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BenGoren

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 10, 2021
555
1,572
So, a certain idjit left his iPhone Xs in his pocket when he put his jeans in the washing machine a couple days ago. I immediately put it in a Ziploc with some rice, scheduled the first available Genius Bar appointment, and let the genius take it out of the bag this morning. She was not at all optimistic, especially after she pointed out clearly-visible condensation on the inside of the front-facing camera. She said no Apple employee nor any AASP would open it due to the safety hazard, but plugged it in for several minutes. The phone got hot but never turned on. Seems it’s not merely mostly dead, but dead dead.

It’s a shame … it was a great phone, in perfect condition, battery healthy … I hoped to keep it at least for a couple more years until the iPhone 16. Alas, ’twas not to be.

I left the store with a new 13 mini, including AppleCare+ with theft and loss. There was a bit of an annoyance in having to update iOS before restoring, since I have Advanced Data Protection turned on — but only an annoyance. Once it finally finished, all seems good. The phone is pretty much as I expected … a compromise, to be sure, but a good one. I would have loved to have gone for the 14 Pro Max, but money is short. The 13 mini will do me well until the 16 PM (when I should be able to afford it).

Not having a phone for the two days wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been, since I’ve been using my Ultra more and more as my primary phone-like device. For the most part, I was just fine … but there were a few things that weren’t so fine.

First and foremost, I had no SMS access, period, full stop — not on the watch, not in Messages on the Mac, no way, no how. Apparently, you need an iPhone to relay SMS. The phone doesn’t need to be anywhere physically near the other devices, but it needs to be able to receive SMS in real time and to talk to Apple services to relay them. I suspect I might have missed hearing from a couple friends.

And since SMS is used for 2FA for so many things … it was quite annoying. I was able to work around it, such as by receiving emails or phone calls, but … quite annoying. Usually, authentication is right on my wrist.

There are also a few Apple Watch apps that rely on the phone. The one that I most missed was the one that controls my hearing aids. Fortunately, I only need mild correction, so it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.

I also missed having a camera as well as being able to read in bed on something smaller than the iPad Pro. I was lucky; there wasn’t anything super-important I wanted to take pictures of, and I didn’t wind up (for example) sitting in a doctor’s lobby for an interminably long time without anything to read.

I did wind up in a car dealer’s lobby for some time with my MacBook Air, and was glad they had WiFi; I hadn’t realized until then how much I take for granted using a phone as a mobile hotspot.

And, curiously enough, the Ultra really does limit itself to slow charging without the phone. Makes no sense why that should be, but there it is. Again, fortunately, even though it did seem like the battery drained itself a bit faster without the phone nearby, it only took a bit longer than it took to shower (rather than less) to get over 80%, so this was only a curiosity rather than anything important.

So … in short, the Apple Watch makes for a great emergency backup to a phone. But not having a phone at all is definitely a diminished experience over simply leaving the phone behind or buried in a backpack.

Cheers,

b&
 
Sorry but my Apple Watch could never even make an emergency backup to my iPhone. I would have to replace my phone that day and could not wait a couple of days.
 
Sorry but my Apple Watch could never even make an emergency backup to my iPhone. I would have to replace my phone that day and could not wait a couple of days.
Not only that, but the Apple Watch (even with cellular) receives NO texts or emails without an active iPhone.

I know this personally from breaking my iPhone one evening (two months ago) and thinking I could just use my Apple Watch Ultra (cellular) for text, calls, and emails. Turns out the Apple Watch ONLY receives text and email IF it's connected to an active iPhone. So if your iPhone doesn't work the only thing that works on your Apple Watch is cell (a shame really).
 
Not only that, but the Apple Watch (even with cellular) receives NO texts or emails without an active iPhone.

I know this personally from breaking my iPhone one evening (two months ago) and thinking I could just use my Apple Watch Ultra (cellular) for text, calls, and emails. Turns out the Apple Watch ONLY receives text and email IF it's connected to an active iPhone. So if your iPhone doesn't work the only thing that works on your Apple Watch is cell (a shame really).
Actually, iCloud emails work fine, just third party email accounts dont work.

just tested it with my phone off.

iMessage works fine but SMS does require your iPhone being on somewhere to receive text messages and forward them via iMessage to the Watch.
 
Actually, iCloud emails work fine, just third party email accounts dont work.

just tested it with my phone off.

iMessage works fine but SMS does require your iPhone being on somewhere to receive text messages and forward them via iMessage to the Watch.

Exactly correct, with a possible asterisk. My iCloud email worked fine; an IMAP account was 100% broken. I’m pretty sure my university-branded Gmail account was okay, though.

So both IMAP and SMS require that you have your phone able to relay the messages to your watch, but the connection between the phone and the watch can be entirely over the Internet. As in, they can (presumably) be on different continents, but both need to be on and connected.

Ziplock with rice does nothing really. Its a myth. Sorry, not trying to be the smarta**, just saying hoping this sort of urban myth one day disappears for good

Oh, believe me — if I had any silica gel packets, I’d have used those instead. I wasn’t expecting the rice to save the phone … but it was all I had. And if I could have gotten a Genius Bar appointment the same day, I would have, too; I took the very first appointment available.

As it turns out … there’s condensation on the inside of the camera lenses, on the inside of the flash, that sort of thing. I took the phone home with me with a thought of taking it somewhere that’s not Apple authorized and seeing if they could resurrect it for use as a backup … but I’m now coming to realize that it almost certainly actually really is dead dead, not merely mostly dead. So the next time I’m expecting to be within shouting distance of an Apple store, I’ll bring the phone and give it to them to give it a proper send-off.

Ah, well. Really liked that phone …

At least I’m really liking the 13 mini. I’m pleasantly surprised with the display quality; I wasn’t expecting to actually be able to read it at the default font size, but it turns out to be not a problem. So, I have the same number of words on the screen at a time as I did with the XS, which is nice. And I can easily reach every corner of the screen one-handed, which is really super nice. I miss the telephoto lens of the XS, but I’m very impressed with the wide-angle lens of the mini … and the camera system in general is scary good. The low-light performance is mind-boggling. The cinema mode is amazing. And the super-precise “Find My” locater is nice … definitely lots to love with this new phone. Probably more I’m not mentioning or haven’t discovered yet.

I just really, really wanted to get a couple more years out of the XS (and still wish I could have).

b&
 
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I haven’t laundered my iPhone 😬 and my condolences on your loss. However, I do occasionally forget to put my iPhone in my pocket when I leave the house (work from home, so it’s not a real frequent thing). I’d upgraded to a Cellular watch with the S7 and I have to say, it’s been very handy!

I did know that SMS would not work, wasn’t aware of non-iCloud emails. Apple’s KBase does indicate that you can “Send and read email” but perhaps, some types require the phone to be active - not sure. That hasn’t really been a concern on my short trips out, I’ll get emails when I’m home.

What I would LOVE to see from an Apple Watch sometime in the next few years is:
  • Link to MFi hearing aids. The watch works with AirPods, but not with my aids. They switch automatically among my iPhone and two iPads, but Watch and Macs are left out.
  • Support wireless CarPlay. From a processing point of view, I don’t see why this couldn’t work - but of course battery life is a huge issue.
If my watch did those two things, the ONLY other thing I regularly use my iPhone for is a camera. That would certainly be…. Tricky to accomplish from a watch :/ but maybe someday!
 
Tbh, I don't think I could live without my iPhone lol, sounds terrible, but I do actually make a lot of calls throughout the week. It's a shame the Watch isn't more capable, but maybe one day.
 
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