Linked List: September 20, 2017

Wednesday, 20 September 2017

Ben Clymer Reviews the Apple Watch Series 3 Edition ★

Hodinkee’s Ben Clymer was, I believe, the only reviewer seeded with an Apple Watch Series 3 Edition, and his review is excellent:

Now, what I haven’t mentioned yet is that there is actually a sister product to Apple Watch Series 3 that is all but a must-have: AirPods. Apple’s wireless Bluetooth headphones have been with me since December of last year, and while the sound quality is hardly audiophile worthy, they are incredibly convenient. At this point, I couldn’t live without them, and I felt that way even before I received this sample Series 3 to try. They are an even bigger part of my life with the Series 3 in the picture.

Indeed, Apple Watch with AirPods is a terrific combination, both for listening to music and for making phone calls.

On the ceramic case:

Again, the quality of the ceramic matches that of any high-end polished ceramic watch I’ve seen in the market from Switzerland. In fact, Apple has indicated they are using much of the same finishing techniques that one might expect to see in, say, Le Brassus or Le Sentier, and if you look through Apple’s “Designed by Apple In California” book, and then tour Audemars Piguet for example, you’ll see the very same tools.

And as Ben Thompson noted, this is probably the best line from any of the Series 3 reviews:

Still, we now have smartwatches from two of the three big luxury watch groups, and likely more to come. And that’s before we actually talk about sales numbers of Apple versus the traditional players or the fact that all of theirs use what is the equivalent of an off-the-shelf caliber in Android OS while Apple’s is, to borrow a term they’ll understand, completely in-house. Ironic, really.

Understanding How the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Toggles in Control Center Work in iOS 11 ★

Apple:

In iOS 11 and later, when you toggle the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth buttons in Control Center, your device will immediately disconnect from Wi-Fi and Bluetooth accessories. Both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth will continue to be available, so you can use these important features:

AirDrop

AirPlay

Apple Pencil

Apple Watch

Continuity features, like Handoff and Instant Hotspot

Instant Hotspot

Location Services

This is an interesting feature, but I think it’s going to confuse and anger a lot of people. Until iOS 11, the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth toggles in Control Center worked the way it looked like they worked: they were on/off switches. Now, in iOS 11, they still look like on/off switches, but they act as disconnect switches.

Off the top of my head, I would suggest making them three-way switches: on and connected, on but disconnected, and off. I don’t have an idea for how to present that visually though. Or make on/off buttons available in the expanded menu you get when you 3D touch on these controls. Update: DF reader Matthew Smith emailed to point out that these buttons already have three states: “In Control Center, when you tap the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth icon, it goes from blue to grey. If you tap the Airplane mode icon, both icons go grey, but also gain another indicator: A diagonal line through their icons. This is a good way to tell the difference between disconnected and off. So with the currently available indicators, these could easily become a 3-way switch.”

Motherboard has a story that posits that this change is a security risk, but I think that’s overblown. I think the problem is simply that these buttons no longer do (a) what they used to do, even though they look the same, and (b) what people naturally expect them to do, just by looking at them.

Everything You Might Want to Know About Cellular Service With Apple Watch Series 3 ★

Serenity Caldwell:

Apple’s GPS + Cellular Apple Watch is almost here, and I’ve gotten a ton of questions from our readers and various folks on Twitter in regards to how cellular data will work on the Apple Watch. Here’s a brief overview of everything you need to know in that regard.

Great FAQ. One small thing she missed: the new Explorer watch face is exclusive to cellular-capable watches, and it shows you whether you’re currently connected to LTE or not with the four green circles that serve as a signal-strength indicator. If you don’t see the circles, the watch is not using LTE; if you see them, it is. With all other watch faces, you need to peek at Control Center to see whether you’re on LTE.

Brian X. Chen’s Apple Watch Series 3 Review ★

Brian X. Chen, writing for The New York Times:

Important features like the stopwatch, calendar and Siri work quickly and reliably. And unlike its predecessors, the watch has impressive battery life — on average, I had more than 40 percent battery remaining after a full day of use.

So the final verdict? The Apple Watch Series 3 is the first sign that wearable computers are maturing and may eventually become a staple in consumer electronics.

