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The “handoff” isn’t working like it’s supposed to
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
Posted on 09/20/2017 2:48:18 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Apple’s new Series 3 smartwatch starts shipping this Friday, and the biggest feature change between last year’s model and this new Watch is that it has built-in cellular capabilities.
Except, that cell service isn’t entirely reliable.
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.)
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Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE review: missed connections
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.”
Unfortunately, we still don’t know when that software release is expected, or exactly how it will fix the issue of the Watch connecting to cellular networks when it’s supposed to.
But as far as Apple Watch releases go, this marks the first time that Apple has acknowledged a known problem with the smartwatch just after pre-orders, and right before it officially ships.
I am not certain there is any truth to the slashdot implied claim that both the WIFI and BlueTooth radios are still somehow active; They are not active. You follow the slashdot link pathway back and you find the source of all this hoopla is this:
An anonymous reader writes:"With Apple's new iOS 11, you can't completely turn off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi from the Control Center. This is not a bug, but a feature."
The rest of the complaints slashdot is referring to are others reacting to the anonymous poster.
There is no evidence this is at all true that any functions are still running for WIFI or BlueTooth. The same functionality accessed by these buttons is part of the Airplane button function: the Airplane button turns off all radios, but it does not switch off the functionality of the Settings. That remains available, once you turn them back on, instantly. These two, the WIFI and BlueTooth switches are just subsets of that. There is ZERO reason, for example, to leave Bluetooth operation on when the user elects to switch it off. The BlueTooth radio is OFF. Nothing is being sent or received. It is a simple step to go to the Settings and turn those functions off completely if one desires that to happen.
This anonymous user probably noticed that using the Control Center button did NOT switch the entire WIFI Settings or BlueTooth toggle to OFF for those two functions. It never has. It was never intended to switch them OFF. The Control Center buttons are a temporary switches, never intended to be permanent switches, they're intended for momentary ad hoc usage. SHEESH!
I”m not so convinced that it is so “routinely handled” by iPhones... My last three (current 7+, previous 6+ and 6) all fumbled pretty badly when handling off from wifi to LTE. And recent iOS versions have been somewhat frustrating - about 25% of the time I have to turn off wifi to force it to make the transition to LTE. Rather frustrating.
That one happens to be true... but Fusion Drives (a hardware combination of a Flash Drive mated with a real physical Hard Drive that in software thinks it is one contiguous HD) are rare birds, found usually on high-end special order 27" iMacs and the occasional Mac Pro. I have two in my office. They are already hard enough to format properly so I can understand why there is a problem switching to a new file system.
They are even hard to partition or unpartition. I made that mistake unpartitioning mistake once. I won't do it again.
it is possible and Apple had them running in Beta Test, so they will get it going for those of us who have them, but I can understand why they aren't rolling it out with the general distribution. Thanks for the link. It lead to a better discussion article on Arstechnica UK which, unfortunately can't be posted or linked on FR.
Actually as a late Apple adopter I can say that isn’t always true. However, I do think Apple is better than Microsoft and android when it comes to security. Don’t paint with such a broad brush.
Oh... I also prefer Toyotas for my cars....
I am too. That's why I think it was something that was accidentally left un-corrected on another change right at the end on the Gold-Master. Some minor switch off, to test something else, that the programmer just accidentally forgot to turn back on, or remove a loop, kind of thing. Like I said above, this is boiler-plate type coding, used for years to do switch-off between WIFI and LTE and other sourcing on iPhones and LTE equipped iPads. It's not rocket science at this stage. It's a rookie programming mistake done while changing something else. Probably something as simple as a slip of a finger typo that dropped an extraneous character in the wrong area while making a change in another module. . .
Mine never have a problem. Hmmmmm. Do you have WIFI Assist turned in your Cellular settings? That may be what is going on. If you have a weak carrier signal it will drop our frequently and go to a WIFI to take over the calling. I'd try turning it off and see what happens. . . but I generally have a strong LTE signal.
The dead-tree Wall St. Journal has an article headlined “Bain Prevails in Toshiba Contest,” which discusses a $18B deal for Toshiba’s memory chip business. Apple and Seagate are part of the group which I take it was put together by Bain to raise money Toshiba is in dire need of to get its balance sheet in order after Toshiba took a bath in “its US nuclear subsidiary, Westinghouse Electric, which filed for bankruptcy protection in March.”
Leave your phone at home or carry it in Faraday case problem solved.
Of course many people still think all those cameras on traffic light poles are red light cameras.
Sounds like a straightforward software fix.
It’s just more of the same. The behavior is identical to what it did before, just not documented. It turns off the WIFI and BlueTooth Radios. . . and disconnects any devices. The FUNCTIONS remain available. Those are not turned off.
That used to be very important in the past
Oh Well
Let's Micro$oft apple
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