By Joanna Stern
There's this moment in "Dick Tracy" where the fearless
detective, chasing down a villainous gang, taps his magical
wristwatch to call for backup. Then, realizing the battery is down
to 8% and that cellular isn't connecting, he ducks under a desk to
find a power outlet and futz with the settings.
Poor Dick, he upgraded to the cellular version of the Apple
Watch Series 3.
Apple's latest has all the ingredients of the future we were
promised. Crammed inside that familiar flattened-marshmallow
rounded square is the power to make calls from anywhere, connect to
an always-listening personal assistant and check in on your health
with biometric sensors -- all without depending on an iPhone for
connectivity.
Except, after I spent a week testing these new models -- denoted
by a red dot on their dials -- the future feels even further away.
You're lucky if the battery allows you to roam on cellular for
longer than half a day -- especially if you're making calls. And
only a limited number of third-party apps work without the phone
close by. (No Instagram, Twitter, Uber.)
Most worryingly, my colleague Geoffrey Fowler and I experienced
cellular connectivity issues on three separate pre-production
models, in two different states, on two different 4G LTE
carriers.
On the AT&T-connected models, the cellular connection
dropped, calls were often choppy and Siri sometimes failed to
connect. On the one that ran on T-Mobile, I experienced several
dropped connections.
When I asked Apple about these issues, a spokesman said, "We
haven't seen this in any of our testing and we're looking into
it."
That's a lot of baggage for a device that costs $400 -- $70 more
than the noncellular Series 3. And don't forget the extra $10 a
month you'll need to pay your carrier for the cellular service.
A cellular device is, sometimes literally, a lifeline. That's
why I can't recommend the cellular Apple Watch Series 3 until the
connectivity is more reliable. Even then, the battery life could be
a buzz kill for some. Apple itself promises only one hour of talk
time on LTE, and I confirmed this in my testing. Also, the watch
becomes noticeably warm during longer calls.
However, when the Watch was performing as it should, I
discovered the enjoyment of being untethered from my iPhone. In my
video I experimented with living a jam-packed day with just a
cellular Apple Watch. It isn't possible. But there are three types
of shorter-lived scenarios where I found it could be useful:
Workouts. The one thing that has had me yearning for a cellular
edition for years is the prospect of finally burying my chunky,
smelly iPhone running armband.
On Saturday morning, with just the Apple Watch on my wrist and
AirPods in my ears, I tracked my mile-and-a-half run, texted my
wife to ask if she wanted coffee and then paid for two iced lattes
at a local shop with Apple Pay. And once Apple's streaming music
service hits the watch next month, I'll be able to demand that Siri
play "Taylor's new single" or any other song that comes to mind.
For now, you still need to download music.
The same can apply to hiking, biking, golfing -- whatever your
land sport of choice. But depending on how much time you spend out,
you may need to turn off the cellular connectivity to conserve
battery life. Don't expect to stream music or receive motivational
texts through a whole marathon.
New to both the cellular and noncellular versions of the Series
3 are real-time heart-rate reporting and an altimeter. To test
both, I decided to conquer my fear of heights and climbed up a
23-foot-high trapeze tower. Apple correctly measured my petrifying
walk up the ladder at two flights. (A flight of stairs is 10 feet
of elevation gain.) When I reached the top, my heart rate
registered 153 beats per minute. Yes, I was that frightened about
stepping off the ledge.
Because I was actively climbing up to that point, I didn't
receive an elevated heart-rate notification, which it sends when it
doesn't understand why your heart is racing.
Water Activities. Confirmed: You can call or text from an Apple
Watch while sitting on a Jet Ski in the middle of the Hudson River.
Also confirmed: The water is still gross. That experience may sound
unusual, but you'd definitely want a cellular Apple Watch for water
activities.
Whether it be surfing, sailing, kayaking, swimming or sitting in
the kiddie pool, the ability to stay reachable without handling a
phone, even a water-resistant one, is freeing. Unfortunately, with
no camera on the watch, there's no way to snap photos.
The cellular and noncellular versions of the Series 3 are water-
resistant up to 50 meters. And no, you can't make calls from under
water. I've tried.
Walkabouts. Unless you plan to carry around a 5-pound backup
battery in your bag, living a full day with just the Apple Watch
isn't happening. But it can be great for short departures from the
iPhone to walk the dog, run to the supermarket, go to a meeting in
the office or move the car. In all those situations, I received
messages and emails and quickly responded via voice-to-text, which
has become more accurate, even in noisy environments. I've also
been impressed with Siri's quick response time to my "Hey Siri"
prompts. I'm still less than impressed with Siri's ability to
help.
One major frustration: If you begin a phone call on your watch
with phone connected and then leave the phone behind, the call will
drop. Even though it's the same phone number, the handoff to the
watch's cellular isn't seamless. I found it generally took a little
less than a minute. Apple acknowledges this was typical. When you
are in a Wi-Fi area or in proximity to your phone, the watch
connects to either of those instead of cellular to save
battery.
If any of these scenarios appeals to you, you should still wait
until the cellular experience improves. If you just want an Apple
Watch, go for the noncellular Series 3, which still has GPS and
runs up to a day and a half on a charge. If you have the previous
Series 2, stick with it and just upgrade to Watch OS 4, which gives
older Apple Watches the new heart-rate features and workout
tracking improvements.
The Series 3 is the strongest indicator yet of what Apple
believes the watch ultimately can be: a stand-alone tiny wrist
computer that doesn't need your iPhone. But if the Series 3 is any
indicator of how that's coming along, we should all hold off until,
say, Series X.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 20, 2017 07:14 ET (11:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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