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If You Want Apple Watch Series 3 in Stainless Steel or Ceramic, LTE Models Are Your Only Option
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You mean when they took the 32GB price point and doubled storage with no price change? Yea.
Not a jogger, huh?
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You likely will. Looks like (at least in the US) ATT & Verizon will charge $10/month. I REALLY hope t-Mobile charges $0.
Yes, I know, first world problems. I'm willing to pay the extra $1000 to have a white body to match the white band though so the red dot is quite jarring. Steve would never... blah blah blah...
I'm thinking about having the red bit painted over (or something similar, preferably without requiring disassembly as I don't want to compromise the water resistance). Obviously (I would think) "watch crown painting" isn't an industry, does anyone know of a type of service provider I could go to for this type of thing? I did see there are companies that sell vinyl dots of varying colors that I could use to cover the red but that just seems like such a hack.
Still vague, but from Apple's comparison site on the info about the wireless carriers for the LTE + GPS model...
"If your current carrier does not support Apple Watch, cellular functionality won’t work until support is provided."
...so it sounds to me like you don't have to activate it if you can buy it even if your provider isn't listed yet.
I'm pretty sure cell service will not be required, but optional. Apple's website states "Wireless service plan required for cellular service".
I could be wrong, though.
This article/post reads as though one is held with a gun to their head to sign up an LTE watch for an LTE plan which I am sure is not the case. If you do not find the LTE capabilities useful, simply cancel the plan with the LTE provider.
Smart of Apple to minimize options. It also shows where we are headed, towards all apple watches having the capability.
Smart of Apple to minimize options. It also shows where we are headed, towards all apple watches having the capability.
B-b-b-but Olly, my narrative only works if both groups are the same people. Otherwise my diagram will be a little less Venn, and a lot more O-O... Eyeglassy
Lol. That's how life works. People who complain openly are almost always in the minority.
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I am so sick of reading these threads where 90% of the posts are people bitching about something they don't have to buy
And knowing your new steel model has LTE inside is really going to have adverse effects? As long as the Series 3 steel model (with LTE) doesn't cost more than the Series 2 steel model, doesn't require a cell plan if you don't want to use it, and doesn't have less battery life (if you don't use LTE), why would you care?
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And you might not want the barometric sensor either. But what harm does it do to have a feature inside your watch that you are not using as long as it doesn't cost more?
Or my S1 SS, for that matter.
I was planning to get up at 3 am Friday to pre-order mine, until I discovered they're not offering the version I want.
Fair enough. I guess none of those options appeal to me, so I just didn’t care much. That sucks then.
The SS version is not the only way to go. You take a blood bath on resell value. This is from someone who had the Series 0 SS and currently has the Series 2 SS. The only hope now is that they didn't make series 2 the new series 1 in pricing. But Best Buy can screw this up if they have a sell off like last year. Selling SS for or below Aluminum prices. That's with the high end bands too.
What is with that glaring red dot?! Who needs that? Is that to tell the world your version makes phone calls? Horrible. Ugly. It still looks clunky. Of all things to make thinner you'd think the Watch would be priority.
A shame. I hope that future models don't force the cellular option for the higher-end finishes. But more than anything I hope that red dot dies a death very, very quickly.
I bought an aluminium S2 because although I liked the black stainless steel more I couldn't justify the extra cash for a product I thought I would probably replace/upgrade in the future when it's a more mature product with more features etc.
I guess if I was paying the extra anyway the extra extra cash wouldn't bother me that much so long as you can just ignore/not use the LTE functionality if you don't want to, but that red dot would bother me greatly.
Err...
I bought an aluminium S2 because although I liked the black stainless steel more I couldn't justify the extra cash for a product I thought I would probably replace/upgrade in the future when it's a more mature product with more features etc.
I guess if I was paying the extra anyway the extra extra cash wouldn't bother me that much so long as you can just ignore/not use the LTE functionality if you don't want to, but that red dot would bother me greatly.
Err...
So many knee jerk reactions... why would Apple force its Ss/ceramic Watch users to use LTE?
Most likely, they had margin at the high end to absorb the additional cost and by including it in all higher end models, it drives down the cost for the sport models because of scale.
People should be thanking Apple for giving an LTE option for a relatively small bump in price.
This is bleeding edge stuff! No other smartwatch crams this much tech into such a small form factor. It's not even close.
Most likely, they had margin at the high end to absorb the additional cost and by including it in all higher end models, it drives down the cost for the sport models because of scale.
People should be thanking Apple for giving an LTE option for a relatively small bump in price.
This is bleeding edge stuff! No other smartwatch crams this much tech into such a small form factor. It's not even close.
I can't see it being anything more than a way to distinguish cellular from non-cellular.
Red is Apple's corporate colour...and some traditional watches have similar markings on the crown.
I would have thought they would have chosen a more neutral way of doing this, given this limits the number bands that work with red.
Someone will be selling a stainless steel sticker to cover up that dumb red crown.
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I wonder what kind of work the carrier has to do to support the watch. I suppose one thing is to have two sim cards attached to the same number, which is not normal.
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I wonder what kind of work the carrier has to do to support the watch. I suppose one thing is to have two sim cards attached to the same number, which is not normal.
