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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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It’s easier with airlines since there is one set of taxes and government fees. Mobile taxes and fees vary by municipality and state.
Couldn’t Apple charge less for their product then? I thought being in business was about $$$
Pricing is actually somewhat reasonable when you consider an iPad with LTE is $130 more with the cellular radios, the Apple Watch is only $70 more.
I’m not complaining about what Apple charges or what the carriers charge for the addition of a LTE watch. Everyone is screaming price gouging. Don’t buy a lte watch if you don’t think the carrier charges are fair.
The cost is subjective to each user. One may find value in paying the $10-15 for LTE on the AW3, and some may not. If one feels the fee is justified to THEIR use who's to say otherwise?
My AW2 suits MY needs perfectly and therefore I don't need LTE. But its good to know should my needs change there is something offered.
My AW2 suits MY needs perfectly and therefore I don't need LTE. But its good to know should my needs change there is something offered.
Don't know why anyone should feel tricked when the bills start coming in. They said it was going to be $10 per month. It is.
The extra $5 is a GOVERNMENT TAX. The cellular providers are not charging you that, your lovely government is charging you that. That's a 50% tax!!
I don't recall voting for a 50% tax on cellular communications, do you? That's called bureaucratic regulation. Don't blame the cellular companies, they're not the ones who did it.
The extra $5 is a GOVERNMENT TAX. The cellular providers are not charging you that, your lovely government is charging you that. That's a 50% tax!!
I don't recall voting for a 50% tax on cellular communications, do you? That's called bureaucratic regulation. Don't blame the cellular companies, they're not the ones who did it.
When the Apple Watch Series 3 first launched, carriers in the United States and other countries where the LTE version of the device is available offered three free months of service and waived activation fees.
That fee-free grace period is coming to an end, and customers are getting their first bills that include the $10 per month service charge.
If you have an Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE functionality, you've probably already learned that $10 is not all it's going to cost per month. On carriers like AT&T and Verizon, there are additional service charges and fees, which means it's not $10 per month for an Apple Watch, it's more like $12-$14.
On Verizon in California, for example, there's an additional $1.55 in fees on top of the $10 per month charge.
On AT&T in North Carolina, fees and surcharges add an additional $4.39 to the $10 per month charge, bringing the total to almost $15 per month for an Apple Watch. In some states, these fees on Verizon and AT&T are even higher.
If you're planning to avoid fees by deactivating service and activating again when it's needed, that may not be the best plan of action. As Macworld's Michael Simon points out, line activation fees that come with reactivation can be hefty.
Though the Apple Watch Series 3 is linked to the cellular number of the iPhone on a given carrier, it requires adding an additional line to a cellular service account. When you cancel and re-add a line, there's an activation fee involved. On Verizon, for example, if you deactivate the Apple Watch Series 3 and then want to activate it again at a later date, there's a $25 charge. Suspending service doesn't work, as it requires a $10/month fee, aside from a one-time 30 day free suspension on Verizon. From Macworld:Like Verizon, AT&T charges $25, while Sprint charges $30. T-Mobile no longer charges activation fees, so it may be more affordable to cancel and reinstate service if you're a T-Mobile subscriber.
On AT&T and Verizon, though, that $25 re-activation fee is the cost of two months of service, or close to it, when taxes and fees are included, meaning it's not really worthwhile to start and stop service if you're going to do it more than once or twice a year.
Macworld was also told that if he stopped and started service he could run into problems when attempting to reactivate the watch, but it's not entirely clear why.
With the three-month grace period, most Apple Watch owners have likely learned whether or not the $10-$15 per month fees are worth the freedom of an always-on wrist-worn cellular connection. Neither Apple nor the carriers in the United States were fully upfront about the additional service fees and taxes and the hassle involved with deactivation/reactivation, though, so there are bound to be some users who will feel tricked when the first full Series 3 bill comes in.
Article Link: Apple Watch Series 3 Costs More Than $10/Month on Most Carriers, Can't Be Reactivated Without Fees
I CAN'T be the only one that saw this coming...
