You knew this was coming, didn’t you? With a week of experience under his wristband, Adam Engst joined Tech Night Owl host Gene Steinberg to talk about what works well and what doesn’t, with a focus on fitness. Put simply, Garmin and Fitbit don’t have much to worry about yet.
Read original article
Subscribe today so you don’t miss any TidBITS articles!
Every week you’ll get tech tips, in-depth reviews, and insightful news analysis for discerning Apple users. For over 33 years, we’ve published professional, member-supported tech journalism that makes you smarter.
Registration confirmation will be emailed to you.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA. The Google
Privacy Policy and
Terms of Service apply.
I'm not quite ready to give over two and a half hours. Are Adam's comments a discrete segment or interwoven? If discrete, where about does it start?
I tried the activity tracker on a bike ride yesterday and was underwhelmed that the user is expected to swipe through four screens to see what a Garmin consolidates on one.
Looks like my segment starts at about 1:08:30...
Yeah, the Workout app is pretty weak. And for no apparent reason.
So I guess the question is when are you going to start leaving the Watch at home when you go out running?
It will depend on the apps, I think. I'm actually pretty impressed with how well the Workout app on the Apple Watch tracks distance without carrying the iPhone, but it's not clear what good that is to me if the data is stored only in the Activity app on the iPhone.
However, if some of the Strava/MacMyRun/RunKeeper/Nike+ apps can tie into the data that the Workout app is generating, that would be something to test and see if would work for others.
Personally, I don't see the Apple Watch replacing my Garmin Forerunner 620. It's just too hard to view in sunlight and control without looking, both of which the Garmin is good at.
Have you tried an watch app yet that uses the GPS on the phone (or are there any yet)? I've been waiting to see if there are any complaints that an app like that is reducing the phone's battery life to unacceptable levels by keeping the phone GPS on.
I've used the Strava app a couple of times, but not terribly successfully. It didn't impact the phone battery life particularly as far as I noticed the time it worked, but the distance didn't agree terribly well with my Garmin. The second time, I know I started the Strava app on the watch (saw it counting) but it apparently never started the app on the iPhone so I didn't get a record at all. Luckily, my Garmin worked fine. ;-)
The Strava app has done pretty well with not draining the battery when biking for 4-5 hours; I suspect it's checking location fairly infrequently compared to when driving (where I assume only about 2 hours of life).