It's an abuse of market power primarily used to eliminate competition.
I've never had a single problem with Google Fi.
Another way is that watch chipsets are distinct from cell phone chipsets in that they make a variety of compromises unique to wearable requirements. Apple may be an exception here, you can't get a spec sheet for their chip, but for the other providers their wearable chipsets are generations behind anything they sell for a cell phone and are compromised in terms of power. Interestingly even watches (Apple, Samsung soon) that support 5G are running a dumbed down version of 5G that was created specifically to support the wearables and IoT market.
It gets even stranger in software. A text showing up on your watch might have arrived two completely different ways depending on whether it's an iMessage or a regular text and you can't tell which. The watch often doesn't even have its own number -- it's borrowing your phone's. IOW, it's not a tiny phone doing phone things, it's a companion device trying to fake it.
I then started regularly receiving phone calls (to my iPhone) intended for someone else. At first I thought it was a wrong number or an old number and kept telling them to remove this number. Buy the calls kept coming and I eventually I dared to ask what number they had dialed. And it wasn't a cell number I recognised.
After contacting support for my carrier, what I figured out was that the Apple Watch eSIM has its own phone number, for some reason, but it's not one you're supposed to know about; as an extension of your phone's subscription, the Apple Watch eSIM notionally has the same number as it. But they were calling the secret number associated with the eSIM, somehow. And I think there was a problem in the number routing table somewhere, because I think this number may have been in use with another cell carrier, and the calls only went to me when calling from my network?
Absurd nightmare situation.
Surprises you didn't give that secret number out - could have been fun for yourself (or your close friends or family) to be able to call direct.
I wonder if you could even use it for texts or notifications that only go to the watch ?
Isn't that true for any device? not just watches?
A "regular text" would be an SMS and those use Signaling System Number 7 telephony stack.
iMessage uses application level protocols sitting on top of IP in the standard OSI model?.
SS No 7 only roughly maps into OSI model, the equivalent application layer would use MAP - Mobile application part.
This is a disappointing contrast to their actual network which is clearly run by people who take running a reliable network seriously with good coverage and latency.
Overall, the Gizmo watch has been nice to have, but it leaves a lot to be desired. It's surprising that there are not better products in this market segment.
We already learned this lesson back in the days before the iPhone when phones had carrier logos printed on them and GPS apps cost $5/month.
Apple Watch Kids Mode is what you want. If the watches cost too much grab a used one.
The author complained about the high price in the original review but they didn’t really spend enough. They bought a crappy telecom knockoff of an Apple Watch. You get what you pay for.
> this has been talked about extensively you're just 21
This isn't new behavior. Not by years, but decades.
I suggest you to study the birth of consumer protection laws on the beginning of the 20th century, such as the birth of the FTC in 1914. It was a time when milk and beer were routinely adulterated, most meat was contaminated and all sorts of cartels did price fixing [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission_Act_o...
Only in the last week we have Sony deleting paid-for movies. That is pretty anti-consumer.
I realize all of this is empirical, but the term enshitification just didn’t form out of thin air.
Feels like we've been on the same train for over a decade.
What do you expect them to do, move out of the country for a $10 / mo cell plan?