Apps Series 2 + GPS + 3rd party apps?

[MBHockey]

I wish someone from one of the companies that develops these apps would say why there is such a lag time on implementing native GPS. It strikes me as odd that NONE of the 3rd party apps have this functionality yet.

Did Apple put some sort of embargo on 3rd party apps so that they could not release their app until Apple released the silly Nike AW model? It can't be that ALL these companies were simply not ready on day 1, right? didn't these devs have access to developer builds where they could implement native GPS and test it for months?

 

[Bob190]

I wish someone from one of the companies that develops these apps would say why there is such a lag time on implementing native GPS. It strikes me as odd that NONE of the 3rd party apps have this functionality yet.

Did Apple put some sort of embargo on 3rd party apps so that they could not release their app until Apple released the silly Nike AW model? It can't be that ALL these companies were simply not ready on day 1, right? didn't these devs have access to developer builds where they could implement native GPS and test it for months?

Given that the Pear Sports app does work with the Series 2 integrated GPS, I don't think that there is an embargo. The Pear app is functional, but not without quirks.

 

[sta1210]

I too am in line with those awaiting the release of updates to non-Apple running apps. The apple workout app is a little cumbersome and not what I would have expected from Apple. ISmoothrun has been one of the more reliable watch apps (when paired with a phone of course) promising a release of an updated version by the end of the year. Tried the apple workout app on a recent 30 k with it stopping three times and converting to a walk? A little odd.

Will check out Pear as a stop gap until other apps released.

 

[AppleWatchDeveloper]

Quick question -- as a dev, do you have the ability to specify how often your watch app polls the GPS for its location? I went for a run with the Apple workout app last week, and some of the routing was strange and I think it's because it's not tracking GPS location every second (it is reminiscent to my older Garmin watches that would poll every 2-5 seconds, where the problem was fixed with changing the setting to every 1 second).

No, you can't specify how often you're receiving GPS locations; we actually don't poll for it, but listen to notifications that new GPS locations are ready to be processed, the system decides when to trigger those notifications, typically once per second.
What you're noticing is more likely due to poor GPS signal in some circumstances.

 

[dallison13]

I too am in line with those awaiting the release of updates to non-Apple running apps. The apple workout app is a little cumbersome and not what I would have expected from Apple. ISmoothrun has been one of the more reliable watch apps (when paired with a phone of course) promising a release of an updated version by the end of the year. Tried the apple workout app on a recent 30 k with it stopping three times and converting to a walk? A little odd.

Will check out Pear as a stop gap until other apps released.

That is unfortunate about your 30 K. I personally found that I don't mind the built-in Apple apps. I like the fact that you can stop them with a two button press versus a swipe when you're done. I just wish we could export the data to wherever we wanted. Otherwise I would consider using the first party apps permanently!

 

[MBHockey]

No, you can't specify how often you're receiving GPS locations; we actually don't poll for it, but listen to notifications that new GPS locations are ready to be processed, the system decides when to trigger those notifications, typically once per second.
What you're noticing is more likely due to poor GPS signal in some circumstances.

Interesting. So the AW does poll the GPS every second during workout mode?

 

[dallison13]

Sad to say that the Pear app has been ridiculously unreliable for me this week. Something changed between release and now. Not sure. Maps are not correct. Strava sync is off. Runs stop halfway through a run. Luckily, I'm still running with my Garmin on the other arm so no real loss for me.

 

[mitty]

Runkeeper update today but no mention of AW2 functionality. Beginning to think there's some stumbling block that won't be cleared for a while. I just wish someone would tell us what's happening. At this stage I'm thinking of returning mine and waiting until I know everything works properly.

 

[AppleWatchDeveloper]

What is likely happening for these existing apps is that Apple redefined multiple times (watchOS 2, watchOS 3), how to build apps for the Apple Watch, and this often requires those apps to be rebuilt from scratch.
With watchOS 1, apps were essentially running on the phone, and the watch would just display the various screens.
With watchOS 2, devs have had the opportunity to rewrite their apps so parts of the apps would be native (but would often still rely on some form of communication with the iPhone app, which would perform iPhone only operation such as networking and GPS).
With watchOS 3, you can now natively get GPS location, but if you decide to do so from the Watch, how do you handle those cases where you still want to have the option of managing your run from the phone, that becomes a bit tricky, and needs once more a rewrite of some sort to handle all the possible scenario, and requires some sort of synchronization between your devices, which is one of the hardest task to implement.

In addition to all of this, you need to be consider that watchOS apps have been so under utilized that most developers have adopted a wait and see approach with watchOS 2, and again with watchOS 3/AW2. If you now consider that a large portion of new Watch customers will buy the Series 1 with no GPS, all those costly rewrite have very little benefits to the developers.

