Roger Fingas
With the Series 3 and watchOS 4, Apple continued to push the Apple Watch steadily forward in 2017, above all making the important leap of adding LTE cellular.
The upgrade meant that people willing to pay the premium for a cellular model — branded with a special red dot — were suddenly able to make phone calls, send text messages, talk to Siri and more while leaving their iPhone at home. Apple did make a gentle push in that direction with 2016's Series 2, which added GPS for some offline tracking, but with the Series 3, people were finally able to stay in touch outside of Bluetooth or Wi-Fi range.
The Watch still has some ways to go before it achieves total independence. An iPhone remains mandatory for setup, updates, and installing apps, and some functions may not be available over cellular. A Watch also has to be associated with an iPhone number, and you can't roam internationally.
U.S. carriers have been a little draconian in their data plans, too. Typically it costs an extra $10 per month to use a Watch on LTE, even with a generous iPhone plan. Exact subscriber numbers are unknown, but the online world has seen plenty of backlash at the idea of spending $120 per year on a smartwatch.
With or without LTE, the Watch became a little more practical in 2017. For fitness fans watchOS 4 added new coaching and challenges, and an improved Workout app with upgrades like high-intensity interval training (HIIT), better swim tracking, and GymKit sync with compatible cardio machines.
Later updates introduced support for streaming Apple Music and more over cellular, and using Apple Pay Cash to send money or make payments.
It's hard to tell where Apple is headed going into 2018. There have been hints of the Watch getting an EKG monitor, but little else has been rumored about a "Series 4" or "watchOS 5," except maybe the addition of native podcast support. Apple will presumably keep pushing in the direction of making the Watch independent — though it's hard to see the company completely detaching it from the iPhone experience.
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30 Comments
I'm now sharing my Activity with about 2 dozen Watch users. From my PoV it's been a huge success on multiple levels.
i haven’t found a use for the sharing feature yet, but i am loving the absolute speed of the Series 3. my 0 now lags on common operations so it’s like day & night. the only things that still lag for me are the Home app which gets stuck when rendering my list of scenes & devices, and sometimes HK siri commands.
I would love to have EKG in my Apple Watch. Besides, they should make it a bit thinner :) But so far I am loving my black stainless steel series 3. I was getting the grey ceramic edition but I wanted something as black as possible which left me no choice but to get the stainless steel one. Hopefully, they will release something jet black in ceramic. And I think total independence from an iPhone will take some time. Not sure if it is happening in 2018.
I like my original AW. At some point I will likely upgrade, but for now it is too expensive. The carrier fee for a LTE connection is a bridge too far for me. Maybe when they get Siri to actually be usable. For now, it is a mess. YMMV.