBCook 9y agoSee I'd happily pay three dollars a month to get my iPad on the network. That seems like a reasonable fee. I don't expect to use my iPad (or anything else) away from Wi-Fi all that much, so that may be part of the issue. If I thought I'd use it more $10 may seem more reasonable. Like if I traveled a lot.
- teilo 9y agoNo one will be paying that for cellular connectivity. It's all about the shared data pools now. I pay $10/mo. for my iPad Pro cellular. I'm on T-Mobile, but when I was on Verizon, it was only $15/mo. I have a friend with a cellular Samsung watch. He pays an additional $5/mo.
- MBCook 9y ago$10/mo is $120/yr to get access to the shared pool. That's the exact plan available for my iPad. And for extra cheapskate-ness you don't event get one extra GB when you do that. Pay more for less. I didn't know watches were less. I can't find anything on Verizon's site (from a quick glance) that mentions them, only that "tablets and hotspots" are $10/mo. Even at $60 I don't think I'd do it. I might for my iPad, but not my watch.
- wlesieutre 9y agoAnd what's the initial plan cost to get that shared data pool? I pay $30/5GB (then throttled unlimited), so if I have to switch to a $50/month plan for a shared pool and add another $10 for a second device, then we're up to $360/year.
- MBCook 9y agoI'm assuming the plan is a sunk cost because I already have the necessary one for my cellphone. The only question for the watch (or any other device) is the additional fee for that and any extra data I might end up needing. I think the fact that it cost $20 to put my phone on the network (not including any data costs) is already stupid. But it's too late there.
- teilo 9y agoIf memory serves, he is on Sprint. Which I would never consider, frankly. I imagine once a cellular-capable Apple Watch is available, we will see those plans pop up everywhere. Also, sorry, I didn't notice you were talking about the annual price.
- gkanapathy 9y agoIf this happens, it seems likely that Apple would work out a special plan or add-on with the carriers just for this.
- JustSomeNobody 9y agoYep, a single exclusive provider. Because that tends to be the norm with tech companies who have to deal with cell companies.
- X-Istence 9y agoOn the iPad they have the ability to create virtual SIM's and you can select from a list of providers, including one-time payments to activate an account for X amount of data. Apple could move to something like Google's Fi easily with the virtual sim capabilities...
- ubernostrum 9y agoI know Amazon originally used only Sprint for the Kindle cellular connectivity; has that changed?
- MBCook 9y agoI think they're still on Sprint, but I'm only ~70% on that.
- Avshalom 9y agoLike the years of ATT exclusivity?
- DaiPlusPlus 9y agoApple doesn't need AT&T anymore - the original exclusivity was because Apple didn't want any carrier interference (as carriers love to add their logos to handsets, install crapware into the firmware, lock-down settings and features, etc) - none of the carriers would agree except for AT&T, who demanded an exclusivity period to compensate for the risk of loss-of-revenue from evil things like only allowing photographs to be sent by MMS.
- keymone 9y agoWhat if it could pair with air pods and function as a proper phone?
- aetherson 9y agoIt might function as a proper phone, but it can't function as a proper smartphone, because you need a real screen for that.
- erikpukinskis 9y agoWhat you're implying is that blind people can't properly use a smartphone, which I believe is false.
- harpastum 9y agoI'm not sure what the grandparent was implying, but there's definitely a major benefit for larger screen sizes, even for those that are completely blind. iOS voiceover and other accessibility UI affordances are much more difficult to implement on the watch form factor, where a very small amount of content can be 'active' at a time. There are some interesting startups targeting the possibilities here, but right now, smart watches provide a less capable experience for everyone right now.
- keymone 9y agosure i won't get the display but i get speech to text, text to speech, calls, messages, calendar, activity tracker and all the other stuff that one can install on apple watch. are you saying that everybody who has smartphone needs 100% of what makes it a smartphone?
- gehwartzen 9y agoAt that point may as well have the cellular and processing function in the AirPods themselves.