When you think about it, there seems to only be this post on this forum about this problem, with only a dozen participants, doesn't seem to be that big of an issue for most people.

 

[Kraig385]

Runkeeper update today but no mention of AW2 functionality. Beginning to think there's some stumbling block that won't be cleared for a while. I just wish someone would tell us what's happening. At this stage I'm thinking of returning mine and waiting until I know everything works properly.

That's what I did - Returned my AW2 last night.

Part of it, not their fault. The fact that we don't have a third party App like MapMyRun that uses the GPS is garbage to me. But fine, that's on the third party apps.

So I was resigning myself to continue my marathon training with the Activity app. Hot garbage. Not sure it lasted longer than 5 minutes without automatically pausing. Tried a million things, nothing took care of the issue.

When some great 3rd party apps want to come out with something to use the GPS, perhaps I'll buy it again. But I'm not sure. $441 after taxes and AC+, I'm just not sure I can justify it. It's simply not nearly as much of a fitness watch as I thought.

 

[Bob190]

When you think about it, there seems to only be this post on this forum about this problem, with only a dozen participants, doesn't seem to be that big of an issue for most people.

There are nearly a hundred posts in the Strava support forum asking for Strava to update its app to take advantage of the Series 2 GPS. In a rare move, Strava actually responded saying they are actively looking into it. I wouldn't underestimate the pent up demand.

I don't think there is anything wrong with building a Series 2 Only app that works exclusively with Series 2 GPS. Personally I think it would be preferable and probably more stable and less complex. If you want to run with your phone (I don't and won't), there are many options that are free. I would pay up front for a Series 2 only app that worked.

What's the status of your app??

 

[zhenya]

There is huge pent up demand in the athlete communities. The Reddit running sub has over 200k members - the vast majority of whom seem to own or want to own some kind of tracking watch. There are questions about the Apple watch every week, but at this point nobody can really recommend it as a running watch. The gates will open once Apple makes the thing accessible to those kind of users.

 

[mitty]

Went for a run with Pear today. It worked, but has a bug that if you pause your run manually on the watch, it forgets the route you ran up to that point. You still get the full distance in the Pear app, but you only get the distance for the final section of your run if it syncs to Strava. Apart from this it worked well and the route was accurate. I used about 18% battery on a 45 minute, 8.2k run.

 

[dallison13]

Went for a run with Pear today. It worked, but has a bug that if you pause your run manually on the watch, it forgets the route you ran up to that point. You still get the full distance in the Pear app, but you only get the distance for the final section of your run if it syncs to Strava. Apart from this it worked well and the route was accurate. I used about 18% battery on a 45 minute, 8.2k run.

That actually makes sense, as the two runs it screwed up for me were after I paused a run. Nice catch.

 

[Bob190]

I am a bit disappointed at this situation too, having bought the Series 2 with the idea that I would start running and would like to use a more full featured app than the workout app.
I actually have no experience with Runtastic or Runkeeper, I am new at all of this, but see the new watch as a great way to get into running.
I am an iOS/watchOS developer myself; although I am sure those apps will be updated soon to take advantage of the new features, I don't want to take the risk of waiting 3 months for this to happen, so I'll work on building a workout app this weekend, specifically for the Series 2.

For those of you that are experienced with those other apps, what features do you like about them that is not present in the Apple Workout app?

I am trying to define the minimal sets of functionality to have a useful Series 2 running app that I could build in a short amount of time; and if the project gets successful, then I would obviously update it with more functionality over time.

Any update on this? We are still waiting on a running app that uses the Series 2 GPS that actually works reliably.

 

[AppleWatchDeveloper]

Any update on this? We are still waiting on a running app that uses the Series 2 GPS that actually works reliably.

Thanks for asking Bob,

I have been working here and there on this app on my free time.
My initial goal was to build a very simple app that does the job, in order to be first to market.
From what I read in this thread, it sounds like I won't be first, so I am changing my goals and try to make sure I get it right instead; all the other apps are mainly iPhone apps with a companion Watch app. I am taking a different approach, where the watch is central to the overall experience.
Therefore it's going to take time to come up with something good.

I do have a stable working version of a Watch app that records your run (without taking your phone with you), show them on the phone along with map, and ability to export those as GPX. I guess I could release an alpha build for those of you that want something in a short term that just works, without a fancy user interface.

 

[dallison13]

Thanks for asking Bob,

I have been working here and there on this app on my free time.
My initial goal was to build a very simple app that does the job, in order to be first to market.
From what I read in this thread, it sounds like I won't be first, so I am changing my goals and try to make sure I get it right instead; all the other apps are mainly iPhone apps with a companion Watch app. I am taking a different approach, where the watch is central to the overall experience.
Therefore it's going to take time to come up with something good.

