Opinion: watchOS could do with a iOS 12-style 'speedup' release

[tony_glasgow]

TLDR: watchOS 4 (for me) needs regular reboots to remain useful.

A little background... I'm a day one Apple Watch user who found having on-wrist notifications and the occasional light app use was worth the non-significant cost and I was a happy camper. My usage really upped when I started running last year. With a Series 0 it showed potential but the lack of GPS was the spur I needed to upgrade to a Series 2.

I've posted previously about watchOS 4 being sluggish and generally terrible at managing memory and (to Apple's credit) each subsequent 4.X release has helped. With the initial release I could raise my wrist and my running app (either Strava/Workouts) would take 1-2 seconds to update. Considering my cadence is > 170 steps a minute I had to run 4-8 steps with my wrist up before I would get the latest data - steps my eyes weren't on the road! Between September and December it was fingers-crossed and bizarre rituals to get something workable and I ended up with iSmoothRun + Music and cutting down all non-essential apps/features.

So with the current releases the main problem still exists today - the device jus gets slower and slower over time. I only use these apps regularly:

• Notifications for most apps (but not Mail)
• DarkSky
• iSmoothRun
• Music (with AirPods)

And I still have to reboot every few weeks - the watch just gets slower and slower over time.
If I don't reboot I get these kind of problems:

• Music crashes, especially when you start a new Playlist.
• iSmoothrun pace announcements take longer and longer to happen, eventually stopping. If they stop your music will dip in volume, no announcement will be made and the music volume never recovers for your entire run. Two hours where I can barely hear my pacing music
• iSmoothrun crashes while recording a run (thankfully rare - I don't let it get this bad anymore)
• Responsiveness of these apps just generally gets worse.

(My partner is also a AW2 runner and suffers from similar issues, so it's not a h/w issue).

I can't even think about using the Siri watch face - weeks become days in terms of sluggishness when I try. I have repaired the watch at least 3/4 times to see it that helps (it doesn't).

These issues genuinely stopped me upgrading to a Series 3 - I was gutted I only got 5 months of good performance from my investment, and I can honestly say I spent the run up to Christmas researching Garmin watches it was that bad. watchOS 4.2 saved me from jumping ship.

I'm worried that until the Apple Watch (as a product line) settles down we'll always be in a situation where the newest features cause older Watches to become more and more brick-like. Which brings me back to my original point... I need confidence that Apple is taking performance seriously - reading the current beta thread doesn't fill me with confidence. Otherwise I'll probably be passing on AW4 as well...

 

[Julien]

wOS 5 probably just a couple of weeks away. So you want Apple to drop wOS 5 development start improving the speed on a wOS 4 update that would probably take several weeks?

 

[iPhysicist]

You know that Apple is not responsible for ismoothrun?

 

[tony_glasgow]

You know that Apple is not responsible for ismoothrun?

Didn't matter which app I used... Strava / Workouts / iSmoothRun. Same issue with apps getting slower and slower and beginning to break as a consequence - what I have now is the best option (with the above issues).
[doublepost=1536164355][/doublepost]

wOS 5 probably just a couple of weeks away. So you want Apple to drop wOS 5 development start improving the speed on a wOS 4 update that would probably take several weeks?

Of course not. I just don't want watchOS 5 to mean I spend 4 months waiting for my watch to be useful again. Like last year. Except this time my watch is two generation old, so not holding my breath...

 

[flashflooder]

I totally agree. I find that the OS is sluggish enough on the Watch to be detrimental to the experience. It's the one device in Apple's lineup that lacks that Apple software "magic" feel.

Granted, I'm running a Series 1, but it has never felt up to par (even from day 1). Also, there are still many bugs where my watch won't respond to Siri commands, or loses connection to the phone, or forgets about my Reminder lists.

 

[Der Keyser]

I couldn’t agree more. My series 2 is exactly like yours - somewhat usable when rebooted but otherwise laggy and slow. I am seriously lusting for the podcast app in watchOS5, but sadly i’ll have to live without it, because I’m not gonna brick the watch completely with that bloated OS5 designed only for having hardware like the upcoming Watch4.
The watch is just too young a product as it is now. Perhaps Watch4 will be the first one to have the stamina to last 2 years in a fully usable state and then a 3’rd year in laggy and annoying but still working state?

 

[tony_glasgow]

Glad to hear I'm not alone!

Couldn't agree more on the 'new' product problem (and I know first hand that iPads suffered from this until the Air 2). On one hand it's finding its feet and will take a while for the hardware specs to be 'good enough'. On the other, every Apple Watch has at least a half gig of RAM and has almost no user interface - how on earth can struggle as much as it does?

 

[Der Keyser]

Yeah, and the processor is more powerfull than the one in an iPhone 4 (actually similar to the processor in a 4s). The code must be seriously highlevel - so that it translates into millions of lines of machine code to move a pixel on screen.
No, seriously, the code efficiency must be absolutely HORRIBLE to kill the hardware so badly for so little functionality.

