
Apple Plans to Release a Cellular-Capable Watch to Break iPhone Ties - calvin_c
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-04/apple-said-to-ready-cellular-capable-watch-to-break-iphone-ties
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user219294
If 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).

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dboreham
A real game changer like the watches Samsung has been making for years that
already do these things?

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Bud
Samsung makes nothing, and has never made anything, remotely close to this.

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dingaling
The Samsung Gear S accepted a 3G Nano-SIM:

[http://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00037221/](http://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00037221/)

The Gear S2 3G has an eSIM for 3G. No phone required.

Many Chinese Android watches have offered direct cell connectivity for a
couple of years now, as does the LG Watch Urbane 2nd Ed LTE ( Android Wear ).

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MBCook
I 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.

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keymone
What if it could pair with air pods and function as a proper phone?

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aetherson
It might function as a proper _phone_ , but it can't function as a proper
_smartphone_ , because you need a real screen for that.

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erikpukinskis
What you're implying is that blind people can't properly use a smartphone,
which I believe is false.

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harpastum
I'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.

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newscracker
I'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.

~~~
fredley
All 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.

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newscracker
In my observation, promises of battery energy density exploding way beyond
current designs still seem a long way away for mass produced gadgets. The
"attack", if you will, has to be from both sides - higher energy density of
batteries (allowing them to be smaller), as well as lower energy consumption
by the gadgets. The latter gets easier when you don't have to power a large
screen and (comparatively) large speakers. I have a stronger belief in the
latter than in the former for the next two decades.

Another possibility for low energy devices is to have them use energy from
outside the physical batteries in them. They could be light powered and use
ambient light (for powering the gadget and recharging batteries), kind of like
"solar powered" calculators that we've had for decades (that could be used for
hours and still work with very less ambient light). The batteries would then
act more like stand-in backups when ambient light isn't enough. This would
require great gains in low energy processing (so I'm not comparing a
calculator with a smartphone here). But I'm guessing this will also be an
approach that'd be tried while we're on the way to getting significantly
higher battery energy densities.

Whoever gets to do eyewear with AR without it looking dorky and without it
being bulky will be the pioneer in making it widespread. These cannot be like
how the Apple Watch is today, requiring an almost daily recharge when the
device is no longer worn. The bigger challenge for Apple, as the devices
become more feature rich, would be to continue keeping as much computation as
possible on-device for enhancing privacy (and using differential privacy
wherever apt), instead of offloading it to the cloud like its competitors look
at things.

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jmull
This 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.

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hanklazard
I 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.

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jmull
The 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.

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pseudometa
There 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.

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brogrammernot
$10/month to no longer need my phone for map my run and Spotify? That's worth
$120/yr to me

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mahyarm
You don't need that if you preload the music and just use the series 2 gps.

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brogrammernot
I honestly dont know if I have any music on my computer. I use Spotify for
probably ~10 hours/day. (Work, Gym, Commute)

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kylec
Maybe 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.

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amiga-workbench
They had a 3G macbook prototype years ago, never went with it.

The integrated 3G & GPS in my ThinkPad is very convenient.

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MBCook
I imagine the all metal cases make it quite difficult (ignoring all other
factors).

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2_listerine_pls
A black shinny ceramic casing would solve it.

~~~
amiga-workbench
And would make me more likely to buy one.

The silver is too sterile.

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TheSageMage
Connecting 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?

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Animats
Battery life. That's going to be the limitation.

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thefalcon
An 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.

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copperx
A camera in the Apple Watch seems like low hanging fruit. I wouldn't be
suprised if the next iteration has one.

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kylecordes
This 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.

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whytaka
This 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.

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goldensnit
I'd rather have the glucose monitoring

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hungerstrike
They should put the battery in the watch band.

(Or do something else to make the watchband more useful. Antennas maybe?)

~~~
jshelly
An antenna would not surprise me. There already seems to be a small contact
patch on the bands that makes them snap into place.

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jostmey
This is the only way I would buy one

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williamstein
Cool. I'll be able to replace my laptop and cell phone with an iPad and a
watch!

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malchow
Probably free data as long as you have an Apple Music sub, or something like
that.

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TazeTSchnitzel
Could the Apple Watch use WiFi provided by a phone's personal hotspot?

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rrdharan
You 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...](http://www.iphonehacks.com/2015/05/how-to-ensure-apple-watch-is-
connected-to-a-wi-fi-network.html)

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.

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epx
Then finally a smartwatch will make sense!

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mtgx
Thus making carriers even stronger.

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nashashmi
The 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.