All this is true! That said, I was replying to a message asking why a watch needs LTE, not arguing that the Apple Watch Series 3 is the perfect execution of it. A few notes on particular execution:
1. The battery life while doing a GPS-active workout isn't great. It's more than enough for me to do a half marathon, but nowhere near enough for a full. That said: I don't use my Watch for actual workout recording–I'm also wearing a dedicated Garmin watch that I find much more satisfying as a dedicated run tracking device. Wearing two watches is still preferable to wearing one watch and strapping a phone to my body, though. For me it's probably best to think of it less as having 2 watches as it is one watch for recording a workout and a dedicated running phone… which happens to be very small and straps to my wrist. Additionally, I never listen to music during races, which saves the battery further. I do listen to podcasts and audiobooks during long runs through the week, and Watch OS really doesn't serve that purpose yet. That means on runs I want to listen to things during the week I'll still be taking my phone for a bit–but leaving it behind during races. The moment the Watch can do podcasts and audiobooks well independently of a phone I'll be able to leave the phone behind for any runs under however long the phone can last playing audio while connected to LTE (putting it back on the charger when in the shower afterward). Then it'll be a matter of time until a later model comes out that can do the same thing for longer. (More in point 3)
2. Generally the Watch won't be independent all day. Just for the length of a workout. So the added battery drain will be while out on a run, but will slow down once I get back to my phone–which I'll have with me the rest of the day.
3. Just as it was apparent that the original Watch wasn't exactly what it wanted to be and would one day include its own GPS and cellular connection it's apparent that Apple will eventually want this Watch to be able to handle a full day with extensive LTE independence and a lengthy workout. Maybe it will get there by Series 5 or 6. We can't get to that without adding LTE to the phone at some point before then, though, and now is a good time to give people partial independence if they want it.
I might be wrong, but I would argue that you already have a quite a good quality of life if you are able to spend hours every week out running, and travelling round the country participating in marathons!
Yep! You are 100% right. I don't have many complaints! I wasn't hurting for this, but when it was announced it had a pretty clear way to slot in to the lives of people like me to improve things just a little more.
Those are not carrier fees. And yes T-Mobile chooses to pay those fees out of the $10 per month fee, and hopefully competition by them and others will push the charge down to $5 or lower, but the point is that this article is promoting a false impression that these fees are basically some scam by the carriers to pad the bill, when that is close to fake news. It not only inaccurately creates an impression in most readers minds, just look at the comments, it also lets the government off the hook for a never-ending increase in "hidden" taxes on items such as utility bills.
I pay my own bills - you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
Very, very few of those are actual regulatory charges. Which is why they lump them into one.
That was the entire point of the article you commented on.
Yes, thank you for also pointing out the obvious.
got a space grey series 3 with lte in October, after dealing with a debacle of getting delivered an empty Apple Watch box (it was stolen during UPS transit) then subsequently being comped by apple. I held off on activating it because I feared this would happen and now look. Telecoms will nickel-and-dime you to squeeze as much profits as possible. Sooooooo glad I never activated the lte.
meh, until it can actually replace my phone, I'll stick with the not monthly subscription model AppleWatch (spoken as someone who doesn't have an AppleWatch . . .).
Not for me. My carrier (Verizon) said it would charge the same as a mobile phone to add the Apple Watch. When I read the CSR a news article about it costing $10 on Verizon, the CSR said was for most consumer plans.
Since my companion iPhone was on a corporate plan that didn't have lower pricing for the Apple Watch, it would be another $40 or so per month.
I called our VZN account representative because I couldn't believe VZN would charge some customers $40/month to add the apple watch and he verified that was true. Still no known plans to allow this for all corporate plans.
Since $10/month would have been a stretch for me in terms of the value added, I returned the watch. Meh.
I would be surprised by $40 too. I would expect $10, but not $40. Did someone at VZ just screw up, or do they really want to lose business?
The watch will never "actually replace" a phone and wasn't designed to. For what it's designed to do, it may be worth buying long before it will project a holograph of a movie.
I agree, and I believe that LTE version is well worth the extra money with 16GB space instead of 8GB. Whether you want to activate your service is up to you, but it is a "nice to have" feature for the extra cost.
At first I presumed it was an oversight, which is why I reported the issue to our account rep. Clearly, three months later, it is no longer an oversight.
Perhaps enough corporate clients don't care since their employer is footing the bill. However, I (and many others) wouldn't ask my employer to pay for something I don't think is justified.
I'm guessing customer pressure may change this in time. For now, they aren't generating much goodwill from this.
Right, the point is that people are experiencing variation of up to 50% on the recurring cost of this feature, largely due to artificial fees created by the carriers. That's significant, and it presents a delayed surprise that has kicked in AFTER the return period of the product.
If some buyers did not take extras fees into account, especially when they already have iPhone service with a carrier, that is their fault. In my opinion, estimating the total for the watch (fee wise) to commiserate with taxes on the phone would have been the prudent thing to do ahead of time. And if $2 -3.00 difference is tantamount to the personal bank defaulting (customer reaction wise) the purchase probably shouldn't have been made to begin with.