It is not that odd. It acts like a wireless creditcard and they doesn't have internet connection either.
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S6 GPS vs Cellular
- Thread starter sparkie7
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Does this happen to you frequently?
In my case I see those as extremely low possibility events, and thus they don't enter my thoughts in terms of watch decisions.
Maybe a carrier dependent thing. Worked when I tested it yesterday. Haven't ever had occasion to be concerned with it before. YMMV
It only needs to happen once to wish you have a fully independent device that you can call upon at time of need or emergency. For example.. you’re in a car accident where your phone gets damaged (and rendered useless) or ejected out of the car, you’re on holiday and lose your phone. You get chased and muggers demand your phone but see don’t see your watch under your long sleeve top. You go hiking and accidentally drop your phone. You can call the police or emergency services as a dependable back up device. Just say’in...
All good reasons for a cellular apple watch since you can make a 911 or other phone call even if the phone is off/damaged/etc. Choice is moot for me since I prefer the SS or above watches.
Not really sure how SMS comes into the picture here though.
The goalposts seem to be dancing around the field. Plant them in one spot please.
One example is say a state wide emergency SMS notifying everyone there is a deadly storm or fire, or evacuation order.
Ignoring that we're far down the rabbit hole of improbably synchronistic adverse events...
Which alternative watch are you considering that would receive that SMS while your phone was off/dead/lost?
I'm not really understanding the decision-tree here.
Dunno, just answering your questions.
I think we got side tracked from my original post. Which was S6 GPS vs Cellular.
The SMS thing is not that vital, as my contact list I’d say 90% are on iMessage.
My S6 GPS got delivered today. Put it aside unopened.
Within the hour I submitted a return and ordered a cellular S6. Made the decision that the AUD $150 premium is worth it in the short to long term. My SIM only plan is just $36 a month for 30 GB data and 300 international. So an extra $5 per month for Number Share doesn’t add up to much to give me the flexibility and back up benefits. Thanks all for your advice and help! It's appreciated
No worries. We do that at Macrumors.
I imagine you will find refreshing the paradigm shift a cellular watch makes possible. Particularly if you are from the era prior to cellphones being so common. Where I used to never be far from my phone, I now needn't worry about it going for a walk or a bike ride or whatever.
Nice. Wish it were that inexpensive here -- with T-Mobile I'm at US$10/mo (inclusive of any taxes/fees).
Glad I could help. Enjoy.
Looks like you've made your decision, hope you enjoy the new watch. I bought the S3 with cellular, tried it for 3 months and realized I will almost always have my phone with me or be in range of wifi. The cellular function was used maybe 2 times total so I cancelled the cellular service. I didn't activate the cellular plan on the new titanium S6 either and would've purchased it without cellular if it was an option.
Perhaps odd wasn’t the right term. Unexpected is what I was trying to say
Perhaps odd wasn’t the right term. Unexpected is what I was trying to say
Fair enough.
FWIW ApplePay does all the communications stuff when you initially add a new card to your Wallet. At that time a device-specific "Device Account Number" (DAN) is created and stored within the device (phone or watch) secure-element hardware inside the phone or watch. The DAN serves as a proxy for your actual card number, and is unique to the device. Your phone and watch will have different DANs for the same credit card. The card issuer and the token-service-provider create a couple of public encryption keys and those also get stored in the device. Your real card info is not stored in the phone or watch.
When you pay via ApplePay, the DAN is sent along with a couple of encrypted things using the aforementioned keys and info unique to the transaction ($ amount etc). The rest of the magic occurs within the payment network and card issuer (and token service provider).
The merchant terminal never sees something that can be stolen and used elsewhere - the encrypted stuff is specific to that one individual transaction. Even if a hacker injected malware into the point-of-sale terminal to skim all the data going back and forth, the data used for ApplePay is single-use and would be rejected if the hacker tried to use it a second time. This is what makes ApplePay so secure.
In any case, the point is that all the communication ApplePay needs on the phone or watch occurs when the card is added to the wallet. The rest does depend on the terminal talking through the payment network but that's not your concern.
Here's a deeper dive for the curious:
How Apple Pay works under the hood?
What happens behind the scenes when you add your credit card to Apple Pay, and when you pay using Apple Pay through your iPhone…
codeburst.io
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I was between the S6 GPS and the SE LTE.
I finally decided the later as I do not care much about the additional sensors; maybe the AOD.
Went for a run and loved not having the phone while streaming music to my AirPods Pro.
The battery took a hit of almost 40% in about 1 hour and 10k.
I come from a Garmin that streaming, not LTE but local from the watch, would also consume a lot. But without that it would last about 5 days.
Battery is my main concern but having a LTE is a big plus.
I finally decided the later as I do not care much about the additional sensors; maybe the AOD.
Went for a run and loved not having the phone while streaming music to my AirPods Pro.
The battery took a hit of almost 40% in about 1 hour and 10k.
I come from a Garmin that streaming, not LTE but local from the watch, would also consume a lot. But without that it would last about 5 days.
Battery is my main concern but having a LTE is a big plus.
You'll find your battery consumption is reduced a fair bit if you sync music down to your watch's internal storage vs LTE streaming. Weirdly it maxes at 8GB local storage, dunno why the limit.
As a former garmin owner (610/920xt/Fenix3/FR235) it took a half minute to get used to the practice of popping my watch on the charger at bedtime, but at least that's a consistent routine and the watch is always full up at wakeup time.
If I've done a full hour or longer run, I'll usually pop the watch on the charge while I clean up. Typically seems to recover a good chunk of the charge consumed during the workout.
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Thanks, yes I will sync some tracks but today did not have time and wanted to test.
I want to use for sleep tracking and alarm so will try to charge during the day.
This was another thing the S6 made me think as charges faster.
Was waiting for iFix to do a teardown of the SE to see battery capacity. Eventually I can return the SE.