Today I ran the Detroit international marathon which starts in Detroit, goes across the bridge to Canada then through the tunnel back to the USA then is basically flat for the next 18 miles. I started workout on my Apple watch and started my Garmin. I didn't bother with Runmeter because it was just above freezing and I'd had enough of digging my phone out in the cold to operate it with freezing fingers.
The results were not good. My Apple Watch ran out of charge. I ran 4:04 in the marathon and the Apple watch ran out of charge after a mere 4 hours leaving the workout app running. This is the same Apple watch that has been giving me 12-16 hours a day. So I didn't get to compare workout's splits to Garmin's splits.
Garmin wasn't flawless either. While the times in memory later proved to be accurate, the screen kept reporting I was running 9:20's when I was really running 8:20's so I ran too hard and tuckered out around mile 23. I mixed walking with jogging to finish the last 5K but I crossed the finish looking more or less like a runner. Perhaps it was the mile through the tunnel with no GPS and no cellular (for my iPhone to figure out where I was and tell my watch) that blew my Apple watch's mind so badly it discharged itself in a mere 4 hours. Perhaps the tunnel also caused my Garmin to report inaccurate pace on its screen.
There were 27800 people down there at 5:45 in the morning, mostly for the half marathons (international half and us-only half which didn't require a passport). Sheer pandamonium. I only wish I could report on whether or not Apple watch worked. Well of course it didn't but I wish I knew WHY it didn't and more importantly I wish I knew how well it worked if only it had been functioning normally.
I've spent 4 rather low-quality hours at the genius bar, on the phone with Apple support and sitting through wipes and reinstalls of iOS9 and agonizingly slow restores of my AW. I opened the case with Apple because of bluetooth instability issues that have increased as the marathon drew closer and got so bad I purchased a Garmin for my last couple of weeks of training. This turned out to be a prudent move given the only paces I have now are the chip times from the race and the times recorded in my Garmin. At this point my opinion based solely on anecdotal evidence from my own experience, is if you haven't "downgraded" to WatchOS 2 and iOS 9, DON'T DO IT. Perhaps there is a hardware problem with my phone but the Genius Bar guy ran diagnostics and there were no hardware problems. Guess what the Genius bar guy told me the most frequently crashing app was? Bluetooth. This affects everything from making calls with my car, making calls with my earpiece, getting data from the Automatic plug in my car (fuel economy monitoring over bluetooth) and using my Apple watch. There are often times I must reboot my phone to get audio working at all. And that includes corded headset, every bluetooth source and the internal speaker. I know. Wierd.
I wish I had better news to report. After the last several days of iOS 9 and Watch OS 2 instability bordering on unusability, I have mixed feelings about my AW and iPhone 6 and my confidence in Apple is shaken. There is another thread here with a totally different experience from the Chicago marathon. If this is the case, perhaps the problems I'm having are really an isolated hardware problem with my phone, watch or both. My question then is why am I not walking around with a new phone and a new watch after asking for them multiple times after all this trouble? Oh yeah, because the Genius bar guy couldn't find anything in his diagnostics and (Apple's) bluetooth being the most frequently crashing app wasn't the smoking gun he needed to offer me a swap.
I shouldn't have had to take 4+ hours out of my training regimen leading up to my race only to have the problems continue to escalate to the point that by race day I got null data. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Well that's not entirely true. Health logged thousands of steps and said I burned 3000 plus calories. Big whoop. I don't need no stinking calories! I need paces and splits. I can eat back the calories quickly enough but I can't go out and run another marathon (any time soon) to collect my data again. Thank God for Garmin!
I'm tempted to post a poll asking for people to report stability issues but it's easy enough to put that in a reply. Are you having issues like I'm having with bluetooth? How about lacking availability when you need your phone or your watch or both?
The results were not good. My Apple Watch ran out of charge. I ran 4:04 in the marathon and the Apple watch ran out of charge after a mere 4 hours leaving the workout app running. This is the same Apple watch that has been giving me 12-16 hours a day. So I didn't get to compare workout's splits to Garmin's splits.
Garmin wasn't flawless either. While the times in memory later proved to be accurate, the screen kept reporting I was running 9:20's when I was really running 8:20's so I ran too hard and tuckered out around mile 23. I mixed walking with jogging to finish the last 5K but I crossed the finish looking more or less like a runner. Perhaps it was the mile through the tunnel with no GPS and no cellular (for my iPhone to figure out where I was and tell my watch) that blew my Apple watch's mind so badly it discharged itself in a mere 4 hours. Perhaps the tunnel also caused my Garmin to report inaccurate pace on its screen.
There were 27800 people down there at 5:45 in the morning, mostly for the half marathons (international half and us-only half which didn't require a passport). Sheer pandamonium. I only wish I could report on whether or not Apple watch worked. Well of course it didn't but I wish I knew WHY it didn't and more importantly I wish I knew how well it worked if only it had been functioning normally.
I've spent 4 rather low-quality hours at the genius bar, on the phone with Apple support and sitting through wipes and reinstalls of iOS9 and agonizingly slow restores of my AW. I opened the case with Apple because of bluetooth instability issues that have increased as the marathon drew closer and got so bad I purchased a Garmin for my last couple of weeks of training. This turned out to be a prudent move given the only paces I have now are the chip times from the race and the times recorded in my Garmin. At this point my opinion based solely on anecdotal evidence from my own experience, is if you haven't "downgraded" to WatchOS 2 and iOS 9, DON'T DO IT. Perhaps there is a hardware problem with my phone but the Genius Bar guy ran diagnostics and there were no hardware problems. Guess what the Genius bar guy told me the most frequently crashing app was? Bluetooth. This affects everything from making calls with my car, making calls with my earpiece, getting data from the Automatic plug in my car (fuel economy monitoring over bluetooth) and using my Apple watch. There are often times I must reboot my phone to get audio working at all. And that includes corded headset, every bluetooth source and the internal speaker. I know. Wierd.
I wish I had better news to report. After the last several days of iOS 9 and Watch OS 2 instability bordering on unusability, I have mixed feelings about my AW and iPhone 6 and my confidence in Apple is shaken. There is another thread here with a totally different experience from the Chicago marathon. If this is the case, perhaps the problems I'm having are really an isolated hardware problem with my phone, watch or both. My question then is why am I not walking around with a new phone and a new watch after asking for them multiple times after all this trouble? Oh yeah, because the Genius bar guy couldn't find anything in his diagnostics and (Apple's) bluetooth being the most frequently crashing app wasn't the smoking gun he needed to offer me a swap.
I shouldn't have had to take 4+ hours out of my training regimen leading up to my race only to have the problems continue to escalate to the point that by race day I got null data. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Well that's not entirely true. Health logged thousands of steps and said I burned 3000 plus calories. Big whoop. I don't need no stinking calories! I need paces and splits. I can eat back the calories quickly enough but I can't go out and run another marathon (any time soon) to collect my data again. Thank God for Garmin!
I'm tempted to post a poll asking for people to report stability issues but it's easy enough to put that in a reply. Are you having issues like I'm having with bluetooth? How about lacking availability when you need your phone or your watch or both?
