I read something this morning, that I found to be a bit discouraging with the Apple Watch 3. Which is the Apple Watch 3 LTE will only work in the country where you bought the Apple Watch. This is a head-scratcher for me. On one hand this makes sense, and the Apple Watch will still function through Bluetooth, but on the other hand I feel like it should work anywhere, and this is taking some of the functionality away. There is an embedded SIM card in the Apple Watch, and while the sim cards in the iPhone and iPad are designed to make switching carriers easy, that’s not the case with the Apple Watch eSim.
All this being said, if you purchase your Series 3 LTE in the United States, it will work on any of the big four wireless carriers, but it won’t work in Canada or Germany, or other international markets. To clarify, the Watch doesn’t support roaming. But doesn’t this seem kind of odd to people? The whole purpose of the LTE was so that you could leave your phone at home (or the hotel). Which is why I feel that this is lacking slightly. I understand the concept that you can still use your phone whilst in another country, as roaming will work. But I just feel that this isn’t what Apple described.
This also limits where you can buy one. The Apple Watch 3 is only available in a limited number of countries. Where can you buy the Watch, you ask?
- Australia
- Canada
- China
- France
- Germany
- Japan
- Puerto Rico
- Switzerland
- United Kingdom
- United States
I know a lot of Canadians who do cross border shopping. Meaning, they go over to the United States and pick up goods that are cheaper than buying them in Canada. Hopefully they are aware of this limitation. You can still buy the non-LTE enabled Watch in another country. But one of the big selling features of the new Watches was the LTE. Which I actually like the idea of. I think I said in a previous post that I didn’t necessarily love it, but its grown on me.
As of last week, you could only stream Apple Music through the Watch. Which makes a lot of sense to me, but it also doesn’t. I see it more of a cash grab from Apple, than anything else. Why not let your consumers decide what kind of music they want to listen to? You can download the Spotify app onto your phone, so why not also have that ability through the Watch? This is a bone of contention for some people and I doubt it will change. I suspect that you are stuck with Apple Music and it will be one of those “take it or leave it” type situations. Other than that and this weird LTE issue, I think the entire thing looks really good. I’m interested to see how many people go out and buy one, if they’re available where you live. But just remember that you can’t use the LTE in another country!