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Apps Golfshot App Apple Watch try out
- Thread starter prycop
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Been using Golfshot on my iPhone 5 with Watch OS3 since it came out and there is no doubt in my mind that the distances were coming up SLIGHTLY. quicker.
However, I've now hit a problem out of nowhere and I wonder if anyone else has had this. Just back from a week's golf holiday in Portugal. Golfshot didn't work at all over there. I'm guessing poor GPS in the Algarve but the distances jumped about. No problem but now that I'm home it hasn't returned to normal. The phone seems back to where it was and I can get the distances accurately with no problem. The watch will also pick up the initial yardage for a hole from the phone.
However, with the phone in power save mode and I set off down the hole the watch doesn't respond at all. Tried two whole fifteen seconds with wrist raised and no joy. I then have to get the phone out take it out of power save mode and the phone updates very quickly and the watch a few seconds later. Used to be able to walk down the hole and look at the yardages changing on the watch as I walked.
This is a new problem and I'm stumped.
However, I've now hit a problem out of nowhere and I wonder if anyone else has had this. Just back from a week's golf holiday in Portugal. Golfshot didn't work at all over there. I'm guessing poor GPS in the Algarve but the distances jumped about. No problem but now that I'm home it hasn't returned to normal. The phone seems back to where it was and I can get the distances accurately with no problem. The watch will also pick up the initial yardage for a hole from the phone.
However, with the phone in power save mode and I set off down the hole the watch doesn't respond at all. Tried two whole fifteen seconds with wrist raised and no joy. I then have to get the phone out take it out of power save mode and the phone updates very quickly and the watch a few seconds later. Used to be able to walk down the hole and look at the yardages changing on the watch as I walked.
This is a new problem and I'm stumped.
Hole 19 with the watch os3 software is pretty damn fast now. It was my only complaint with H19 before. You look at the distance in your watch when approaching your ball and had to wait 2 sec for the correct distance to load (first world problems). Now it updates instantly.
Maybe the power save mode is causing the issues? Try without power save mode and see if that helps. I don't use power save mode, and I've got the background GPS set to 5 minutes, and I lock the display as soon as I'm done using it. It responds instantly when I unlock the screen, and the watch updates pretty fast on watchOS 3 with the settings I've mentioned.
Today I retried GolfPadGPS after the app updated "faster GPS" was the promise in the update description.
It is over a year since I tried it, so I had to pay the $19.99 US again to get Premium to enable smart watch integration
Well, I think they understated!
It is EXTREMELY fast to update distances, I really enjoyed the experience & will keep using it.
Don't know which GPS it is using, phone or watch, but is lightening fast.
Highly recommended.
Used GolfPadGPS yesterday, whilst using I had reason to return to the watch face, noticed the "Workout" status icon at the top: https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT205550
I had started no workout apps so am guessing this means the app is using the watch GPS?
It is over a year since I tried it, so I had to pay the $19.99 US again to get Premium to enable smart watch integration
Well, I think they understated!
It is EXTREMELY fast to update distances, I really enjoyed the experience & will keep using it.
Don't know which GPS it is using, phone or watch, but is lightening fast.
Highly recommended.
Used GolfPadGPS yesterday, whilst using I had reason to return to the watch face, noticed the "Workout" status icon at the top: https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT205550
I had started no workout apps so am guessing this means the app is using the watch GPS?
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Thanks. Yes, I'm pretty sure it's something to do with the power save. If I just use the phone it updates fine. On the watch it also updates the initial distance at the tee for that hole if I move it on to the new one so the two are communicating. It's after that the problem occurs.
I'm not quite clear what you're suggesting by locking the screen. Do you mean not using Golfshots power save but letting the phone go to sleep normally ? Would that happen with Golfshot running ? If so, does that mean lifting the phone out of the bag for every shot ? If so, the watch would be basically useless.
I've contacted support about the issue and will post here when (if) I get a reply. It's ironic that just when Golfshot was working better than ever this should happen.
Btw, I've tested the phone's GPS on one of those small apps and it seems to be working fine.
You could let the phone go to sleep normally, but I press the power button to lock the phone and turn off the display between shots to manually make the battery last longer (when the phone's screen is lit up, it drains more battery than when the screen is off). I have the Background GPS setting in Golfshot set to 5 minutes, so after 5 minutes of inactivity, the GPS will stop so it won't drain your battery. This seems to work well, and the GPS wakes up if I open the app again. I think it wakes up again by raising the watch when the app is running on the watch, as that forces it to check for yardages again, but I'm not 100% sure of that...
All these apps look so ugly. Last year I played my first round in years and settled on Fun Golf GPS.
I am about to play a round with the Apple Watch and have done another search but found this is again so much more beautifully designed and exactly what I expected for the watch. Cannot wait, but today might be rained off.
I am about to play a round with the Apple Watch and have done another search but found this is again so much more beautifully designed and exactly what I expected for the watch. Cannot wait, but today might be rained off.