I’d like to reiterate just how good my experience with Siri has been while testing the watch on LTE. Siri has been fast and accurate, just as it needs to be. The primary interaction model for communicating via the watch isn’t apps. I don’t want to hit the crown button, go to the app screen, find the Phone app, tap it, and somehow initiate a call by poking at the screen. I want to hold the crown button and say “Call Amy”. And that has just worked.

Also, dictating text for Message replies has been excellent. 30 minutes ago I was out getting coffee and got a text from my wife about dinner plans. In response, I dictated a response that, if transcribed perfectly, I would spell and punctuate as follows: “Fucking-A, that sounds good to me.” Siri’s actual translation: “Fucking a that sounds good to me.” I thought perhaps I could trick Siri into prudishly mis-transcribing that first word, but no, she got it.

Joanna Stern’s Apple Watch Series 3 Review: Untethered, All Day ★

Aside from the LTE connectivity issues she ran into, Stern’s review is interesting because she tried something Apple Watch Series 3 isn’t really meant for: going all day long without your iPhone. She had to recharge midday, but Apple’s own specs only list the watch as having 4 hours of battery life while connected to LTE, and 1 hour of talk time.

It’s a fun video, too. I realize these larger publications have video teams, but all I can think is that if I published videos alongside my product reviews, I’d still be working on my review of the iPhone 7 from last year.

Serenity Caldwell: ‘Apple Watch Series 3’s “LTE Problems” Are Actually an Existing Wi-Fi Bug’ ★

Serenity Caldwell, writing for iMore:

Essentially, the Series 3 GPS + Cellular watch tries to save battery life at all times by using your iPhone’s connection, or failing that, a Wi-Fi network. What’s happening here is that the watch is attempting to jump on a so-called “captive” network — a public network with an interstitial login prompt or terms and conditions agreement. (You’ve probably seen these at a Starbucks, McDonalds, or Panera.)

In theory, the Apple Watch shouldn’t be allowed to connect to captive networks at all, because there’s no way for it to get through that interstitial layer. Unfortunately, watchOS 4 has a bug where captive networks are being recognized identically to normal saved Wi-Fi networks — so while you’re technically “connected” to a network, you won’t be able to connect to the internet; nor will you be able to go to cellular, because the Watch’s auto-switching prevents you from connecting.

This article is simply phenomenally detailed, including how to tell if your Apple Watch is connected to a Wi-Fi network.

Apple Admits to Apple Watch LTE Problems When Joining Unauthenticated Wi-Fi Networks ★

Lauren Goode, writing for The Verge:

While writing my review of the Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE capabilities, I experienced notable connectivity issues. The new Watch appeared to try to connect to unknown WiFi networks instead of connecting to cellular, when I was out and about without my phone. (The issues are laid out in much more detail in the review.)

Within the first couple days of experiencing this, Apple replaced my first review unit with a second one, but that one proved to be problematic, too.

Eventually, the company issued an official statement, acknowledging the issue. “We have discovered that when Apple Watch Series 3 joins unauthenticated Wi-Fi networks without connectivity, it may at times prevent the watch from using cellular,” an Apple spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We are investigating a fix for a future software release.”

Joanna Stern (and her WSJ colleague Geoffrey Fowler) ran into LTE connectivity problems, too — hopefully caused by this same issue with the watch joining unauthenticated Wi-Fi networks. I didn’t run into any problems with LTE connectivity. Every single time I tried to do something via LTE — make a call, send messages, invoke Siri — it just worked. For what it’s worth, my review unit watch was paired with my review unit iPhone 8, on AT&T’s network.

I’m not the only reviewer who seemingly had no issue with LTE. BuzzFeed’s Nicole Nguyen made no mention of any such issues, and she placed a phone call via her watch after swimming 1,500 feet into the San Francisco Bay.

I suspect one reason I haven’t run into this is that I generally avoid using unauthenticated Wi-Fi networks. They’re a security risk, and at least in my experience they generally offer slower, less reliable connectivity than LTE. This might also explain how Apple shipped these watches with such a bug — I doubt Apple employees seeded with testing units were connecting to public Wi-Fi hotspots.

I’m not trying to blame the victims here. This is a severe bug that Apple needs to fix as soon as possible. And it’s left Apple in the embarrassing position of having a slew of reviews today in which the tentpole new feature of Series 3 shit the bed.