I do have a stable working version of a Watch app that records your run (without taking your phone with you), show them on the phone along with map, and ability to export those as GPX. I guess I could release an alpha build for those of you that want something in a short term that just works, without a fancy user interface.

I'd test for you.

 

[Bob190]

Thanks for asking Bob,

I have been working here and there on this app on my free time.
My initial goal was to build a very simple app that does the job, in order to be first to market.
From what I read in this thread, it sounds like I won't be first, so I am changing my goals and try to make sure I get it right instead; all the other apps are mainly iPhone apps with a companion Watch app. I am taking a different approach, where the watch is central to the overall experience.
Therefore it's going to take time to come up with something good.

I do have a stable working version of a Watch app that records your run (without taking your phone with you), show them on the phone along with map, and ability to export those as GPX. I guess I could release an alpha build for those of you that want something in a short term that just works, without a fancy user interface.

I would definitely be willing to test also.

The Pear app while first .. is pretty buggy. I have lost two workouts in the past week. Both never synced to the phone. I have stopped using it for now and have gone back to the native Workout app.

 

[wormiedk]

I guess I could release an alpha build for those of you that want something in a short term that just works, without a fancy user interface.

I would also be very interested in testing your app.

 

[dallison13]

I would definitely be willing to test also.

The Pear app while first .. is pretty buggy. I have lost two workouts in the past week. Both never synced to the phone. I have stopped using it for now and have gone back to the native Workout app.

Bob, as you have noted about the PEAR app here and other places, it is very buggy. I noticed that you have to open the application, also have the app open on your watch, and usually it will sync for me. Unfortunately I have to take it a step further and open the activity in the PEAR app and scroll through all the screens, before it will even think about syncing to my Strava. What a pain!
I have noticed that all of my runs on Strava are different Then what my watch records. The funny thing is the watch is accurate, so I'm not sure what's going on.
I absolutely love running with the watch, its just too bad about the app situation.
[doublepost=1476195313][/doublepost]

Thanks for asking Bob,

I have been working here and there on this app on my free time.
My initial goal was to build a very simple app that does the job, in order to be first to market.
From what I read in this thread, it sounds like I won't be first, so I am changing my goals and try to make sure I get it right instead; all the other apps are mainly iPhone apps with a companion Watch app. I am taking a different approach, where the watch is central to the overall experience.
Therefore it's going to take time to come up with something good.

I do have a stable working version of a Watch app that records your run (without taking your phone with you), show them on the phone along with map, and ability to export those as GPX. I guess I could release an alpha build for those of you that want something in a short term that just works, without a fancy user interface.

I like the native app. Sure, it could have more features, but for now it's OK. My only complaint is that it locks your data into the workout app. So really all I would want to see for now is similar features to what we already have, with the ability to export.

 

[mDan87]

I'd be very interested in alpha testing the app as well

 

[Bob190]

I like the native app. Sure, it could have more features, but for now it's OK. My only complaint is that it locks your data into the workout app.

I like it too, but not being able to get my results to Strava is a deal-breaker for me.

Thanks for the tips on the Pear app, I was able to sync my run today without issue. I get some weirdness at the start of the run with the Pear app, but I just crop it with the crop tool on the Strava web site. I don't think Pear is employing any type of track smoothing so the GPS tracking looks a bit all over the place which probably adds to the distance a bit.

 

[dallison13]

I like it too, but not being able to get my results to Strava is a deal-breaker for me.

Thanks for the tips on the Pear app, I was able to sync my run today without issue. I get some weirdness at the start of the run with the Pear app, but I just crop it with the crop tool on the Strava web site. I don't think Pear is employing any type of track smoothing so the GPS tracking looks a bit all over the place which probably adds to the distance a bit.

I agree. I am having the same issues! Did a run yesterday with Pear and got some weirdness in the beginning and just cleaned it up in Strava. Looking at my maps, it appears as if Im running after drinking in a bar all day. Of course, maybe I am!
Ran today with Strava's watch and iPhone app. Was a solid experience even though I had to take my phone. Think I'll stick with it until something comes along.
I bought a Flipbelt (https://flipbelt.com) and it works pretty well. For now.

 

[dallison13]

I agree. I am having the same issues! Did a run yesterday with Pear and got some weirdness in the beginning and just cleaned it up in Strava. Looking at my maps, it appears as if Im running after drinking in a bar all day. Of course, maybe I am!
Ran today with Strava's watch and iPhone app. Was a solid experience even though I had to take my phone. Think I'll stick with it until something comes along.
I bought a Flipbelt (https://flipbelt.com) and it works pretty well. For now.

It looks like Pear released a bug and fix update tonight.

 

[mitty]

Unfortunately the Pear update doesn't fix the problem where it forgets your route prior to any pause.

With the news of the Nike watch coming out in about two weeks time, hopefully we get some more apps updated. Map my run got an update this morning, but the app is useLess without your phone, still.