It is a special kind of frustration when tech lets you down whilst you’re trying to burn calories at a fast rate. Grrrr
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Apple Watch Users Claim Workout App Is Now Worse in Every Way
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Hate the new "play" button to start a workout, which any sane person would assume was the control for their music or podcast from within the Workout App.
Apple also messed up Carplay in iOS 26; what used to be one tap to start my "Work" commute is now for some reason 3-4 taps, in part because the second unnecessary tap doesn't seem to register the first time.
Apple also messed up Carplay in iOS 26; what used to be one tap to start my "Work" commute is now for some reason 3-4 taps, in part because the second unnecessary tap doesn't seem to register the first time.
In all honesty, and not being hyperbolic or facetious, I absolutely regret upgrading to iOS/watchOS 26.
I used to be an iPhone/watch user since the iPhone 3, switched to Samsung/Android for 3 years in 2021, then decided to switch back due to the Apple Watch and overall experience just being better.
iOS 18/watchOS 11 were just fantastic. Everything worked, was easy, and just so smooth. Felt right.
iOS/watchOS 26 has been an absolute disaster.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 now feels like a cheap, Chinese knock off. The iPhone 15 Pro Max feels like a budget model.
I go to the gym 4 times a week and use the Fitness app religiously. I absolutely hate it now for the reasons the article stated.
The phone just feels clunky, laggy, and annoying to use. And whilst yes it's just a beta, 26.2 beta 2/3 breaking CarPlay for me is the final straw, especially if they don't fix it by 26.2 RC.
I'm already looking at options to switch from Apple, and I'll never touch them again if I do.
I used to be an iPhone/watch user since the iPhone 3, switched to Samsung/Android for 3 years in 2021, then decided to switch back due to the Apple Watch and overall experience just being better.
iOS 18/watchOS 11 were just fantastic. Everything worked, was easy, and just so smooth. Felt right.
iOS/watchOS 26 has been an absolute disaster.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2 now feels like a cheap, Chinese knock off. The iPhone 15 Pro Max feels like a budget model.
I go to the gym 4 times a week and use the Fitness app religiously. I absolutely hate it now for the reasons the article stated.
The phone just feels clunky, laggy, and annoying to use. And whilst yes it's just a beta, 26.2 beta 2/3 breaking CarPlay for me is the final straw, especially if they don't fix it by 26.2 RC.
I'm already looking at options to switch from Apple, and I'll never touch them again if I do.
Apple Watch Ultra 3 here. I have always used a press of the Action button to start my workout, but after the OS update it was very flaky and started giving me errors. Annoying, but simply rebooting the watch took care of it and now it's back to working the way it did before.
Apple's Workout App has basically always been "Fischer Price My First Fitness Tracker."
The third-party Workoutdoors app blows the Apple app out of the water imo. And because of that, I dread the day Apple sabotages or kills it for providing such a markedly better user experience than their native option.
The third-party Workoutdoors app blows the Apple app out of the water imo. And because of that, I dread the day Apple sabotages or kills it for providing such a markedly better user experience than their native option.
Wow, I had no idea people were feeling this way about the Workout app.
This is a situation where I thought the new version made sense: traditionally the friction for me was scrolling through a list of configurations to find the one I wanted. Really, all I ever wanted was to pick my activity, press go, and have the watch do its workout-class sensor tracking. I dive in and tinker with the granular settings deliberately and passionately but rarely. The new version excels with all of that.
But, goodness, with certain other major aspects of Apple platform reworkings this year? I know the feeling of being concerned if not outright disappointed about specific, articulable changes. So I encourage everyone who liked the traditional Workout app to send feedback and I hope you get what you're after.
This is a situation where I thought the new version made sense: traditionally the friction for me was scrolling through a list of configurations to find the one I wanted. Really, all I ever wanted was to pick my activity, press go, and have the watch do its workout-class sensor tracking. I dive in and tinker with the granular settings deliberately and passionately but rarely. The new version excels with all of that.
But, goodness, with certain other major aspects of Apple platform reworkings this year? I know the feeling of being concerned if not outright disappointed about specific, articulable changes. So I encourage everyone who liked the traditional Workout app to send feedback and I hope you get what you're after.
My ultra 3 action button set to start a workout often gives me a message after some time that the workout has failed to start. I’ve been restarting my watch. I agree with tthe other premises of this article. The only thing better is the lag time at the end of a workout to up date the rings has goone dowm but is still lagging behind two versions ago.
I have similar complaints about the phone app. Way more taps on tiny targets to accomplish the same thing.
Telling your watch to start a workout at the beginning of a race makes you a jackass. I can barely talk at the end of a hard sprint..bit tough to get Siri to understand me. Siri also can't hear under gloves and a coat when running in sub-freezing temps.
So many reasons that Siri isn't the solution to much of anything.
They cancelled usability testing when they rolled out software development to teenagers in third world countries because it was cheaper. So now, instead of usability which requires engineering we have "cute and fashionable".
Everything to do with xOS 26 is really not well designed or executed. Each platform has its own issues, but whoever lead this effort to redesign Apple's OS's did a universally bad job.
I can only pile on and say that the workout app has gotten worse with WatchOS 26. I bike, walk and do functional strength training, and the scrolling and tapping required has unnecessarily complicated the app and made the interface less user friendly. Apple (and other platform companies) still need to learn that not every change is good or necessary. There seems to be no benefit gained in the Workout app from the changes in WatchOS 26. Hopefully Apple will revert or at least clean up the interface soon.
I like how the swim workout allows me to easily toggle the pool distance from yards to metric... one of the pools I use is metric. Was not as easy to change on earlier versions. For the most part, the swim workout is accurate though sometimes it misses lap but the timing is correct. And sometimes it has me doing butterfly when I'm still doing freestyle. No issues with backstroke... guess I'm in the minority here.
I use bitwarden, so I'm not completely sure the user experience is the same with passwords, but the new UX for dealing with password managers (particularly when I have multiple logins for one site) requires so many more clicks than previous versions of iOS. Again, poorly though through all around each of the Apple operating systems.
Everyone needs to go to either the beta feedback app or the Apple product feedback site And complain about this.
Did a 2 hour free weight workout. Pressed Traditional Weight Training. Forgot to pick one of the 3 options. After 2 hours looked at my watch and it was still waiting for me to press start. It never reminded me, never suggested I start a workout, recorded zero effort, zero exercise, zero time exercising. Complete fail on Apples part