My household of two people are invested players in the Apple eco system. An iMac, two MacBooks, two iPads and two iPhones, Time Capsule and Airport Expresses. We love the way that there is consistency across all of our devices. I state this to show that we understand Apple products and how support works.
I picked up my Apple watch on Set 21st (launch day) at my local apple store. It was the AW 4 GPS with Seas Shell Band. I experienced two major issues that caused the watch to eventually being retuned this past Thursday as my 14 day return period was coming to an end. Here are the issues.
Issue 1 - Phone calls could not be answered by the watch and upon answering would go into "connecting" status and then eventually the dreaded "Call Failed" message would occur. The phone was always within 25 feet of where I was. My phone has never not answered a call, so signal strength is not the issue. While this would not happen 100% of the time, it did happen a good 70%. The Apple Support calls quickly wound up with Senior Level Support and we went thru multiple reiterations of turning devices off, unpairing then re-pairing and even setting up as a new device. Nothing caused the calls to be answered. Then we went the Apple Diagnostics route, which they had me run twice and sent those to Apple Engineering for analysis. The word came back that I was a member of a small group that is experiencing this problem (they would not say exactly what the root cause was) and that my only solution was to wait for a new AW Update and could not say if it was scheduled or provide any time parameters.
Issue #2 - Fall Detection. Now this one was a real challenge and one I doubt many others face. I just had surgery (the day before the launch) which put me on crutches for 30 days. Fall Detection went off 7 times the first 3 days. Now that would be great had I tripped or fallen, but that was not the case. You haven't lived till you feel your wrist vibrating, think you will ignore and then eventually look at your watch and see the emergency services are being dispatched in "5, 4, 3 seconds" and you have about two seconds left to cancel. I will say, this experience taught me never to ignore the wrist vibration, Again I went through the usual Apple Support and after the 3rd incident wound up with Senior Level Support. Unpair, Re-pair, Set up as new,,,basically the same drill as Issue #1. All anyone could figure out is the swing of the crutches was being misinterpreted but that did not explain the hard landing. Their solution was to turn the feature off. If there was one time in my life where I wish I would have had Fall Detection working it is while I am on crutches and going up and down the stairs. I am sure this problem will go away when my crutches get put away in 2 weeks, but I did not expect this as a behavior. It was apparent that Apples testing was incomplete in this regard.
Of the two issues, the Calls Failed proved to be the real deal killer. To have paid $400 plus AppleCare for a device that could not perform a basic feature of the watch and then having no time line for a fix, seemed like good rationale to return it. Will wait and see if a big fix comes out and when that happens I will probably rebuy. And by that time my crutches should be at the landfill so Issue # 2 will not be a problem any longer.
Anyone else been experiencing the "Call Failed" issue?
I picked up my Apple watch on Set 21st (launch day) at my local apple store. It was the AW 4 GPS with Seas Shell Band. I experienced two major issues that caused the watch to eventually being retuned this past Thursday as my 14 day return period was coming to an end. Here are the issues.
Issue 1 - Phone calls could not be answered by the watch and upon answering would go into "connecting" status and then eventually the dreaded "Call Failed" message would occur. The phone was always within 25 feet of where I was. My phone has never not answered a call, so signal strength is not the issue. While this would not happen 100% of the time, it did happen a good 70%. The Apple Support calls quickly wound up with Senior Level Support and we went thru multiple reiterations of turning devices off, unpairing then re-pairing and even setting up as a new device. Nothing caused the calls to be answered. Then we went the Apple Diagnostics route, which they had me run twice and sent those to Apple Engineering for analysis. The word came back that I was a member of a small group that is experiencing this problem (they would not say exactly what the root cause was) and that my only solution was to wait for a new AW Update and could not say if it was scheduled or provide any time parameters.
Issue #2 - Fall Detection. Now this one was a real challenge and one I doubt many others face. I just had surgery (the day before the launch) which put me on crutches for 30 days. Fall Detection went off 7 times the first 3 days. Now that would be great had I tripped or fallen, but that was not the case. You haven't lived till you feel your wrist vibrating, think you will ignore and then eventually look at your watch and see the emergency services are being dispatched in "5, 4, 3 seconds" and you have about two seconds left to cancel. I will say, this experience taught me never to ignore the wrist vibration, Again I went through the usual Apple Support and after the 3rd incident wound up with Senior Level Support. Unpair, Re-pair, Set up as new,,,basically the same drill as Issue #1. All anyone could figure out is the swing of the crutches was being misinterpreted but that did not explain the hard landing. Their solution was to turn the feature off. If there was one time in my life where I wish I would have had Fall Detection working it is while I am on crutches and going up and down the stairs. I am sure this problem will go away when my crutches get put away in 2 weeks, but I did not expect this as a behavior. It was apparent that Apples testing was incomplete in this regard.
Of the two issues, the Calls Failed proved to be the real deal killer. To have paid $400 plus AppleCare for a device that could not perform a basic feature of the watch and then having no time line for a fix, seemed like good rationale to return it. Will wait and see if a big fix comes out and when that happens I will probably rebuy. And by that time my crutches should be at the landfill so Issue # 2 will not be a problem any longer.
Anyone else been experiencing the "Call Failed" issue?