- Avshalom 9y agoHow would you properly dial?
- ISL 9y agoOn Ting, each device is $6/mo.
- drewmol 9y agoNice to see a Ting mention, parent company is TuCows, a Canadian ISP. Check em out if you've never heard of them, I really like their pricing model if you don't need much data or rural coverage areas
- trts 9y agoI switched to Ting for a couple months. Not sure if the pricing is still the same, but I still talk with people on the phone, and paying by-the-minute felt restrictive. First month my bill was <$40 -- that was great. Next month it was $80 because I'd had some long phone calls. I've been much happier with a $40/month prepaid Verizon plan. Unlimited calling and 3gb of data, and then I don't have to think about the cost of making or accepting a call.
- smcl 9y agoThat's a weird memory from the 90s/early-00s, I remember downloading software from their FTP and I've no connection with Canada (this would be in the UK). Linux images etc, iirc?
- gaius 9y agoBut that stupid cell company fee will keep me away. Just like it keeps me off cellular iPads This entirely depends on your carrier. I have a single account for both iPhone and iPad wth 10Gb/mo to "spend" between them however I see fit. I'm with EE.
- MBCook 9y agoI'm in the US. I have a pool of data too, but there is a monthly charge for every device I add to the pool. If adding a device to the pool also came with a little bit of extra data that might make it work out, but that's not the way it works. Essentially I'm penalized for trying to use their services more. Instead of a nominal fee and making their money from selling more data, I have to pay a bigger fee just for the possibility of using the small pool I already have. Not having to deal with tethering is not worth $10 a month to me.
- pseudometa 9y agoThere are plenty of instances where I might want directions while I'm on a run, but there is no way I'm paying $10 a month to add the device to my plan. Hopefully it is just shared data with my phone plan. We'll see what the carriers do, but I think it will make or break it for a lot of people.
- dgacmu 9y agoIf it ends up compatible with project fi, their extra data-only device comes free (at $10/GB like the rest of the plan). Might make this the first smart watch I've found appealing.
- apocalyptic0n3 9y agoThe problem with that is that it would have to be completely decoupled from your phone since Project Fi only supports the Pixel and Apple Watch only supports iOS. If you don't want the watch to interact with your phone at all, then you would be fine. But you'd presumably be losing quite a bit of functionality by doing so.
- jwilliams 9y agoProject Fi works fine with Apple iOS Devices. You need a Pixel/Nexus device to activate. I've got several Apple devices on extra Project Fi SIM cards (including an iPhone). All work fine. I've also tested on the primary SIM succesfully.
- 4ad 9y agoWorks fine is a bit of a stretch: https://medium.com/aaronn/project-fi-on-iphone-7-2564acd96042 https://medium.com/aaronn/project-fi-on-iphone-7-2564acd9604...
- mmanfrin 9y agoIrony is that while Fi is the only plan where this makes sense, it's also the only plan you can't use with an iPhone.
- kylec 9y agoMaybe if Apple wins their fight with Qualcomm we'll start seeing cellular connectivity in more of their products. I personally have no interest in a cellular-capable Apple Watch, but I would be very interested in a cellular-capable MacBook.
- amiga-workbench 9y agoThey had a 3G macbook prototype years ago, never went with it. The integrated 3G & GPS in my ThinkPad is very convenient.
- MBCook 9y agoI imagine the all metal cases make it quite difficult (ignoring all other factors).
- 2_listerine_pls 9y agoA black shinny ceramic casing would solve it.
- amiga-workbench 9y agoAnd would make me more likely to buy one. The silver is too sterile.
- amiga-workbench 9y agoIf you take a look at the prototype, it had a slide-out antenna on the side of the lid. They could have done what they did with the iPhone (And what HTC did first on the M7), injected plastic isolating part of the casing as an antenna but that would have been aesthetically odd.