I would agree that on the Watch that fun golf looks the best, especially the green view. I prefer Golfshot for the phone app, just browsing rounds and scorecards is very clean in a way that Fun Golf is not. I could use Fun Golf while golfing and then add the scores to golfshot after the fact but the distances on Fun Golf were off, not sure if that has been fixed.
I've downloaded some of these and tried several, but need more work on this.
Here's what I want:
-accurate GPS readings, especially front/middle/back of green
-activity/workout credit (like Ping App)
Here's what I don't want:
-I don't care about scorekeeping.
Is that Hope 19, Golfshot, Ping, etc etc?
Here's what I want:
-accurate GPS readings, especially front/middle/back of green
-activity/workout credit (like Ping App)
Here's what I don't want:
-I don't care about scorekeeping.
Is that Hope 19, Golfshot, Ping, etc etc?
I've been using Golfshot for years, and I love it. You don't have to keep score if you don't want to, but I find the yardages to be accurate (front, middle, back, hazards, etc), and you do get the workout credit while using the app.
If you don't care about scorekeeping, give Fun Golf GPS a try. This app offers now automatic hole detection. It shows the distance very fast an the battery use of the iPhone and Apple Watch is very low.
Just had a look at fun golf. Visually quite attractive but for me on the golf course I'm really just looking for something quick to tell me front, back and middle. I don't even really have time to check distances to hazards in the Saturday medal. I do like the idea of automatic hole recognition but the price is a bit steep compared to Golfshot so I think I'll be sticking to that at the moment . I actually think Golfshot looks fine, especially on the watch. Just gives me quickly what I need and do far each year I've managed to get a reduced sub for the Pro version. Hole 19 was the other I briefly looked at but looked a little rough then. Might have another look. It's good that we have a decent choice now. Might keep my one, Golfshot, on its toes.
I used it for pretty much all of January. Worked great. No performance issues or lag that I noticed.
Does the app remember distances for club selection? If I hit my 7 iron 150 yards will it remember that?
Unlike some other systems that have a sensor attached to each club, the app by itself does not know what club you used and when you actually hit the ball, so it doesn't do it automatically. But, if you use the track shot feature, it will record and average the distances you hit with the club you've selected. Hope that helps
I just played a couple of rounds and use Golfshot on my iPhone. The update pace when lifting my wrist and checking distance is pretty poor in Golfshot on the watch so I kept going back to the phone to be sure.
Have you had the same speed issues? Would love to just pull out my phone for scores and not distances
I've found Golfshot to take, at most, several seconds to update distance after I raise my wrist. I have AW2. It's not much of a deal for me. However, though I've been a longtime user, I recently downloaded Trackmygolf, which uses the watch GPS an automatically tracks score and club distances. I haven't used it yet, so I can't vouch for how well it works.
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The phone is faster, for sure, but I pretty much just use the watch for straightforward distances. If I want a better view of the hole layout or distances to hazards, I pull the phone out as well, but for a simple shot from the fairway, the watch updates in a couple seconds, which is good enough for me. I have an AW2, though, so an AW1 might take a bit longer, so I can't comment on that.
Mine is a S2 as well but it doesn't seem to be the watch but more the data fetching from the phone that's the problem speed wise
Yea I don't disagree. If I'm walking up to my ball, I'll raise my wrist and it'll be dialed in by the time I'm ready to pick a club, but if I'm in a hurry and there are people waiting for me, pulling out my iPhone is usually faster.
I've been using golfshot on the original Apple Watch for over a year now. My wife just bought me the series 2 for my birthday. I'll report back if I notice any change in updated distances. It's definitely quicker in opening the app though. I agree that most of the delay is probably in fetching the data. What I believe is happening is that the GPS in the phone becomes inactive, you raise your wrist, it communicates with the phone, GPS is activated, distance is updated, data is sent back to apple watch. What I believe helps reduce the delay is changing the background GPS setting in the Golfshot app to a longer interval.....although probably at the expense of battery life. Another work around as previously posted....is to raise your wrist as you're walking up to your ball...so that when you get to your ball, distance is almost instantaneous.
I just stumbled back across this thread and have used TrackMyGolf for a few rounds.
There are a few issues that I've noticed:
1) adding specific club names on the phone app doesn't always sync with the watch (I've added a 50, 54 and 58 degree wedge but they have never shown up on the watch)
2) it doesn't always record shots automatically (mostly chips and putts)
3) you have to turn on airplane mode on the watch for the app to use the watch for distances. I played most of a round before realizing this. the GPS automatically goes to the phone for distance. the only other option is to turn your phone off (which isn't convenient for obvious reasons)
These are just the three biggest issues for me, I think that the app has great potential and will be updated for sure. Even with those three issues the app is cheaper than Golfshot and does use the Apple Watch independent of the phone for GPS and even starting a round, I would recommend giving it a try