iPhones & Apple watches

B0bbyEwing

Been a good few years since I was in the Apple ecosystem but for my next device I think I'd consider moving back.

Since I left them, I read they've cut ties with iTunes & everything is about clouds & over the air, WiFi no cables etc. So I have 2 questions really which are based on not subscribing to any paid cloud service!

iPhone

Back when I was a user, you'd connect your iPhone to the PC (windows) and do a manual backup. Or at least you could, and that's the way I'd backup - so my backup was stored on my PC.
If I wanted to update the phone I could do this via the PC also.

But say you buy one with minimum 128GB capacity & you have a ton of photos and videos. More than whatever the freebie cloud allowance is. 

How do you back those photos up?
Or even how do you back up the entire phone like you used to?

I'm hoping the answer isn't "the ONLY option is now subscription based".

Apple Watch

I've had a look at the various watch faces & it seems a real effort to get a digital watch face that displays seconds.

I currently have a Samsung watch and instantly disregard all watch faces that don't display seconds, but that's not generally a problem as there's a good selection of faces that display them.
I tried having a look for the choices assuming I was an  Apple Watch user and I found one (and didn't particularly like it). 

Are they really that short on this as an option?

Oh and to save the suggestion - don't suggest analogue as a solution. Yes it would show seconds but I also don't do analogue watches. Never have, never will.

debitcardmayhem

Back up the phone photos to the PC, and back up the PC. Use iCloud for phone backup of the phone systems.

B0bbyEwing

debitcardmayhem said:

Back up the phone photos to the PC, and back up the PC.

Well yes, of course, but that's an instruction and not an answer to my question.

B0bbyEwing said:

How do you back those photos up?
Or even how do you back up the entire phone like you used to?

A bit like if I was to say how do you turn this TV on, your answer being "turn the TV on".

Though I'm going to guess you were on your phone on a quick morning work break.

debitcardmayhem said:

Use iCloud for phone backup of the phone systems.

Isn't there a limitation on what you can back up (as in for example 2GB, 5GB, whatever it used to be)?

AstonSmith

They only removed iTunes from Mac OS, you can still install it on Windows. Backing up your phone is like you (might) remember - open iTunes, plug phone in, click on the iPhone, then press Back Up. It backs up the whole phone.

You can also get the photos off using the DCIM folders - no iTunes needed. Just plug it into the Windows PC, go to (My) Computer, then open the iPhone icon. Your pics and videos will be in the DCIM folder structure.

Free iCloud storage is only 5GB.

B0bbyEwing

Great. That sorts the iPhone side of things. Thanks.

Any Apple Watch users care to comment now?

[Deleted User]

B0bbyEwing said:

Great. That sorts the iPhone side of things. Thanks.

Any Apple Watch users care to comment now?

Yes, the "Activity Digital" watch face displays seconds.

B0bbyEwing

[Deleted User] said:

B0bbyEwing said:

Great. That sorts the iPhone side of things. Thanks.

Any Apple Watch users care to comment now?

Yes, the "Activity Digital" watch face displays seconds.

B0bbyEwing said:

I tried having a look for the choices assuming I was an  Apple Watch user and I found one (and didn't particularly like it). 

There seems a distinct lack of watch faces with seconds. Maybe Apple are just deciding that their customers don't need to know the seconds.

The Apple event yesterday made me laugh. I had a look to see what was coming out & some of it was interesting. Had a look at the watches & they released this super duper "Ultra", supposedly taking a slice of the Garmin base.

Talking about it being a multi event/day watch, so on & so forth.

Then when I looked in to it to see how beefy this battery was ..... 36hrs instead of the usual 18hrs.

My old Galaxy watch can get about 40 hours.

Gotta love how Apple market underwhelming changes as the next big thing when other companies have been doing it for years. 

Still, I think I'd consider an Apple return when it comes time to replace my Android. It'd just be nice if their watch (their standard watch) could manage a couple days minimum (as advertised, not as in "I can get a couple days if I turn everything off").

