“Apple CEO Tim Cook on Friday continued his tradition of visiting an Apple Store [Palo Alto] on the day of a big product launch,” Anita Balakrishnan and Josh Lipton report for CNBC. “‘I am thrilled,’ Cook told CNBC’s Josh Lipton on Friday. ‘Here’s what we’re seeing right now. The watch with LTE — the Series 3 Watch — we are sold out in so many places around the world. And we’re working really hard to meet demand. We’ve sold out of iPhone 8 and 8 Plus in some stores, but we’ve got good supply there. You can see what’s going on here this morning — I couldn’t be happier.'”
“Cook also said that a glitch in the new watch’s cellular connectivity, a bug that was picked up on by some reviewers, doesn’t appear to be stemming demand for the product,” Balakrishnan and Lipton report. “‘The issue is very minor, it will be fixed in a software update,’ Cook told CNBC. ‘It has to do with the handoff between Wi-Fi and cellular, and we’ll fix that. It only happens in a rare number of cases. I’ve been using it for quite a while and it works great. So we’re very happy about it.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: While the Apple Watch Series 3 (GPS + Cellular) issue itself certainly is a minor bug, it’s not so minor when such an obvious bug should have been caught early during beta testing, but wasn’t, and you instead ship it out to major reviewers, needlessly tainting the perception of the product around the globe. This is a careless, self-inflicted wound, as Cook well knows, or ought to.
We understand why he’s trying to downplay it publicly. What’s he going to say, “we’re basically incompetent and any random developer with at least $215 in annual revenue, much less $215 billion, would have caught this bug during the first beta, if not before?”
Hopefully, he’s knocked some heads privately. Apple needs to do better. Apple Watch Series 3 (GPS + Cellular) deserved better.
SEE ALSO:
How to remove bad Wi-Fi info so Apple Watch Series 3 (GPS + Cellular) has better connectivity – September 21, 2017
Apple working on fix for Apple Watch Series 3 (GPS + Cellular) connectivity issue – September 21, 2017
Apple acknowledges cellular connectivity problem in new Apple Watch Series 3 (GPS + Cellular) – September 20, 2017
Apple stock falls after company admits issues with Apple Watch connectivity – September 20, 2017
Some reviewers’ Apple Watch Series 3 ‘LTE issues’ due to easily-fixable Wi-Fi bug – September 20, 2017
Open letter to Tim Cook: Apple needs to do better – January 5, 2015
Our local store is sold out of most everything.
If you’ve ever developed software, you know how difficult it is to catch every potential “gotcha.”
I trust Apple to fix this trivial Watch 3 connection issue within a few days.
As MDN correctly notes, this is a silly, stupid, minor bug that any competent developer – not to mention an entire development team at the world’s most valuable company – would have considered and corrected or, more likely, would have correctly coded from the outset.
I agree. But as someone who had a long and successful career as as software developer, I’ve had my share of bugs like that. Often it was down to testing overlooking some combination, and I suspect that, due to the desire for secrecy, connecting to public wifi was not given as thorough a test as it might have had.
Of course the problem started with the coding, but I think the real onus falls on the field testers. As the coders have stated here, there are always going to be some fails…after all there are thousands of “opportunities.” But the testers experience the problem 1st hand. Assuming they were awake and doing their job, the alarm “sounded” but they were napping (all of them). Small fail, yes. but seemingly obvious.
Secrecy was certainly an issue. They may have been actively discouraged from using public wifi. Beyond that, the critical combination involves;
(1) Entering the coverage area of a wifi network that requires logging in each time through a sign-up screen on a browser. Those are common, but not universal.
Encountering one is much less common under the standard use-case for independent use of an Apple Watch—jogging or exercising under circumstances that make keeping a phone nearby inconvenient. If the exercise is outside, there is usually no wifi available. If the exercise is inside, the watch and phone are likely within range, or at least on the same network. The Watch was designed as a supplement to an iPhone, not as a replacement.
(2) Wearing an Apple Watch 3 LTE that is out of range from the iPhone that it is paired with. People exercise without their phones, but how often do they go to the store? They might occasionally drop into a Starbucks, but often shower (and retrieve their phone) first.
Remember, the testers are Apple employees who are used to carrying their iPhones everywhere. The reviewers were, in many cases, Android users who set up the Watch once with a tester phone they rarely use, and then wore the watch independently all day everywhere. In short, as a replacement for an iPhone, not a supplement as designed.
(3) Finally, the paired phone has to have previously been logged into that network and be set to log into it automatically. My guess is that many of the Apple Watches being field tested were paired to new phones that hadn’t been many places, and that were set to join public wifi networks only as a last resort with manual approval.
So, none of the testers encountered the problem, or at least none of them bothered to report it. Unfortunate, but hardly something that would have slipped by only an incompetent developer.
Nice analysis, TxUser! The media should use your post rather than making up their own stuff.
if media was competent and reasonable this would not be a big deal, development nowadays is incredibly complex and sometimes caca pasa, why be hair on fire reactionary
Well Well Well… The real issue here is that people that do beta testing do not use public unsecured WiFi… No one should. The rare times I do use it. I delete it before I leave so my devices will not connect on a future trip. I would have never encountered this. The right way for Apple to fix this is stop devices from connecting to unsecured wifi unless you accept the risk and type your passcode each time and to then never remember these networks.
Readers that make stupid comments supporting MDNs ill informed and ridiculous assertations above don’t know what they are talking about.
MarketWatch seems to disagree with Pipeline:
“Apple stock suffers worst product launch week of the iPhone era”
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-stock-on-track-for-worst-week-ahead-of-an-iphone-launch-2017-09-21
Tim Cook says sales are great. Marketwatch says the stock is down. How does that constitute a disagreement?
By now, anybody who follows either Apple the company or AAPL the stock must recognize that the performance of the one is essentially irrelevant to the performance of the other.
“iPhone 8: muted reaction and small queues lead to questions over demand”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/22/iphone-8-small-queues-muted-reaction-questions-demand-iphone-x
If the iPhone 7 had rolled out two or three weeks before the iPhone 7+, the lines for each introduction would have been smaller than they actually were when both were sold together. Nobody could reasonably expect Apple to sell as many 8’s the first week as it did 7’s, and then do the same volume again for the X rollout. Obviously, demand is down in September 2017 from the iPhone 7 introduction, because not all of the new year’s models are on sale. Surprise, surprise!
“If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, what a wonderful world it would be.”
…your usual “touchy-feely” conjecture based on absolutely no empirical data.
Apple stock is up in Tim Cook’s alternative universe.
Best Buy has plenty of iphones 8 available Friday night, looks like iPhone X will Be hard to get if one don’t do preorder.
My series 3 LTE is really a great upgrade from my now retired Series 1. Is it flawless? No. Is it insanely great right out of the box….YES!!!!!