- leggomylibro 9y agoIt's amazing how hard it is to find a workable cellular SoC. Wifi? ESP8266s are $2-4 a pop and the Pi Zero W is $10 if you can actually find one. Bluetooth? An NRF51822 will only set you back $3-5, and it has a nice and simple Cortex-M0+ for the logic. And the ESP32 has wifi and bluetooth on the same module. GSM? It's being phased out worldwide so modules are being offloaded very cheaply, if your project doesn't need to be connected for long into the future. But 3G/LTE? It's easier to find an HDMI receiver that'll process HDCP. Nevermind something hand-solderable...
- user219294 9y agoIf you could make calls, respond to messages (any platform), play music from a major music service, and stay up-to-date with the most important notifications, you could basically untether yourself from your phone completely. This would be a real game-changer from a personal health standpoint. People are losing their minds with the current smartphone pandemic. I, personally, would welcome this change. It seems like an easier path toward device freedom. Since you wear it, it would feel like you've freed yourself from a screen (for the most part).
- jamesjyu 9y agoThis would be pretty cool. I've started the habit of bringing a book (yes, paper!) to places to read. But, I still need to have my phone with me, in case of emergency calls or urgent messages. If the watch can do that, it'd basically act like a dumb phone with just enough capabilities to make me leave the phone at home.
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y agoI recently bought a cheap feature phone and used that for a while, especially at work. Two things pushed me back to carrying a smartphone full time: 1. Typing messages on a keypad (T9 predictive), annoying as I usually just send messages for work 2. Swapping the sim card between two phones on the weekend / evenings Battery life was phenomenal. Does anyone know how to copy an Australian sim card?
- ben_w 9y agoI have accidentally stumbled on a solution to 1., if nobody knows how to copy a SIM: I have an eleven year old Blackberry — full keyboard, not T9, and both new enough to be using the 3G network and so old nobody maintains distracting apps for it. I can even, despite its age, use it to make a WiFi hotspot so my development phone with no credit can go online when I'm outdoors.
- jrochkind1 9y agoI had no problems with my old samsung flip phone and it's t9. I could even touch type on it without looking. But AT&T said it's radio frequencies were no longer supported. The problem with cheap feature phones for me right now is that I can't find any supported by most US networks that don't suck. The new ones suck way more than the old ones, noticeable delays when pressing keys, etc.
- mtgx 9y agoThus making carriers even stronger.
- malchow 9y agoProbably free data as long as you have an Apple Music sub, or something like that.
- jostmey 9y agoThis is the only way I would buy one
- Animats 9y agoBattery life. That's going to be the limitation.
- thefalcon 9y agoAn Apple Watch as a kind of iPhone Lite, not supplementing your phone but actually replacing it, could be an attractive option for a lot of people. Most of my extended family members don't use any apps, don't use their phones for e-mail. They do use the camera though, so that alone might be enough to keep them from switching.
- copperx 9y agoA camera in the Apple Watch seems like low hanging fruit. I wouldn't be suprised if the next iteration has one.
- TazeTSchnitzel 9y agoCould the Apple Watch use WiFi provided by a phone's personal hotspot?
- rrdharan 9y agoYou mean the same phone, or a different phone? The Apple Watch already can and does use WiFi and will connect to existing configured access points: http://www.iphonehacks.com/2015/05/how-to-ensure-apple-watch-is-connected-to-a-wi-fi-network.html http://www.iphonehacks.com/2015/05/how-to-ensure-apple-watch... Presumably if you tethered your personal phone to a second phone, then the apple watch could and would also connect directly to that second phone's WiFi hotspot without your personal phone present.
- jmull 9y agoThis is all great. In the short term, the sticking point is the cell contract. If there is a reasonable add-on price to your existing phone rate, this is going to catch on. The more reasonable the rate, the quicker it will catch on. Longer-term, the standalone service contract (Watch-only, no phone) will become more significant. People don't have an intrinsic urge to carry a rectilinear slab in their pocket... they have an intrinsic urge to communicate with each other. As a watch form-factor becomes more convenient, they will happily switch, in droves.
