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Unlocking Mac with watch (or not)

Pagemakers

Pagemakers

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Mar 28, 2008
2,932
1,214
Manchester UK
Like most tings apple nowadays stuff just "doesn't" just work.

I have watch OS3 and Mac Pro and MacBook 2015 all running Sierra.

Sometimes when I login to my Mac my watch unlocks it and sometimes I'm just presented with the standard password box.

I've reset everything and sent feedback to Apple.

I guess this is just going to be another Apple feature that just half-works.
 
I have had this trouble. I think its related to the WiFi connection of the watch. If the Mac refuses to unlock I can switch the bluetooth off on the phone and then it works faultlessly. I can then re-enable bluetooth and all remains well for a while. When it next refuses to work (can be hours or days) I repeat the process and it all works fine. I can only conclude the watch's WiFi forgets the network the phone is connected to and then has to re-connect when there is no Bluetooth. I don't know this for a fact but it all points this way.
 
I think I "may" have found the problem.

Haha. I just went to see what my settings were (and worked for the past couple of hours) and boom they failed again.

This is just typical of the new Apple. I spend so much time bug fixing almost every aspect of their systems I have very little time for the stuff that "just works".
 
Pagemakers said:
I think I "may" have found the problem.

Haha. I just went to see what my settings were (and worked for the past couple of hours) and boom they failed again.

This is just typical of the new Apple. I spend so much time bug fixing almost every aspect of their systems I have very little time for the stuff that "just works".
Click to expand...
They haven't used that tag line in ages. With sophisticated software/hardware nowadays it's actually naive to believe that.
 
Pagemakers said:
Like most tings apple nowadays stuff just "doesn't" just work.

I have watch OS3 and Mac Pro and MacBook 2015 all running Sierra.

Sometimes when I login to my Mac my watch unlocks it and sometimes I'm just presented with the standard password box.

I've reset everything and sent feedback to Apple.

I guess this is just going to be another Apple feature that just half-works.
Click to expand...

Sometimes my watch shows up in comtinuity on the dock of my 2015 5K iMac and sometimes it doesn't. The iPhone has never shown up in the dock on the iMac.

I didn't expect unlocking with the Watch to work any better so I haven't set up two factor authentication to try it out.
 
I've used the Apple Watch to unlock my Mac and it has worked flawlessly since I started. At one point it didn't work and my Mac said I needed to have Bluetooth enabled on my Mac. I had shut it off temporarily. Sure enough, it worked after that and ever since. The only time now that it doesn't work is after a reboot which is usually only after an OS update.

I've been very pleased with how well this work even though I have to switch to TFA
 
Naive to think advertised features will work..? Are you an apple shill? Why defend a growing rate of failure?

I like my watch, but my Apple stuff does not work as well as it did 10 years ago re: doing what it claims to do.


doboy said:
They haven't used that tag line in ages. With sophisticated software/hardware nowadays it's actually naive to believe that.
Click to expand...
[doublepost=1475948544][/doublepost]I don't think I've ever been able to get that to work either.

tromboneaholic said:
Sometimes my watch shows up in comtinuity on the dock of my 2015 5K iMac and sometimes it doesn't. The iPhone has never shown up in the dock on the iMac.

I didn't expect unlocking with the Watch to work any better so I haven't set up two factor authentication to try it out.
Click to expand...
 
BlackbookGuy said:
Naive to think advertised features will work..? Are you an apple shill? Why defend a growing rate of failure?

I like my watch, but my Apple stuff does not work as well as it did 10 years ago re: doing what it claims to do.



[doublepost=1475948544][/doublepost]I don't think I've ever been able to get that to work either.
Click to expand...
Yes, it does work just not flawlessly. I was mainly commenting on ppl continually citing "just works."
 
Mine works until I'm away for about 30 minutes or more. Then it may or may not work.

The time I've spent messing about with this I may as well just type my password.

If you are going to release a new feature make sure it works 99% of the time or don't bother.
 
Mine seems to work fine - AW0 and 2015 MacBook pro. Like others have said, if i leave it overnight i need the password - I believe there is a security timeout somewhere set of about 8 hours (i vaguely remember reading it somewhere?)

As an aside has anyone noticed detrimental battery life since using this? Mine was terrible on the Betas and unlocking, but it seems to have settled down now
 
I unlocked my MacBook Air this morning after at least 12 hours overnight. The only time I've needed to enter a password is after rebooting.
 
Unlocking does seem to be something of a lottery judging by the number of other posters for whom it only works intermittently or not at all.
 
I still don't quite understand how this feature work. I mean it's bad enough that many Macs have been having wifi issues for years. So I'm wondering if this feature is "revealing" other problems that were not noticed previously.
 
When the feature was first announced I couldn't get it to work even after restarting all of my devices and enabling 2FA.

Touch wood it's worked pretty much well since; a couple of times it's asked for my password but I've clicked Cancel and then it's popped up "Unlocking with Apple Watch".

In my experience Bluetooth seems to work better (i.e. Air Drop) in Mac OS Sierra than it ever did in OS X El Capitan.
 
All of a sudden, for me, it hasn't been opening up / unlocking the computer. Worked fine before, but since Friday or so, I've had to see the 'unlocking with Apple Watch' and then now always prompt for my password AFER the unlocking message fails.
 
Try deleting the device from iCloud and re-adding it.

All this messing about with this and so many other "features" really tarnishes what was once a mostly big-free operating system of years ago.
 
tromboneaholic said:
In all fairness Apple stuff doesn't work as seamlessly as it did 10 years ago, but they are trying to do a lot more now
Click to expand...

Definitely true... the change is unfortunate. I'm not sure we can write it off on them "trying to do a lot more now," I think it is more systemic.

tromboneaholic said:
Although I'd personally like to see them do a little less and do it a little better.
Click to expand...

Yeah, me too. I used to HATE spending hours trying to fix this or that in Windows... Mac was such a delight. No problems, everything worked. Now its constantly something...

Not saying the other side of the pond is better. Just saying this side isn't as bright and shiny as it once was.
 
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