This whole Apple watch thing is a joke. I still don't and never will understand wearing this watch and having to also carry the iPhone as their it no GPS. 
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How to Calibrate Apple Watch for a More Accurate Offline Workout
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The Fenix is a great device. But that thing is huge! I would not wear to work or to a meeting. But then looks is totally subjective...
Yes, phones strapped to your arm (or in a running waist pack) which makes it extremely difficult to see, change a song, turn up volume. I used a Magellan Echo for a while. Very cool devise. But cheap plastic, not intuitive, and very cumbersome. But it displayed the info from your phone and allowed you to change songs, volume, etc. AW does this much, much better, plus many stand alone features.
You are correct that any stock usually goes up or down for a bunch of reasons. But just as Apple put pressure on other MP3 players w/iPod and other smartphones (looking at you blackberry) w/iPhone, there is little doubt AW will put pressure on dedicated running watches. Heck, I bought AW instead of a dedicated running watch, and now they are dropping in price or having "30% off" I'm almost considering having both!
Yes, I do read over at DCRainmaker. After reading his stuff, I was leaning towards a Garmin 220 before I decided on AW. Have you seen his initial review of AW? He tested the crap out of it for true water proofing and guess what? It survived! Including swimming, diving and under pressure.
I truely agree on having the feature of GPS on the watch and wish Apple had done it (Sony did w/their smartwatch). But I think a bit overstated to say it is a required or must have feature. One of my favorite races is the annual Turkey Trot in downtown. With all the building, most smart phones do better than running watches since smart phones can use cell towers to help them out. Yes, just an example, but the point is, consumer GPS units have their own draw-backs.
You note on features on something like the Garmin 620 is well said. But how long before AW has similar? Or that Garmin comes out with an AW app? And don't say "that will never happen" I still use, on occasion, the TomTom app I paid like $60 for way back on my iPhone 3G or 4 (it works with no cell signal).
This is a golden time for all these devices. Pro's and Con's for all. And more importantly regardless if Apple, Garmin, Polar, whoever, if it gets more people moving and/or running it is a good thing.
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Hmmm- they are off to the side on my page. Maybe they were in the main section for a hot minute. I visit several times almost every day so it's not like I would miss this if it were in the main for a long time.
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Ah, that would explain it. I use my MBP most of the time.
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I guess they will also be mad when there is a *****-ton of TV news and guides soon, lol. I have no interest in articles about iPads, Airs, Mac Minis and some other Apple products but somehow I manage to simply not read those articles... guess I have special reading skills!
Wow. They literally copied this "article," almost word for word, from Apple's guide.
This is a bit like Perez Hilton .com postings on the Kardashian family. You just want them to stop but the posts keep on coming.
Absolutely. When I started running I used to get my dad to drive the route to measure the distance on the speedo then go out and run it with my timex! If you'd have told me about the tech we have now I wouldn't have believed you!
Wow. They literally copied this "article," almost word for word, from Apple's guide.
Do you know what "literally" means? It doesn't mean reword the same technical information and add details, which is what MR did.
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I wish I could stop having to read all the posts whining about articles they don't want to read. Maybe they could start a thread in, say, Site Comments, where they belong.
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I read your post too quickly and thought you said you like to run while wearing a Speedo.
Depends on how tight your pockets are. If the iPhone sits relatively loose, counting steps is noticeably less accurate. The best position is the hip itself and a belt or the upper band of your trousers is where step counters usually go. I have seen much less accuracy with my iPhone then dedicated step counters including the Fitbit One.
The Apple Watch isn't the first wrist-based 'step-counter', while probably less precise than a hip-based step counter it is has the advantage of also reading your heart rate, together with the altimeter and accelerometer it probably can take quite a good guess, though fine-tuning the algorithms that extract step count and/or distance is certainly a somewhat complex task.
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What is wrong with wearing a heart-rate monitor and display on your watch? More convenient than putting on a chest strap and constantly pulling out your phone to check the results.This whole Apple watch thing is a joke. I still don't and never will understand wearing this watch and having to also carry the iPhone as their it no GPS.
This whole Apple watch thing is a joke. I still don't and never will understand wearing this watch and having to also carry the iPhone as their it no GPS.
I guess this means you don't have an Apple Watch then? If you had one then you'd be more likely to understand.
