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I'm indecisive as hell, can't decide on which S4 watch. What did you guys choose, in the past even?
Leaning towards:
No cellular (how much would I really use it?)
Silver aluminum. SS looks pretty, but a little too flashy. I'm pretty careful. Silver would match with more bands than space gray, but I'll probably stick with an Amazon milanese loop
I've had an S3 without cellular for a while, now, and I can answer a call effectively as long as the iPhone is in my pocket. It's been a great convenience any number of times.
The only thing I'd caution about is the gold finish on aluminum, which if you ask me seems decidedly inferior. I wouldn't do that. If you think about gold, go for stainless. Even if you get too many of the little micro scratches on it, it's easy to polish out quickly.
If you want aluminum for the money savings, I think the black or dark grey looks a lot better than silver, but that's just me. :-)
This is probably dumb, but I haven't bought an S4 cellular as I originally intended for the sole reason that they're still not covering all the T-Mobile bands.
I really want Bands 66 and 71. Bands 2,4,12 doesn't cover it all. :-)
Maybe I'll give in at some point, but that's the one silly reason I haven't upgraded.
I have the cell enabled on the watch for now just because T-Mo had a promotion with the first 3 months free but I don't think I'll end up keepin git.. Pandora stopped developing an app for music so my whole value proposition of having my watch + BT headphones at the gym went out the window They don't even have Google Play Music or Amazon Music; Apple is really pushing their shitty Apple Music app...
Was gonna wait at least a few days before posting about battery life, but on my XS max it's been amazing.
It was very slow at work the other day. Got close to 6hrs screen on time, with Spotify playing on my 40 min commute and around 25% battery life. Insane.
Was gonna wait at least a few days before posting about battery life, but on my XS max it's been amazing.
It was very slow at work the other day. Got close to 6hrs screen on time, with Spotify playing on my 40 min commute and around 25% battery life. Insane.
I can't keep my hands off of it enough to get a real feel for battery life. I went on a trip recently and left both MacBook and iPad at home. The XS Max did it all, but the battery was low at night. :-) Just overusing it.
Ok, now I'm noticing the shitty wifi reception on the XS Max. I'm at a client the WAP is 15ft away from me and this phone isn't joining it automatically. I have to manually go in to wifi settings and tap on the network, then it joins it without asking for a password. This is what fucked me earlier this month, on my first day with the phone I took it into the office and I assumed I was on the wifi network and started re-downloading my music collection to it. It wasn't on wifi apparently even though it knows the passwords to every wifi network in that building and then proceeded to download at least 4GB of Music over LTE. I get a notification from AT&T later that day that I'd used 75% of my data plan already and I got 28 days left on my plan.
I was at my friends house last night and he got a new wifi network. I went in to wifi settings to join the network and it didn't see any network nearby, turning wifi off and on again didn't help, it just refused to see any wifi networks. My friend just got an XS Max and he was able to see all the wifi networks nearby but mine wouldn't. Tried it 5 minutes later and it was able to see the network and he was able to share the password with me.
And during the course of writing this message the XS MAx is no longer joined to the wifi at the client I'm at, I have to go back in to settings to manually rejoin it again. This is annoying
My guess is that it's a software issue but who knows. I'm on iOS 12.1 Public Beta 2
My guess is that it's a software issue but who knows. I'm on iOS 12.1 Public Beta 2
I don't think it's the firmware, because I'm on b2 and have no issues. The modems are the same this year, so it isn't a case of the firmware doing something different with one modem or the other.
I'm indecisive as hell, can't decide on which S4 watch. What did you guys choose, in the past even?
Leaning towards:
No cellular (how much would I really use it?)
Silver aluminum. SS looks pretty, but a little too flashy. I'm pretty careful. Silver would match with more bands than space gray, but I'll probably stick with an Amazon milanese loop
You can get the SS with cellular and just not pay to activate it.
Here's a breakdown of the FCC data on signal strength from the latest and recent iPhones. The goal is to get to be at or above a baseline of 200 mW (23 dBm), which corresponds to a standard conducted power target with unity antenna gain and generally represents good RF transmission performance.