 

[matrix07]

I didn’t have the problem you described when I was using my S2 Nike just 5 months ago. Apple Workouts was always smooth. Now with S3 LTE it’s just unthinkable to have something like that (system wide sluggishness).

 

[Freakonomics101]

My S2 isn’t annoyingly slow but could definitely use the iOS 12 treatment. I would rather stay on OS 4 and have it be slow to where it doesn’t annoy me than risk going on OS 5. But... aren’t you eventually forced to update? Don’t remember how that exactly works.

 

[perezr10]

First, the Series 3 is waaaaay faster than the Series 2. I think it was a bigger speed increase than the 2 was from the 0.

Second, I still have an old Series 0 and I think it runs better on the latest 4.3 than it ever has. It used to stutter and lag MORE on watchOS 3.x. Like if I hit start on the stopwatch on 3.x, it would lag and start counting at 2 or 3 seconds. Now, there's no hesitation and it starts counting immediately at 1. I'm shocked at how well the Series 0 runs on 4.3. I have a hard time believing that the Series 2 runs worse.

 

[matrix07]

My S2 isn’t annoyingly slow but could definitely use the iOS 12 treatment. I would rather stay on OS 4 and have it be slow to where it doesn’t annoy me than risk going on OS 5. But... aren’t you eventually forced to update? Don’t remember how that exactly works.

Don’t update to new iOS if you don’t want to be force to update to new watchOS.

 

[Der Keyser]

First, the Series 3 is waaaaay faster than the Series 2. I think it was a bigger speed increase than the 2 was from the 0.

Second, I still have an old Series 0 and I think it runs better on the latest 4.3 than it ever has. It used to stutter and lag MORE on watchOS 3.x. Like if I hit start on the stopwatch on 3.x, it would lag and start counting at 2 or 3 seconds. Now, there's no hesitation and it starts counting immediately at 1. I'm shocked at how well the Series 0 runs on 4.3. I have a hard time believing that the Series 2 runs worse.

Well, mine does - and so does my friend and wifes S2 as well. Fx: If i have not rebooted the watch for about a week and I want to use a workout, I need to plan ahead. Launching the workout app is fairly quick, but then it takes about 10 secs before it responds to touch, and in the 5 secs after that, its so laggy and jumpy that I cant scroll reliably with the wheel. Then slowly it gets going. Timers does not suffer so badly, but it’s still a sec or two before responds to input.

 

[rbart]

I have the same issues with my S2.
All was snappy with WOS3, but now, it 's more random ...
Siri can be very slow to work.
Running some small apps (timers, Find my friends ...) can take some time ...
NRC is slow and laggy everywhere.
A reboot improves temporarily the situation but I feel there are some memory leaks or ghost processes that eat resources.
It's strange, WatchOS 4 has not a lot of new and hungry features compared to 3.
It has improved across upgrades but it's not as smooth as it should.
I have very very few apps on my watch, it has been configured as "new watch" some days ago.

I hope Watch OS 5 will be more polished, but I am a bit affraid it will be worse
Someone has tested on a Series 2 ?

 

[rdy0329]

S0 here, and yes, same experience with laggy response. My main ritual is to actually start music (with AirPods), then open workout app and wait 5-10 seconds before being able to tap any tap what workout I want to do. Sometimes it takes 30s-1m before I'll be able to properly start my workout.

I've experienced Music suddenly crashing and it just throws me off my momentum. Otherwise, if it works, it works. I've resigned to the fact that this is as good as it gets between the balance of feature and reliability. I don't even bother with 3rd-party apps anymore since I'm also experiencing data update delay (this may be due to battery conservation effort of the OS).

Nonetheless, seems like ALL S0 users and SOME S1/S2 users are actually going to be happy with the S4 update once we get our hands on it.

 

[CNebs]

Anyone ever try force quitting the app instead of a full reboot? I’ve found majority of the time force quit was a better way to deal with lag in apps.

 

[tony_glasgow]

Anyone ever try force quitting the app instead of a full reboot? I’ve found majority of the time force quit was a better way to deal with lag in apps.

Most of my issues happen mid-run. When it starts I don't want to lose tracking my workout so won't restart that, and restarting Music is hit and miss. When music dies during a run (usually change playlist), it will try to restart and around 50% of the time crash again - this can take minutes on a Series 2 (certainly feels like that ).

That's why I preemptively restart it after my run to avoid more serious issues during the next run (ironically it's fine most of the other time). I also know I'll 'get' whichever app it is that's bringing down everything else

 

[CNebs]

Maybe try this https://www.imore.com/how-force-quit-apps-apple-watch instead of a full reboot. I found this worked better on my S0 with the NRC app compared to the reboot for some odd reason.