The Watch is an extension of the iPhone and is designed to work hand in hand with it. However, the Watch also has the ability to work independently from the iPhone but in a way that doesn't render it heavy, bulky and ugly, like the typical Garmin GPS watch, while still achieving excellent battery life. I just looked at my Apple Watch just now (42mm model) and it has 52% battery remaining. That's been off the charger since 9am and includes a 2 hour game of tennis where it was checking my heart rate every 10 seconds. It's now 1am so that's 16 hours and it still has 52% left.
All this bickering aside, for me the most important thing the Apple Watch appears to be doing is getting otherwise inactive people to become more active. I'm seeing evidence of this in my own household (me and my wife) and across the internet in podcasts, blogs and tweets. Sceptics will say that it won't last but my bet is that it largely will and that could genuinely make a huge difference to the health of those who are fortunate enough to benefit.
Yeah, it's not as if advances in technology and science have made athletes stronger or faster eh? Wait, what?
Works!
I had been using my watch to track riding my bike to work and home, and then I wore it and took it for a run; without my iPhone. I never calibrated the watch with the iPhone on a run, but only while riding my bike.
However, to my surprise, the watch measured the distance exactly - I knew before the run where 1 mile was, and the watch measured 1.02 miles. I knew where the second mile was, and it measured 2 miles. I turned around and made it back and the watch maintained accuracy the entire time. I am very pleased, because as a runner, I was really hoping it would work without the iPhone.
I had been using my watch to track riding my bike to work and home, and then I wore it and took it for a run; without my iPhone. I never calibrated the watch with the iPhone on a run, but only while riding my bike.
However, to my surprise, the watch measured the distance exactly - I knew before the run where 1 mile was, and the watch measured 1.02 miles. I knew where the second mile was, and it measured 2 miles. I turned around and made it back and the watch maintained accuracy the entire time. I am very pleased, because as a runner, I was really hoping it would work without the iPhone.
The killer app for me tracks how often I break wind, while determining the amount of carbon credits I owe and that get automatically deducted via Apple Pay.
Im all for those, but they don't really belong in the iOS Blog section either, which is where they seem to appear now, and which makes them appear on the home page of the mobile site. There's certainly a place for them, but likely in a How To type of section or something similar. Given that there's quite a few of these and most just a couple or so, seems somewhat less than optional having them in sections that aren't all that relevant and essentially taking over the news at times.
Actually, it does. Do a google search for the word literally. The definition changed to include the definition for figuratively: "used for emphasis or to express strong feeling while not being literally true."
As in, "the new definition for literally is literally the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
In my opinion it is. An iPhone 6 in a waterproof arm strap is heavy, cumbersome and uncomfortable when all I really want it for is the GPS chip inside. Therefore I choose to get a dedicated GPS watch. My choice. If others don't find the same problem then the AW is maybe better for them.
Just another I-don't-need-an-Apple-watch-and-want-everybody-to-know-it post.
Next please!
Funniest post I've read in awhile. As to the post you quoted... Same thing I was think. AW literally does this for you first walk/run
I'll give you the cumbersome comment. But at 4.5 ounces for the phone... Heavy???....just seems like you are just making up more excuses as you go along. You had your argument won at cumbersome.
Confused by the sudden surge of how-to posts on MacRumors. Not exactly news, and all this information is available through Apple already (more cohesively arranged and better presented). Plus it has been pretty basic stuff, can't imagine this appealing to the bulk of MacRumors readers.
I'm assuming that this calibration feature works just as the Nike+ technology did? The motion data captured by the accelerometer shows every time you take a step and is applied to an algorithm that includes your height to make a guess at the distance between successive footstrikes (gait), and thus an estimate of how far you've run. Then the actual distance recorded through GPS is used to fine-tune the guess the watch made at your gait so future distance estimates are more accurate.
So basically, to calibrate your watch you leave the calibration feature on, believe it or not. Enough said.
I'm assuming that this calibration feature works just as the Nike+ technology did? The motion data captured by the accelerometer shows every time you take a step and is applied to an algorithm that includes your height to make a guess at the distance between successive footstrikes (gait), and thus an estimate of how far you've run. Then the actual distance recorded through GPS is used to fine-tune the guess the watch made at your gait so future distance estimates are more accurate.
So basically, to calibrate your watch you leave the calibration feature on, believe it or not. Enough said.