First up are the aluminum iPhone 8 and the upcoming aluminum iPhone XR
Compare the aluminum models above with the Stainless Steel models
and here's an S9 and Pixel 3 because why not
I believe the X and the 8 had the same modems and capabilities so the should have similar results but they don't, my theory that I mentioned a while back was that the stainless steel was inferior to Aluminum. These results provide corroborating evidence for that theory. I've heard that previous Apple watch
Stainless steel models had signal quality issues and Apple announced that all models of the Series 4 watch would have a ceramic backside in order to improve transmission quality. The S9 and Pixel 3 both use Aluminum as well and they appear to have good antennas as well.
Stainless Steel is not a good conductor of electricity, Aluminum is much better and is used in electrical wiring. Is that a cause?
The takeaway is that iPhone EIRP in the lab has not always been so compromised as it appears to be this year. Real world RF performance comparisons when some users switch from the iPhone X and 8 generation to the iPhone XS generation, no doubt, will be interesting.
What can be said definitively is the iPhone XS and XS Max exhibit lab tested RF performance for antenna gain and radiated power output (EIRP) that almost invariably measures lower than the same metrics on 2017 iPhone variants and other recent, comparable handsets.
Odd issue this morning.. I updated to iOS 12.0.1 on Monday. This morning, my phone was working fine until about 3 hours ago when the screen stopped responding. Tried soft reset, hard reset, re-update via itunes DFU mode and now going to try a fresh restore.. Hoping that fixes it or else I need to take it to the Apple Store for a new one
1.5 hours later, they took my phone in to replace the screen, I'm hoping they can't fix it and just give me a new phone
Thats nuts. This was my second X. My first one got screen burn in and they replaced it for me for free and without using an Apple Care Plus incedent. I bet you get a new one.
Thats nuts. This was my second X. My first one got screen burn in and they replaced it for me for free and without using an Apple Care Plus incedent. I bet you get a new one.
I'm hoping so too it reeks of Whiskers
Maybe they'll run out of iPhone X's and then give me an XS
Thats nuts. This was my second X. My first one got screen burn in and they replaced it for me for free and without using an Apple Care Plus incedent. I bet you get a new one.
Apple Care shouldn’t kick in until after normal warranty expires?
Yeah. Can't complain, besides the fact that they tweaked a post and the screws on the bottom weren't all the way in so they had to take it back and fix the screws so it just cost me some time
I'm glad they were able to accommodate me on the same day though..
Does that change our minds about where we went with the stainless steel?
That's discussed in the post I linked to
Additionally -- as I already have stated -- the Intel baseband categorically is not the source for conducted power output, radiated power output, or antenna gain.
...Apple's decision to forgo Qualcomm this year and source all cellular modems from Intel is not responsible for the RF power output limitations in the new iPhone models. The cellular baseband modem is separate from and well upstream of the amplifiers that generate the conducted power and antennas that generate the radiated power being measured in lab testing.
Those two findings are demonstrable facts.
To follow up the latter of the two facts, I posted this on Twitter last night, though if you have been following just my blog pieces, you may have missed it.
The two 2017 iPhone X variants -- with Qualcomm baseband and with Intel baseband -- perform almost identically in RF testing submitted in their FCC authorization filings. And I do mean almost identically, right down to the decimal place -- this speaks well to Apple's precision tolerances in design and manufacturing. The lone deviations between the two variants are on bands 41 and 66, and only band 41 presents a difference worth discussing. The maximum antenna gains across all bands are exactly the same for both Qualcomm and Intel variants, but for unknown reasons, the Qualcomm variant puts out 50 mW greater conducted power on band 41, hence also 50 mW greater EIRP on band 41. That is absolutely it for the raw RF output differences. Any other cellular performance differences likely can be attributed to the Qualcomm baseband versus the Intel baseband. That controversy is well known.
10-04-2018, 11:50 PM
They don't even have Google Play Music or Amazon Music; Apple is really pushing their shitty Apple Music app... 
