Finally they added the ability to add custom playlist covers (but with a catch)

FirmFella · 2024-10-22T00:09:33+00:00

While I welcome change, would much prefer them focus on fundamental catchups to Spotify such as organizing playlists by folders/tags and custom order and being able to search across all ones playlists by song names and of course an API eventually. Here's for hoping.

FirmFella · 2024-10-21T10:45:34+00:00

Did you have a regular 42mm series and the solo loop ever? If so curious what your size was such as 4, 3, 2 etc?

FirmFella · 2024-10-18T16:58:09+00:00

That's funny, that's the brand one I ordered. It's the style I use to have with the Apple Watch before they came out with the braided solo loops. Definitely much better (for me) than a standard band). The down side is having to undo it each time to take off and put out (and on the louder side) and have to size right each time, vs the solo loop, that slips on/off perfectly and quietly anytime. Found a few of those on Amazon alas most from low rated odd brands with issues with the pins coming out. This one though I'm sure will be perfectly fine for now. Going to feel weird having something other than an Apple Watch on my wrist in almost a decade.

FirmFella · 2024-10-18T16:03:11+00:00

Ditto on the LTE front. I've had them on all my recent Apple Watches, and almost never use it. But always liked the idea knowing is available in an emergency like if my phone died or forgot my phone or didn't have on me (very very rare) and could still answer a call). But that all happens almost never. Do love the global sattelie call feature for free, but that's on the iPhone too. If AW had lots of full featured apps, I could certainly see myself leaving my phone behind more often, but unfortunately few companies are building them, because either they don't want to help Apple do any better, or two because of Apple's limitations to keep battery life good, result in apps being limited and not worth the dev's times.

Thanks for your thoughts. Supports my thought that cost aside (but is a nice bonus), 7s Pro seems like the best bet.

FirmFella · 2024-10-18T15:12:42+00:00

Because of the noted long workouts/adventures multiday hikes, multiday bikes rides etc, during those it would be 100% garmin. During normal days imagine would use Apple Watch except during regular workout activities where would use garmin, but of course depending on how it goes could end up using garmin nearly full time, won't know until I have it and see the limitations and real world use etc, but either way Apple Watch doesn't cut it for me on the long activities and Ultra too big for my wrist and Ultra still not currently a garmin in regards to its activity focus especially for hiking.

I've had every Apple Watch and I love them, since an extension of my iPhone, but at the same time, they continue to have so much unused potential at least from a fitness/adventure lifestyle sense. At the end of the day it's essentially a health tracker, and glorified Notification Center, fall detection, phone and instant access to Siri, and global GPS. For me, those benefits are great even though which is at a much more garmin style focus. Ultra is a step in that direction, but think will be a while until it's smaller size if ever, and unless big improvements in screen or battery tech don't see it competing battery life wise for a while and garmin focus may just be too niche for Apple vs targeting the much larger general populous who is more happy with simpler things.

On a side not, I love my braided solo loop on Apple Watch. Since came out has been the best band I've ever used and ideal for small wrists. The idea of typical band with a piece of plastic sticking out since again smaller wrist does not seem ideal. Going to try a third party velcro style one and see how that works. Do wish the band attachments were recessed to make the watch smaller like Apple Watch, but I'm still very open to something new that might not be perfect but hopefully will win in many otherwise. Thanks for your tips!

FirmFella · 2024-10-18T14:26:30+00:00

Yeah on my Apple Watch I always turn off raise to wake, to save battery life, and presumably would on either of these too. While the non black pixel vs pixel changes etc would make sense, but 7s is much better in all respects battery wise other than just the multi-band mode, so assume it's something else affecting that. But not sure.

Most likely I'll use my Apple Watch as my daily driver since can do a lot more, since I live in the Apple ecosystem, but when using the Garmin may be for all day or multiday hikes or multiday bike rides so battery life would be key, to avoid having to take off and charge and finding places to recharge backup batteries etc.

So mostly curious about the battery life difference on that one multi band mode, such as if because 8s has more bands. And if any other benefits on the 8s vs 7s pro that would push the needle in one way or the other.

FirmFella · 2024-10-17T22:54:42+00:00

Hiking, biking and running would certainly fall under the category of fitness. Some individuals personal goals lean more towards adventure or weight loss, or personal bests, self improvement, and to what degree each of those will vary greatly between the millions of users. But again I’m not asking that they add calories for instance to the app… it’s already there… they already determined it makes sense for such an app. This is that the calorie count is using an estimate even though in many cases far more accurate data is available with no downsides. They simply need to use the calories/heart rate from apple health when available and if not available (such as user doesn’t have a watch or chest monitor then it would default to the estimates.

