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Apple Watch Series 3 Costs More Than $10/Month on Most Carriers, Can't Be Reactivated Without Fees
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Siri and data connection. Siri and data connection when I'm out an about walking the dogs. Siri and data connection when I leave my phone on my desk at work and wander off with my AirPods in. Siri and data connection when I'm out doing a run. Siri and data connection for when I pop to the shop and I need to check what it is I've forgotten. Siri and data connection, for just those times when my phones in the house and I'm in the garden.
Essentially, there have been enough daily instances where I've not had that connection with my series 0 and I've needed a data connection that series 3 with LTE, for me, was a no brainer. Not so much for phone calls, but for data yes, yes, yes.
wow....what an epic waste of money.
Cant see the LTE version performing too well once customers get a wind of this....In the UK many people think V3 is JUST the LTE version as well
Cant see the LTE version performing too well once customers get a wind of this....In the UK many people think V3 is JUST the LTE version as well
I Spoke with EE customer services about this. I currently get 6 months free service with my Apple Watch 3 LTE and after that period its £5pm including taxes.
If im honest i dont really use the LTE part of the apple watch so after the 6 month free trial im planning on cancelling the data plan. EE confirmed to me that as i didn't purchase my apple watch from EE directly, in the future i can reactivate it at any time without any activation fees and only pay the £5pm, I would also get an extra 10GB a month data for it.
People who purchased their Apple Watch from EE are locked into a two year contract so would have to wait for that to finish before cancelling.
It seems to me that People in the US always get the bum deals on phone contracts and accessories, compared to the UK anyway.
If im honest i dont really use the LTE part of the apple watch so after the 6 month free trial im planning on cancelling the data plan. EE confirmed to me that as i didn't purchase my apple watch from EE directly, in the future i can reactivate it at any time without any activation fees and only pay the £5pm, I would also get an extra 10GB a month data for it.
People who purchased their Apple Watch from EE are locked into a two year contract so would have to wait for that to finish before cancelling.
It seems to me that People in the US always get the bum deals on phone contracts and accessories, compared to the UK anyway.
I could not agree more I am a surfer, swimmer and I live in Hawaii surrounded by water with myself often in the water. I am definitely not taking my $1000 iPhone to the beach or for that matter the pool but a watch with Lte is a godsend. Yes.. yes.. Apple Watch with Lte is far from perfect and the pricing strategy definitely needs an overview but I think we are moving in the right direction.
Water issues aside I have enjoyed still being able to receive texts and calls while away from my phone. The biggest caveat is that my iPhone still needs to be powered on to receive SMS messages.
I don't like the price but I'm still willing to pay to have a backup phone for when having my iPhone is impractical.
Lol at that fees. You should pay $5 for a service that costs $5. No more, no less. Paying $60 per year for a wristwatch is still mental.
I don’t understand this sentiment. If att and Verizon are being greedy wanting to get paid for a service they offer. What wrong with this. Apple charges a premium and people here always use the excuse that Apple is a for profit company.
more like you don't need to take your phone to the gym and everywhere you go. It's very useful to have when taking the dog for a walk and not needing anything else in your pockets.
in terms of this thread it seems the US are losing out where we here in UK are doing fine.
6 months free with EE and only £5 a month to use LTE on the watch
big carriers dont give a fudge about us
they charge what they want as long as their making a profit
the only carrier that actually somewhat cares is tmobile. Is still surprises me how people support verizon and atnt even after their been screwed over and over
can you even read?
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buy a pebble then. oh, wait...
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10 CHF in switzerland
They are still the best carriers in the US especially Verizon with the widest area coverage in the US. Their fees are worth every penny. Fortunate for all who can afford Verizon including myself without anything to complain
While the running without a phone is what appeals to me currently, I’m hoping that in a generation or two, I’ll be able to have a watch without needing a phone on my plan. I’ve experimented with locking my iPhone 7 down (no safari, YouTube, Netflix, or Amazon Video) for the past two months as a way to dial back my screen time and I haven’t missed it as much as I thought I would (I haven’t dropped my grandfathered-priced unlimited LTE plan yet) so the thought of a watch and AirPods for music, gps, calling, texting, and (hopefully improved) Siri for occasional internet powered questions sounds appealing.
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Sorry, but you are totally wrong. Go look at some of the detailed billing screen shots posted in this thread. You will see taxes from every level of government, but you will also see totally bogus fees from the carrier added on to the taxes just to add additional profit for the carrier. Also T-Mobile as part of their uncarier system of operating principals does not pass on ANY of the taxes and has no extra fees. You pay $10.00 period. So since they do it - they all could.
I can understand a few use cases, but really the Series II was pretty much what is needed.
Knowing the business practices of Apple, we’re seeing a more iterative creation of a product (cough cough agile), for Tim to make some additional money. The LTE is just an interactive step to just get right as the product is heading to a full isolated product that can communicate with your phone.
Knowing the business practices of Apple, we’re seeing a more iterative creation of a product (cough cough agile), for Tim to make some additional money. The LTE is just an interactive step to just get right as the product is heading to a full isolated product that can communicate with your phone.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I respect your opinion but view these particular responses as common spin repackaged as rationale in support of cellular technology. For example, this one: for many jobs, the employee does NOT need to be accessible at all times. That's something we've created by employees making ourselves available at all times and employers taking advantage of it. Until about 30 years ago, all jobs everywhere had no such always-accessible availability. Most of those same jobs still exist. The vast majority of jobs would survive some calamity where cellular communications were knocked out. The change would just be in the pace of information flow. The benefit would be that the vast majority of workers could focus on their work instead of pausing to laugh at a cat video or sending emoji back & forth.
