“Apple’s decision to put LTE support inside the latest Apple Watch is highly significant, it means users and developers can now begin to truly explore the connected opportunities of truly smart wearable devices, but there’s a Catch 22 to realizing the deep digital destiny,” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld.
“Apple didn’t make too much noise about it, but if you’re going to call your boss using your Apple Watch LTE while you are kayaking in the middle of a lake you’re going to have to pay your iPhone service provider an additional $10/month for the privilege,” Evans writes. “I don’t think the $10/month charge will prove to be sustainable, particularly in enterprise IT.”
“As the number of reasons to connect devices up to the Internet via mobile networks continues to increase, it seems inevitable that the cost of these connections will become a bigger issue,” Evans writes. “It is inevitable carriers will develop connected device deals.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: You know, if we weren’t MacDailyNews, we’d be saying to ourselves, “Selves, for the hour or so when we’re running and therefore (blessedly) unconnected and unreachable, do we really need to shell out another $429 plus $10 / month to be have cellular in our Apple Watches?” and the answer would be: “No.”
Of course, some of us can still remember a time pre-Internet, when we were completely disconnected save for a landline, navigating across the country with paper maps and stopping at pay phones if we had to make a call, but that’s neither here nor there. Just a remembrance that alternates between wistful and horrifying, depending on our mood.
So, what we’re saying is that, yes, the hurdle is too high for most people. If users could simply use some of the data from their current iPhone plans, as it should be in 2017, then that carrier would see an influx of customers sporting iPhones and Applel Watches and, as any smart carrier knows, those are the very best customers of all.