DullGreyGuy

B0bbyEwing said:

[Deleted User] said:

B0bbyEwing said:

Great. That sorts the iPhone side of things. Thanks.

Any Apple Watch users care to comment now?

Yes, the "Activity Digital" watch face displays seconds.

B0bbyEwing said:

I tried having a look for the choices assuming I was an  Apple Watch user and I found one (and didn't particularly like it). 

There seems a distinct lack of watch faces with seconds. Maybe Apple are just deciding that their customers don't need to know the seconds.

The Apple event yesterday made me laugh. I had a look to see what was coming out & some of it was interesting. Had a look at the watches & they released this super duper "Ultra", supposedly taking a slice of the Garmin base.

Talking about it being a multi event/day watch, so on & so forth.

Then when I looked in to it to see how beefy this battery was ..... 36hrs instead of the usual 18hrs.

My old Galaxy watch can get about 40 hours.

Gotta love how Apple market underwhelming changes as the next big thing when other companies have been doing it for years. 

Still, I think I'd consider an Apple return when it comes time to replace my Android. It'd just be nice if their watch (their standard watch) could manage a couple days minimum (as advertised, not as in "I can get a couple days if I turn everything off").

It'll be 60 hours when the next WatchOS drops, in low power mode.

All companies are equally guilty of issues... Samsung mock Apple design decisions like the notch and removing headphone jack and then copy them a year later. I'd argue that that's worse but each to their own.

I think the vast majority of people dont need to know seconds when they glance at their watch... given many have analogue watches without minute markers then most aren't really bothered about knowing the exact time down to the minute let alone second. Obviously you have stop watches and timers down to the second or less for when you do want to do something for 2.5 minutes etc.

There is one digital face with seconds as standard and a digital display with seconds can also be added to the Infograph face as a complication. 

Penguin_

B0bbyEwing said:

Great. That sorts the iPhone side of things. Thanks.

Any Apple Watch users care to comment now?

apple watch digital clock with seconds - Bing images 

B0bbyEwing

DullGreyGuy said:

It'll be 60 hours when the next WatchOS drops, in low power mode.

All companies are equally guilty of issues... Samsung mock Apple design decisions like the notch and removing headphone jack and then copy them a year later. I'd argue that that's worse but each to their own.

I think the vast majority of people dont need to know seconds when they glance at their watch... given many have analogue watches without minute markers then most aren't really bothered about knowing the exact time down to the minute let alone second. Obviously you have stop watches and timers down to the second or less for when you do want to do something for 2.5 minutes etc.

There is one digital face with seconds as standard and a digital display with seconds can also be added to the Infograph face as a complication. 

Yeah but what does low power mode disable?

See it's all well & good saying a watch can get x-hours (I'm talking about the companies saying here, not you), but when that number means you have to turn absolutely everything off then it's a bit poor. 

The only time I'd argue it's not poor is when you're talking about a watch that has good battery life as standard anyway. Some of those Garmin's for example.

Regards "many have analogue watches" - depends what group of people you're looking at. 

If you're looking at a bunch of 70 year olds then I'd say that's probably accurate. 
If we're talking teenagers, 20 year olds, I'd be very surprised if that was the case. 

And in my work I need a watch that gives seconds. At home it's not so important, it's just a preference. My Galaxy Watch can do it no problem, there's loads of choice, but if you look at the right channels and accuracy is important to you then the Galaxy Watch isn't so great anyway. Annoyingly (to me at the moment at least) it's the Apple Watch that is overall best in terms of accuracy.


Anyway, it looks like there's very little choice in terms of seconds display. Surprising really.

Getferret

I complete full back up my SE (2nd gen) iPhone 128gb to laptop no problems regularly.

Photo’s I copy from file explorer to memory stick regularly.

iCloud I use for Keychain, iCloud Drive, contacts, calendars, reminders, notes, health (includes Heath and Fitness for watch), wallet. Anything else like OneDrive OneNote etc is cloud based anyway so need to save again.