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Save 20% on the award-winning Audio Hijack with coupon code 6C20AH!By Jason Snell for Macworld
Does a cellular Apple Watch make sense?
Since the day the Apple Watch was announced in September 2014, and certainly once it launched in April 2015, people have been speculating about what the second-generation Apple Watch might bring to the table. (Those people probably liked shaking all the packages under their Christmas tree, too.) But a report in the Wall Street Journal got me thinking:
“Apple is working on adding cell-network connectivity and a faster processor to its next-generation Watch, according to people familiar with the matter,” the report said.
Faster, sure—I think anyone who’s used an Apple Watch would endorse faster. But the rest of the potential hardware features of a next-generation Apple Watch seem hard to prioritize to me.
Apple could certainly make it thinner and lighter, though I don’t consider the size of the Apple Watch to be one of its biggest issues—it’s not any bigger than the mechanical watches I used to wear. GPS support would be nice, but would be problematic without cellular support to assist. Battery life could be better, but it’s unlikely to be enough of a breakthrough to prevent you from having to charge it every day.