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Apps Apple Fitness vs 3rd Party Apps

J

joealanjones

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 9, 2009
106
35
Hi all,

Do you plan to use the Apple "Fitness" app or 3rd party alternatives like Strava / RunKeeper etc?

My feeling is that it would be nice to keep it all together in Fitness/Activity but wonder if I'll miss the advanced features that 3rd parties bring.
 
joealanjones said:
Hi all,

Do you plan to use the Apple "Fitness" app or 3rd party alternatives like Strava / RunKeeper etc?

My feeling is that it would be nice to keep it all together in Fitness/Activity but wonder if I'll miss the advanced features that 3rd parties bring.
Click to expand...

I play squash and worried about wearing my apple watch on Court, So I'm likely to use my misfit or pebble while on court to capture the workouts.
 
Probably going to continue using the Nike+ app. I like being able to compare my runs with friends, which I'll lose if I switch.
 
I'm concerned as to what the :apple:Watch Workout App's post analyzation capabilities are. Where is the iPhone App to display your post workout info? Where are the after workout graphs displayed like HR, speed, laps, elevation, cadence and.....? How do you view post workout maps (outdoor running/walking/biking/...)? Can you export an industry standard GPS or TCX files of your workouts?
 
Julien said:
I'm concerned as to what the :apple:Watch Workout App's post analyzation capabilities are. Where is the iPhone App to display your post workout info? Where are the after workout graphs displayed like HR, speed, laps, elevation, cadence and.....? How do you view post workout maps (outdoor running/walking/biking/...)? Can you export an industry standard GPS or TCX files of your workouts?
Click to expand...

Whatever it stores in Health you can access and export. You can see these data points in the watch app. Its not as robust out of the box as other apps. But as a data tracker, it has the advantage of HR plus steps plus distances plus workouts. Not sure it does elevation / floors climbed like a fitbit though.
 
dhy8386 said:
Whatever it stores in Health you can access and export. You can see these data points in the watch app. Its not as robust out of the box as other apps. But as a data tracker, it has the advantage of HR plus steps plus distances plus workouts. Not sure it does elevation / floors climbed like a fitbit though.
Click to expand...

Yes, it is all in there however you can't just get the run (or specific activity) data exported. For instance I can't just export HR data from a run I did today. It is all or nothing that I can see.
 
The fitness app is okay, but I would love it if the Health app had an Apple Watch version. I want to be able to keep up with my steps without having to have the phone with me. It would be great if it just syncs once I'm near my phone.
 
I liked how the Move, Exercise and Stand rings all fill up from activity done in 3rd party apps, as the accelerometer picks it all up. However there are 3 achievements that rely on the Workout app, which Apple should extend to any 3rd party fitness app, imo.

I used Nike Running for today's run, starting it on the phone and then using the watch for metrics. Just a quick warning to switch off the 'colour level' feature in the Nike app, or you'll end up with barely readable text on the watch. I'm in the blue level atm and the watch showed dark blue text on a black background, which I couldn't see clearly in the sunshine. Switching off the colour option in the Nike app defaults to white text, which was perfect. I liked that the Nike app on the watch shows metrics that can be swiped to reveal the music controls. Very convenient.

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webitorgal said:
The fitness app is okay, but I would love it if the Health app had an Apple Watch version. I want to be able to keep up with my steps without having to have the phone with me. It would be great if it just syncs once I'm near my phone.
Click to expand...

Are you sure that isn't how it already works? The watch tracks fitness without the phone, presumably updating the Health app totals next time it syncs.
 
For my outdoor activity, I'll probably keep using mapmyfitness but will slowly compare it to data recorded by the health app... Maybe apple should just purchase the entire suite from Under Armor (I think they own that and myfitnesspal)
 
zed2 said:
I play squash and worried about wearing my apple watch on Court, So I'm likely to use my misfit or pebble while on court to capture the workouts.
Click to expand...

I played last night (42 mm Sport, Sport Band) and I wore a wrist sweat band and wore the watch further up my arm. The sweatband keeps the watch in place while playing and it worked great, no issues and it looks like the watch picked up all the info.
 
Nike+ is quite slow when paired to my iPhone 5s. I've switched back to using the iPhone app without the watch app.
 