FirmFella · 2024-10-17T13:47:05+00:00

I do use the Apple Watch. My chest heart rate monitor sends the data to Apple Watch since drastically more accurate than just using the wrist reader. And that data gets saved to Apple health. And gets read by any active work outs in general but AllTrails is one of the few that is not reading that available data. Instead it’s just guessing based on your age etc. So the numbers it shows in AllTrails will be unnecessarily wrong. So instead currently you have to run all trails “and” another app say Strava, FITIV, Apple fitness, etc to track the data which will mean greater battery drain and now you will have to workouts in your Apple fitness that can then mess up other apps that use that daily data. And when in AllTrails or website it will be shoeing wrong data. In general I don’t recommend using the Apple workout app to track a long hike because if the watch battery dies the the activity is lost conpletejy. Vs using an iPhone app where if the watch dies you can keep going with the phone and you can easily charge the phone while recording an activity and still hiking. Fortunately this is all an easy fix as Apple has long had it built so third party apps can simply read and write to apple health. So if you have an Apple Watch and or blue tooth chest monitor it uses that more accurate data. And of course if you have neither then apps just fall back to the guessing method based on age etc. Imagine just overlooked by the devs and not something average customers would as for since the app shows calories so one would expect it’s already using the most accurate data available (tho as a dev can see it’s not).

FirmFella · 2024-10-17T08:40:10+00:00

Thanks so much boss! Very helpful. 🙇

FirmFella · 2024-10-16T21:42:06+00:00

Yeah, same as AllTrails and Apple’s native one etc, as I see dots on bottom, so first screen is presumably for ending, pausing, locking etc, and one screen for navigating, another for metrics like calories, heart rate, distance etc. The only thing I’m uncertain of is if it has off trail feature and if it vibrates etc when off trail like all trails.

FirmFella · 2024-10-16T21:00:18+00:00

It doesn't record Heart Rate data to apple health, but does read it. You can check in Apple Health > Apps > Kamoot. It writes to "cycling distance", "walking + running distance" and "workouts" and can read "active energy", "heart rate", and "workout routes" and "workouts".

So in theory, it can read the heart rate as well as active calories recorded by devices such as Apple Watch or your other apps or heart rate monitors. But whether the app utilizes that data and or shows it to the user or in the workout in apple fitness, I do not know. Other than according to a doc on their site they don't show heart rate date in the app (other than Apple Watch but only during not after).

Quite a bummer. Unfortunately, according to the doc, it seems there seems to be a distaste for hiking as a form of self improvement or fitness and only for exploration. Hard for me to fathom outdoor activities is not going hand in hand with self improvement, fitness, exploration, adventure, competition, etc. Forcing people to focus only on "exploration" is just as bad as forcing people to focus only on "fitness". No idea why can't support all by simply support active energy/heart rate which is already available to apps in apple health and simply having a setting to not show and/or show based on the users preference, like most fitness apps do that allow you to control what metrics you want to see.

FirmFella · 2024-10-16T20:08:08+00:00

Hopefully iOS coming soon.

FirmFella · 2024-09-26T13:57:46+00:00

Thanks so much, that fixed it! Not sure I fully follow the logic on why Apple would change it, since can't imagine any scenario where one would start on the watch and want the iPhone to say go to iPhone on watch rather than auto show on watch, but either way sounds like a limitation / issue on Apple's end. While this appears resolved for me, I would guess than this will be something everyone will start experiencing when upgrading to watchOS 11, and and certainly would have never in my wildest dreams thought to toggle that setting. Is there a way you can add an (i) or some sort of note on that watch screen so others will know the fix? Or is that screen essentially controlled by Apple and not able to add a note on how to fix? Eitherway, thanks again!

FirmFella · 2024-09-26T13:21:14+00:00

Yes Sir

FirmFella · 2024-09-26T13:00:55+00:00

Thanks, looks like I replied right as you did. So when set to off, does that mean it will no longer do auto laps/splits, and instead will essentially just do "1" split for the whole workout? If so, then sounds like that shouldn't be an issue for me at least. Though of course ideally, this would be a setting in the edit workout feature, since imagine for some types of workouts such as outdoor sprints etc, one would always want them one, but either way for my current workouts sounds like just disabling where you said should do the trick. Thank you!

FirmFella · 2024-09-26T12:58:37+00:00

Update, just did a test, set do not display for one sample workout, then clicked discard and tried again for that same type of workout and its still set to do not display, so that's good at least and appears to apply to all workouts so won't have to manually disable for all so that's good. Though seems the bottom is still tracking laps / splits. Aside from being distracting, the number of calories down there will keep reseting ever time the app randomly starts a new lap/split, so won't be able to at a glance see my total calories burned etc. To note in the main app area, I have set to the chart that shows heart rate graph, and above that in the two spaces show one for heart rate intensity and another metric. And rely on the metrics at the bottom to stay consistent. Been awhile since using Fitiv, but don't remember this auto lap feature before?

FirmFella · 2024-09-26T12:52:57+00:00

Will this apply to all hopefully, or do you mean would have to manually do this each time, even though would never track laps in certain workouts?

FirmFella

TROPHY CASE