Apple Watch - 2nd Charger Died

 This will be a quick post about:

My 2nd Apple Watch charger died.  I bought it mid-March (March 12, I think).

WTF.  It was an Apple product.  I ordered it from the Apple Amazon store.  It wasn't cheap, either ($27).

So, two Apple-branded charging cables died.  The first one came with the Watch and died 5 months later.  The second one died after 1.5 months.  The charging cables are used at my bedside, so they're not being abused.  They're not being pulled.

They worked fine but just stop working after a time.  That cable and a USB-C to Lightning cable for my iPad were using a 20W charging adapter.  The other cables I've used with that adapter have been working fine.

I bought a new charging cable and it is non-Apple (and cheaper).  I figure, if Apple can't get their shit together, I'm not going to lock myself into spending $27 for repeated failures that shouldn't be occurring.  We'll see how long that cable lasts.

Free Apple Music!

My carrier offered my family free use of Apple Music.  I usualy don't check the monthly perks that Verizon throws my way, as much of it is junk that is free for a month of use.  Not in this case.

I used a free trial of Apple Music when I first bought the phone last year.  I liked it a lot but wasn't willing to pay monthly for it.

My wife was checking our account's perks back in November and saw that Verizon was offering Apple Music for all phones on the account.  I immediately wenth through the process of committing to enrolling.  Luckily, my wife saw the notice maybe a week before the offer expired.  I enrolled my phone, her phone, and one of my kid's phones (can't remember which of the three kids' phones I enrolled, but two of them didn't want it when I asked them).

I also recently canceled my Sirius XM subscription, too.  I've been working remotely since Covid hit the US, so I no longer commute to work, and Sirius XM is not cheap ($29 a month?).  The past two trips back and forth to my parents' home, I used Apple Music in place of Sirius XM and Apple Music was great.  There are enough radio stations so that I'm not bored during the 6 hour drive.  There are podcasts.  I can listen to my personal music through the Apple Music app.  

I travel up/down the I-95 corridor, and cellular broadband works without gaps in service.  With Sirius XM, there would be micro interruptions of service whenever I would go under bridges and over-passes.  If it were cloudy, I'd have service gaps.  If I were riding parallel to rocky hillsides or cliffs, I'd experience service gaps.  I had none of that when using my phoned as an entertainment conduit via cellular broadband.

Solved - Macbook Would Connect to Wifi but Has No Internet Connection

I'm currently visiting my parents in another state.  I last visited them two weeks ago.  The last visit, I was able to connect all of my Apple devices to their wireless access point (WAP) without issue and have been doing that for years, without issue.

I attempted to connect my Macbook Air to their WAP and it connects but I couldn't browse the web.  The browser client was saying that there was no internet connection, yet my mother's MBP could connect.  My Dell G17 could connect.  My iPhone Pro Max could connect.

My parents' router was working with all electronic appliances, with the exception of my MBA.

I used Google to search for "macbook connected to wifi but no internet".  The search results are here.

I focused on this web page - Solved: Macbook Connects to Wi-Fi but Has no Internet Connection - AppleToolBox.

I tried the steps that were recommended and all failed until I reached Step 4, "Change your Mac's Domain Name System (DNS)".

When I changed the MBA's DNS settings to use the Google DNS IPs, I was immediately able to reach Google.com when testing for connectivity.

I'm still not sure what was causing this issue.  When I checked the MBA's DNS settings (before I changed them), the MBA was pulling the DNS settings from my parents' router without issue.  The DNS IPs weren't resolving names, though, and the issue was only affecting the Macbook Air.  It was a very odd issue.

I thought I'd share this issue and fix so that when folks had this issue, they'd have a potential fix.

Solved - Apple Watch Stopped Charging

My Apple Watch stopped charging three weeks ago (first week of March).

I couldn't determine why.  I only had the one charging cable that came with the watch (there was no need to have more than the one that it came with).

Keep in mind that this watch is relatively new.

It just ran out of juice, which made it difficult to troubleshoot.

I ordered a new (Apple brand) charging cable on 13 March, and it arrived 14 March.  It immediately started charging.

So, the cable went bad.  I've no idea why.  I didn't abuse the cable.

It was very frustrating because the reason I'd bought this watch was because the Fitbit Sense had a similar issue, and then died (due to a battery issue).

This watch was NOT cheap.  This post is a reminder that the "you get what you pay for" mantra doesn't always apply.