I am using both strava and the apple workout app. I wish apple pushed EVERYTHING (gps + heart rate + steps + flights climbed + speed) into health kit and then the 3rd parties read from it, but it doesn't look like thats happening.
 
BigOrangeSU said:
I am using both strava and the apple workout app. I wish apple pushed EVERYTHING (gps + heart rate + steps + flights climbed + speed) into health kit and then the 3rd parties read from it, but it doesn't look like thats happening.
Click to expand...

This 100%!! I also use both strava and workout. At the moment strava runs enclosed on itself while workout syncs with healthkit and pushes calories etc to myfitnesspal etc.

Once the SDK opens up and strava can use the HRM I may go back to using that mainly (If strava sorts out its syncing with healthkit which is awful as well at the moment)

My ideal situation though is if workouts starts tracing routes on a map using the gps on the phone and then let it export all that data to strava, like you would export to strava using a garmin.
 
It the biggest problem with the watch right now. You can't export any of the data outside of health kit like you can do with fitness watches. I think I will stick with my Suunto for now.
 
webitorgal said:
The fitness app is okay, but I would love it if the Health app had an Apple Watch version. I want to be able to keep up with my steps without having to have the phone with me. It would be great if it just syncs once I'm near my phone.
Click to expand...

go to the Activity main screen, then swipe up you'll be able to see your Steps and Distances traveled for the day
 
I'm going to initially stick to my Nike+ GPS app for running and use the Apple workout app for non-running workouts (walking/elliptical/weight lifting).
 
I am heavily invested in Nike+ (black level with 8100km run). Today first run only with the AW. Had to use a lot of work arounds to get audio books onto it, but it worked. So I ran with BT headset and only the watch. After the run I manually entered it into Nike+ in the app. Worked great and will now be my preferred choice till Nike+ becomes native on the watch or there is an automatic export/import of the AW fitness data into Nike+.
 
Got my Watch Friday and still messing around.

Today I was going to do an easy 3+ mile run on treadmill. I tried to start my Nike+ GPS app on watch and it wouldn't. It said I could start it on my phone, so I did. But then I didn't see it running on the Watch. Sooooo I also started the Apple "indoor run" on their app. Figured I'd compare the two.

The Apple app was way off saying I ran 4.5 miles. I'm not worried about that as I've not run outside yet, so it hasn't "learned" my stride/pace yet.

But here is the odd part; my Nike summary reflects my heart rate! WTF? And it looks accurate (I have and have used a BT chest strap with the Nike, but did not have it on today). We all know 3rd party apps cannot access the HR monitor on the watch (or can it?). Where did Nike get that info? Possibly from the Apple app I also had running?

I'm a bit at a loss. I was planning on sticking w/Nike for running, and Apple for cross training including walking, elliptical and weights. But just not sure.
 
Does the Nike app read data from HealthKit? Maybe it has just picked up the HR data that the watch deposits into Healthkit.
 
I was using apps on my iPhone such as Cardiio, which read your pulse through the camera and flash, and Human, which took advantage of the much-touted Motion Coprocessor of the new iPhone 6/6 Plus.

Now that I have the WATCH, I figured, what's the purpose of having those apps when the watch can read my heart rate and track my motion, probably more accurately?

I don't know about you guys, but my iPhone 6 Plus gets to 20% with low battery warning by mid-afternoon to evening, and I'm actually averaging 40% remaining on my WATCH by the time I put it back on the charger at night.
 
Robbenisland said:
I am heavily invested in Nike+ (black level with 8100km run). Today first run only with the AW. Had to use a lot of work arounds to get audio books onto it, but it worked. So I ran with BT headset and only the watch. After the run I manually entered it into Nike+ in the app. Worked great and will now be my preferred choice till Nike+ becomes native on the watch or there is an automatic export/import of the AW fitness data into Nike+.
Click to expand...

How did you do that? I left my watch at home and it had the no connection to the phone app and would do nothing.
 
You left your watch at home or your iPhone? I assume the latter. ;-). The trick is to do one run with both together. Afterwards the watch was calibrated and I can now use it without carrying the phone with me.
 
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