Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

LTE dots

croco_dile

croco_dile

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 3, 2016
206
191
After releasing series 3 for 5 months, the LTE dots are still only available on the one watch face.

Presumely, most people want to be able to see the LTE dots, which means every S3 owner are using the same watch face.

Why hasn't Apple enabled LTE dots on all watch faces?! Has this question been asked before? Is it just laziness on Apple's part?
 
i guess theres just not enough room maybe with a particular watch face, just that explorer face has the dots. i usually just scroll up on the control center to see the dots. i do agree that the lte dots should be a complication/widget on more watch faces.
 
Or Apple does not think LTE is something a Watch should do most of the time.
 
What percentage of total S3 watch users’ time is spent with their iPhone close? Then take into account that when it’s not close, it’s on Wi-fi?

Finally, for that time on cellular, what percentage care of their current signal, given you can’t really do much to improve it?
 
  • Like
Reactions: varunsanthanam and tl01
Never even seen the dots. I don't need the LTE except if I leave my phone behind. What would I do if my watch didn't have enough LTE at a given moment?
 
Considering that the earlier Mac laptops had battery capacity leds that they got rid of, I would say this is their experiment to wean people off seeing signal bars. They introduced their thin keyboard in MacBooks before they converted the Pros, so this could be a small-scale experiment.

They already pretend to turn off WiFi and Bluetooth to hide some of the inner workings of devices so I would say this is more of the same. Maybe one day Apple will remove all indicator icons, and you will need to go into settings to see what your WiFi connection quality is.
 
tl01 said:
Never even seen the dots. I don't need the LTE except if I leave my phone behind. What would I do if my watch didn't have enough LTE at a given moment?
Click to expand...

This. I didn’t even know there was any watch face with an LTE dot. So it’s safe to say most LTE owners do not have the same watch face.
 
Well, I take my watch to places where my phone doesn't go, so I do care about signal strength.

I guess my point was if cellular signal strength is displayed on the phone all the time, then it should also be displayed on the watch, all the time. It makes no sense for just one of the faces to have it.
 
It makes perfect sense. Arguably it would be better if it was just a complication you could use but the current functionality is fine.

Watch faces are about activities or at least they are pushing that way. I have watch faces for different activities and switch them. Having an explorer face for when I am without phone makes sense. It won’t be often when I am without phone so I won’t use that face often.

To me LTE signal strength is like battery percentage on the phone, it is rare that a user would want to see either. Real estate is at a premium.
 
  • Like
Reactions: chabig
I'm hardly ever without phone use the explorer face because I like it. I do think the dots should be available on other faces though.
 
They just need to add a complication that shows the current signal. That would do it in most of the cases. If you want the dots front and center, use the explorer face.
 
It is super annoying it is only on one face. I am sure they can find space for 4 dots on the majority of the faces or at least a compilation.
 
This is just my opinion but why are the LTE dots important (either on phone or watch). All I care about is that its connected. I can't do anything (besides physically move) about 1 dot/bar or 4.

And there really isn't much correlation between number of dots and throughput. At work I get 4 bars of LTE yet it's only around 2Mbps upload. I can drive 5 miles and get one or two bars yet get 15-20Mbps.

How about an icon for celluar connectivity and for wifi connectivity. And something that says no connected. While they are at it get rid of the carrier name, meaningless.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Apple_Robert
I forgot about being able to swipe up :)

I am using my LTE more and more now as it is quite liberating to leave the phone at home when you nip to the shops or go for a walk. Found it a pain to change to explorer face as forgot about the swipe up!

Agree with others, just really need connected or not if anything as the dots aren't too important IMO
 
Add me to the list of people who didn't even know this was a possibility. Nor do I even know what the Explorer face looks like. I have a lot of Googling to do!
 
In the online Apple Watch Manual (http://help.apple.com/watch/#/apd6ce85daf4) many of the watch faces listed a "connectivity" complication as available when the S3 was newly released. None were actually available and now the manual does not list them. I assume they would have shown the watch as connected via Bluetooth, WiFi or Cellular and perhaps the signal strength of each. I'm guessing Apple had problems technically with providing the complication and hopefully they will show up in a future watchOS update.

I, for one, would like to have this availability and would find it much more useful than complications such as the moon phase or when I should breathe.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Peter K.
Count me in the group that wouldn’t mind a complication for LTE signal. Even if just for something different on the modular face. I do like the Explorer face the most after a few years of mostly modular. The simple ability to change the watch hand colors is nice. Never really liked Utility or Color or Chronograph.

Having a small complication on the modular face with dots or bar for signal strength would be nice but maybe I am in the minority... wouldn’t be the first time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back