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The crushing tedium of buying and setting up an AW3

profmjh

profmjh

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 7, 2015
1,734
1,800
UK
Buying new Apple products is a love/hate business.

My new AW3 arrived this morning. It’s still not set up. I had to pair it. Then update the OS. Then unpair it because EE (LTE provider) told me to so that I can set up the LTE because there was some kind of error. Then pair it again.

Every stage of the process takes forever. The AW is so agonisingly slow to do anything.

I’m losing the will to live.
 
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I’m now on hold to EE. The watch OS is updated. That’s all I’ve achieved in about three hours.
 
An hour later. No data. EE is the worst mobile data provider in the world. And Apple gave them exclusivity.
 
lol imagine if this was a Series 2 or lower.

I’m very happy with my Series 3. Even more so than the iPhone X.
 
profmatt said:
An hour later. No data. EE is the worst mobile data provider in the world. And Apple gave them exclusivity.
Click to expand...

Not defending EE, but they are actually the only UK operator with the infrastructure to support the Apple Watch. Head over to the EE Community forum - there are lots of posts (with help) regarding the issues some have had connecting their watch to the network.

The bottom line seems to be that everyone does eventually get connected - some instantly, others after considerable wrangling.
 
I think LTE being in its first trial year with the Apple Watch had its issues across all kinds of carriers. I think this will hopefully get more refined if we see another Apple Watch release in 2018.
 
Still no service after four phone calls and one e-mail. This is literally the worst customer service I have ever had. I get different EE error codes almost every time I try to connect, each one telling me to call.
 
profmatt said:
Still no service after four phone calls and one e-mail. This is literally the worst customer service I have ever had. I get different EE error codes almost every time I try to connect, each one telling me to call.
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Have you visited the forum yet? It seems that once an issue gets escalated through the forum mods you’ll get someone to sort it for you. Someone called Kayleigh is particularly good, I recall.

https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/Apple/Got-new-Apple-Watch-LTE-doesn-t-work/m-p/608402

BTW I dont have an AW but am interested in picking one up. To that end I’m keeping an eye on the forums and doing some research prior to purchase. I had hoped the initial reported shambles had improved..

Good luck! Let us know how you get on?
 
Last edited:
After yet another call, the watch is now working.

I’m relieved and happy with my choice, but it has been a very negative experience.

Indeed, it’s the final nail in the coffin of my will I?/won’t I? buy an iPhone X. If I buy a new phone, I may well have to go through all this misery again. It’s just not worth the hassle.
 
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profmatt said:
After yet another call, the watch is now working.

I’m relieved and happy with my choice, but it has been a very negative experience.

Indeed, it’s the final nail in the coffin of my will I?/won’t I? buy an iPhone X. If I buy a new phone, I may well have to go through all this misery again. It’s just not worth the hassle.
Click to expand...
Good news. For what it’s worth, I’ve followed quite a few threads where people have done exactly what you were considering (ipX) and it’s worked out fine. Enjoy the watch.
 
profmatt said:
After yet another call, the watch is now working.

I’m relieved and happy with my choice, but it has been a very negative experience.

Indeed, it’s the final nail in the coffin of my will I?/won’t I? buy an iPhone X. If I buy a new phone, I may well have to go through all this misery again. It’s just not worth the hassle.
Click to expand...

I feel your pain. I had one interval in the recent WatchOs 4.0 upgrade where I could not get my AW2 to see the update. Pair, unpair, reboot, pair, unpair, reset, pair, unpair, new setup. Then, after trying every permutation seemingly possible, it was there. No idea how or when, but it was there. If I didn't love my AW so much, it would have gone out the window. Seriously, I hope Apple is working on this process of updates, as it is the singular negative experience in terms of my ownership. Clearly a place to improve the AW experience.

As to the iphone upgrade experience with AW, I think Apple has nailed it. My 8 Plus offered me the option of inheriting my AW settings and backups off my 6s, and did it transparently. For better or worse, just letting you know that process seems to have gotten much closer to hassle free. Good luck.
 
profmatt said:
After yet another call, the watch is now working.

I’m relieved and happy with my choice, but it has been a very negative experience.

Indeed, it’s the final nail in the coffin of my will I?/won’t I? buy an iPhone X. If I buy a new phone, I may well have to go through all this misery again. It’s just not worth the hassle.
Click to expand...

You know, Apple has been very good with implementation of updates and setups on all their devices, except the watch for some reason. The phone, iPad, Macs, etc., all do upgrades and setups fairly quickly and with little fuss, but the watch has lagged on this. Not sure why. I had to do a new pairing and upgrade on my new SS watch, and it took more time that it should have for such a small device tethered to a phone.

So, chin up and tough it out, mate! That's about all you can do! The end result is worth it.
 
Getting my LTE 38mm tomorrow all being good even though I am not on EE yet I want it to be as future proof as possible and next year when I do switch hopefully it will be a painless experience by then getting it all working with EE.
 
The set-up of the S3 took about 15min for me (including restore from backup). That was with Verizon in the U.S.
Issues have typically been with the respective LTE providers.
 
It’s really unfortunate that it went this way for you. I had completely the opposite experience. Set up first tile, and even when I changed my watch and got an error code, having to call EE, they knew what it was, what to do, and had it sorted in minutes.

At least you’re set now. Enjoy it!
 
profmatt said:
After yet another call, the watch is now working.

I’m relieved and happy with my choice, but it has been a very negative experience.

Indeed, it’s the final nail in the coffin of my will I?/won’t I? buy an iPhone X. If I buy a new phone, I may well have to go through all this misery again. It’s just not worth the hassle.
Click to expand...

Worked fine for me. Unpaired watch (keeping data plan), backed up iPhone 7+, restored backup to new iPhone X, paired watch (restoring from last watch backup), voilà...
 
mzanker said:
Worked fine for me. Unpaired watch (keeping data plan), backed up iPhone 7+, restored backup to new iPhone X, paired watch (restoring from last watch backup), voilà...
Click to expand...

I’ve just ordered an X for delivery on Saturday. It had better go as smoothly as you say or I’ll be blaming you!
 
profmatt said:
I’ve just ordered an X for delivery on Saturday. It had better go as smoothly as you say or I’ll be blaming you!
Click to expand...

Initially in the iPhone forum, you stated you purchased an iPhone X, then canceled it and now you're purchasing iPhone X again? What changed your mind?
 
Relentless Power said:
Initially in the iPhone forum, you stated you purchased an iPhone X, then canceled it and now you're purchasing iPhone X again? What changed your mind?
Click to expand...

Availability. John Lewis had stock. And there’s been a recent slew of threads here praising the X, after an initial flurry of critical ones. Plus I’m, you know, weak.
 
profmatt said:
Availability. John Lewis had stock. There’s been a recent slew of threads here praising the X, after an initial flurry of critical ones. Plus i’m, you know, weak.
Click to expand...

You're not weak, you just love tech like the rest of us. Nothing wrong with that.
 
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