Jakub Dlouhy The long wait for the launch of the Apple Pay service in the Czech Republic is over. In the same way, the times when the Czech language or dictation in it were not supported on the iPhone or Apple Watch are over. To the delight of Czech users of Apple devices, most of Apple's services are available in our country today. Whether it is the mentioned payment system, full support of the Czech language for all products or the relatively recent localization of Apple Support for the Czech Republic, the average user has nothing to complain about. However, what we will have to wait for in the Czech Republic and whether we will ever wait, we will summarize in the following lines.
Siri in Czech and HomePod
Even though the virtual assistant, which works across the portfolio of Apple products, is in a clear lead compared to the competition in terms of the number of supported languages, you cannot communicate with it in Czech. Siri currently supports 21 languages, which greatly exceeds the language skills of competitors in the form of Google Assistant or Cortana from Microsoft.
Despite many speculations and mentions of the Czech version of Siri in the beta versions of iOS and macOS, we still haven't received a Czech-speaking assistant. And we probably won't wait much longer. The problem is both in Apple's not very lucrative market of 10 million potential customers and in the complicated grammar of our mother tongue. The lack of Siri localization in the Czech Republic was once linked to the unclear future of the Watch, for which the voice assistant is considered one of the main attractions. Fortunately, it does our June 2015 concerns about the fact that we will not see the Apple Watch in the Czech Republic before Siri is available in Czech, they did not come true.
Siri is also an integral part of the HomePod smart speaker, which is the reason why you won't find it on the Czech Apple Online Store. Missing Siri would significantly limit the functionality of the device. In this case, it is therefore likely that we will not see the HomePod here without Siri localization.
Apple Pay Cash
The headline says that we finally got Apple Pay. More precisely, we have seen most of the services that are related to Apple Pay. In the United States, the Apple Pay Cash service is also part of the Apple payment system. It is a virtual wallet that allows you to store money, pay with Apple Pay or send payments using messages. In the Wallet application, a card called Apple Pay Cash will simply appear, to which the user can transfer money and continue to pay with it. This method is advantageous for the mentioned payments via iMessage or if the user does not want to enter his payment card directly into the phone. The service is currently only available in the United States, and it's unclear when it will expand across the Atlantic Ocean. For Czech users, greater hope has been promised for a long time support of Apple Pay by financial start-up Revolut, which can replace the apple wallet in many ways.
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Apple Store
As for the official Apple Store in the Czech Republic, the news is a bit more positive. This is mainly due to the recent meeting between Apple CEO Tim Cook and Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš at the World Economic Forum in Davos. There, the head of Apple to a Czech statesman promised to build the first apple store in Bohemia and even had a coordination group created for its preparation.
However, it should be noted that speculations about the first Apple Store in the Czech Republic have been appearing on news servers for some time. First, there was talk of one of the buildings right on the Old Town Square in Prague. The Prime Minister himself then mentioned the building of the Ministry for Regional Development as an ideal place, but now as Celetná Street seems more likely. It is not clear when we will actually see the store. And it is equally unclear whether a store in our country would significantly help the Californian company economically. As Prime Minister Andrej Babiš wrote: "It is a prestigious matter."
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Apple Watch with ECG and eSIM
We are not alone in this regard. The unique option of creating an electrocardiogram using a watch is currently only available in the USA. Since this function turns the smartwatch into a real medical device, it needs to be approved by local authorities. This has so far only been achieved in the United States, where the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted the watch the necessary permits. Despite several promising reports, the ECG can only be created on watches purchased in the US, and it is still not possible to bypass the blocking of the function abroad. However, on the watch purchased in the USA, it can be seen that the ECG measurement is also prepared in the Czech language and it is only waiting for the relevant stamp of the State Institute for Drug Control.
Update: The ECG measurement function on the Apple Watch has been available in the Czech Republic since May 13, 2019. You can read more information about the function in the article below.
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Dan Pražák Call from Apple Watch without iPhone
Apple Watch can only be purchased in the GPS version on the Czech website of Apple. The Cellular type, with which it is possible to make calls and use mobile data without the need to connect to an iPhone, cannot be purchased from us yet. None of the operators supports the function. Even though an eSIM, i.e. a virtual SIM card, is offered by the operator T-Mobile or Vodafone, for example, and it can be used can be used, for example, in new iPhones or iPads in the Cellular version, with the Apple Watch the technology is more complicated. While the eSIM offered by Czech operators has its own phone number, the one in the Apple Watch should be tied to the SIM card in the phone and share a phone number with it. So it mainly depends on when one of the operators offers this function. It is possible to purchase an Apple Watch Cellular abroad, however, it is also necessary to purchase a local tariff from an operator that supports the eSIM for the Apple Watch.
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Amaya Toman The situation on the Czech market for apple products has significantly improved over time. Even in our relatively small country, Apple offers the vast majority of its services, but we will have to wait a while for some of them due to the reasons mentioned above. The reasons for waiting are varied. In the case of Siri, it is purely a matter of Apple, in the case of EKG, a matter of the Czech authorities, and in the case of the Apple Store, a combination of both.
I don't miss any of it