What most jobs actually need is for employees to stop being so distracted and FOCUS on getting whatever they are supposed to do done. Often that involves putting down the phone and not looking at it every possible opportunity. One man's "essential" is another man's "distraction box."
I'll grant you that this is certainly a benefit. But until about 30 years ago, there were probably more unsafe areas to be traversed... and people traversed them just fine. Sometimes something bad may have happened to some of those people but a cell phone doesn't shield the same from happening to them now... just gives them an ability to call for help.
Hop back 130 years and many could traverse unsafe area with a gun. THAT would give them a tangible way to defend themselves if the bad guys showed up in some area. While not making the case to replace our phones with guns, if I'm traversing an unsafe area and someone wants to do something bad to me, I'd rather have a gun in that situation than a cell phone. But we've generally CHOSEN to do away with carrying guns through such areas, buying into some spin that having a cell phone makes us safer.
In my opinion, having a $1000 cell phone in an unsafe area probably makes us more of a target.
As to the medical issues people, no doubt the ability to call for help saves lives. However, that could be covered at a much cheaper cost with one of those "I've fallen and can't get up" devices. And the same for the spin of "what if I'm out at night and the car breaks down?" rationale too. Of course, we can't text or play games or browse the internet on those devices, so it's hard to see them as a good alternative.
It is not a necessity. We just make it out in our own minds that it is.
And consumers could choose to abstain or boycott. They just choose not to.
The vast, vast, vast majority of communications realized in our cellular devices are more "what R U doin?" and equivalent vs. "I've fallen and can't get up" or "I'm in this alley and bad guys are coming to get me." Most emails are about nothing crucial to our day. Most work email would have the exact same impact if we got it 4 hours later as if we get it immediately. Etc.
Try it yourself. "Accidentally" leave your phone at home for a day. Odds are high you'll experience some withdrawal-like moments (no doubt) but you'll probably finish that day feeling like you got more done than you can remember. That's a common event often capped with "with all the distractions of that thing out of my hair for the day, I got so much done!"
Are there exceptions? Of course. There is always the 911 "phone saved my life" stories. But lots of other things can be subbed in for "phone" there: dog, cat, gun, neighbor, car, doctor, etc but we're all not strapping dogs, cats, guns, neighbors, cars, doctor to our waist so they are always on hand ready to save our life too. The magic in being led to believe that cellular devices are essential is grounded in the fairly rare & extreme stories where having one makes a tangible difference... events and/or things that probably rarely- maybe never- happen to us (when was the last time you actually had a 911 emergency where your cell phone was the only option to call 911?) One can find a rare & extreme story where just about anything can make a tangible difference in some scenario: "Had that Doctor not been on the plane, I very likely would have died... so now I keep that doctor with me at all times just in case" or "Had the co-pilot not also been flying, the plane would have likely crashed when the pilot got sick... so now I keep a co-pilot with me at all times" or "if I didn't have that anti-venom in my backpack, that snake bite may have been fatal. So now I always carry anti-venom..." or "If I didn't build that steel-fortified structure 1,000 feet below the surface of the earth, a meteor strike may have been fatal... so I've spent all that money building such a structure." And so on.
All that written: are such devices convenient? Yes! Is it nice to have such capabilities in our pockets? Yes! Can they save a life in an extreme situation? Yes! And on and on. But I'll hold to my own opinion that they are not essential and that many consumers could abstain or boycott if they chose to do so.
Very tangible example: Cigarettes. Step back about 50-70+ years and a mass market, in-thing was smoking cigarettes. I posit that they were at least as popular and "in your face (nose)" as cell phone usage today. Everyone was smoking. It was "cool." Stars were doing it- and endorsing it- on television and in movies. Even Doctors were appearing in ads endorsing it. Those who have been smokers know the addiction all to well. Given the choice between cigarettes and cell phone, many smokers would choose the drug over the device.
Then, cigarettes began a long, slow fall out of mass market favor. The health issues became very real. People became increasingly afraid to partake. Today, many would argue that there's nothing good about that product and readily encourage anyone and everyone to NOT partake... what was once a seemingly essential part of just about everyone's lives... where the addictive nature made it physically difficult/uncomfortable to abstain or boycott that product. And yet, progress has been made and their mass market popularity has become more niche popularity.
Am I equating cellular devices to cigarettes? No- just using an extreme example to show how "essential" can become the opposite by consumers changing their view of a kind of product. Am I suggesting cellular devices should be banned? No, just using some drama to point out the difference between actually essential and seemingly essential... and that abstaining and/or boycotting is much more just a consumer choice than being impossible or near impossible.
Lastly, my posts are not even suggesting permanent abstinence- just a move to illustrate that the buyers have had it with the sellers jacking up prices & nickel & dimeing us at every turn... more of our ability to flex our "No!" muscles rather than just giving sellers whatever they want to feed the addiction that is likely completely imagined.
Hmm - I would rather trust in the coverage and battery life of my iPhone SE - a full phone with a full sized antenna and battery compared to a watch when I’m cross country skiing (and even then I remain quite close to civilization).
I would never count on an Apple Watch (and therefore don’t own one: more technology that’s just not for me) - and who needs yet another monthly subscription. We’re nickel and diming ourselves into wage-slavery...