- hanklazard 9y agoI would love to drop the smart phone from every hour of my waking life but limited text input capabilities would be a major sticking point for me.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jmull 9y agoThe voice dictation works well. It uses an internet connection, but i suppose you often need that anyway when you're inputting text. The finger handwriting works reasonably well too. It's slow though, at least for me, so better for short messages.
- gehwartzen 9y agoWhat would be even better is if cellular plans just covered the actual data at a set rate and let you connect as many devices as you want. At the end of the day that 'should' be all they care about.
- epx 9y agoThen finally a smartwatch will make sense!
- williamstein 9y agoCool. I'll be able to replace my laptop and cell phone with an iPad and a watch!
- hungerstrike 9y agoThey should put the battery in the watch band. (Or do something else to make the watchband more useful. Antennas maybe?)
- jshelly 9y agoAn antenna would not surprise me. There already seems to be a small contact patch on the bands that makes them snap into place.
- goldensnit 9y agoI'd rather have the glucose monitoring
- TheSageMage 9y agoConnecting the dots, if Airpods are successful in adoption, this could answer the awkward "You'd look silly holding a watch up to your ear" argument, same with "It's inconvenient to plug a 3.5mm plug into a watch". Maybe this is one motivating factor in Apple's decision to remove it the 3.5mm port from the iPhone?
- nashashmi 9y agoThe only company that has a greater advantage at this game is Amazon's Echo. Echo is like a smartphone without a screen. It is the future of smart phones. And because it has a headstart on the voice game, an Echo watch would probably be the next best thing. An Apple Watch with a small screen is a misfire and a watch that works standalone is somewhat missing the point. Watches were supposed to be remote control devices for our phones. Nothing else. This move feels like a cheap limited feature phone, not the future. Edit: Maybe I am missing the point. Imagine a standalone watch that broadcasts wifi signal. Now imagine a thin ipod touch on the other hand piggybacking on the watch. That would be like reimagining the future.
- newscracker 9y agoI'm hoping that in 10-15 years, existing smartphones with giant screens will seem like a thing of the past, and that we'd have tiny devices that look "dumb" for a third person from 2017, but are much smarter and have AR capabilities just like we've seen in Sci-Fi movies and video games for a long time. We don't need large screens to consume more content - we need content to look larger and more content to be seen in our eyes. I see wearables (watches, combined with earphones, and eyewear of some kind) becoming independent of a smartphone as one step forward in this evolution.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoIn the book Change Agent by Daniel Suarez, the society of near-future was widely using projectors that beamed images directly into your eyes in lieu of physical screens. The concept has potential issues (some explored by the book, too), but I found it a very interesting idea.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- msh 9y agoMaybe like what's portrayed in the movie her minus the true AI. A semi intelligent seeming voice interface that handles most and then a secondary backup display only for purely visual things.
- fredley 9y agoAll this is possible now, the big thing holding back this sort of approach, and many other tech advances is batteries. Once we can get batteries with 10x current energy density, the game really will change. Smart Eyewear becomes actually feasible, as do many other form factors. I'm interested in this potential Apple device, but given the current model only really lasts a day, I'm not not sure how they plan to integrate radios and maintain that, and the form factor.
- yladiz 9y agoHow long does a charge for a Google Glass last? I think energy density is a factor but I think getting it to fit into the shape of a normal-ish glasses frame is the bigger challenge, along with the camera tech and the tech to project onto a lens in a discrete manner.
- whytaka 9y agoThis is exactly what I want. Calls, Messages, Email, and Siri with voice to command short replies. Map directions, Apple Pay, and Car2Go and I'd be set.
- kylecordes 9y agoThis is a disappointing development, because it means they are moving in the wrong direction on the biggest weakness of the Apple Watch: the watch is embarrassingly thick and heavy for an Apple product.