“Last year I purchased a Garmin Fenix 3 HR and it is an incredible GPS sports watch that tracks every stat I could hope for during runs,” Matthew Miller writes for ZDNet. “I purchased the Apple Watch Series 2 a few months ago and tried the first release of Runkeeper for watchOS 3. It did a great job at tracking runs and syncing up to the service, but there was no GPS status so runs began with a step of faith that the Apple Watch was capturing the data.”
“A couple months ago Runkeeper updated its app and added a small GPS signal indicator to the upper right of the launch screen. This minor improvement prompted me to give the Apple Watch Series 2 another chance,” Miller writes. “The recent update didn’t just add the GPS signal indicator, but we now see the ability to customize the three fields for metrics you want to see while running, view a heart rate graph for the past five minutes, and view your pace for the past five minutes with a line showing your target pace so you can adjust on the go. All of these are welcome additions and I look forward to even more.”
“In addition, I am motivated by music and more than any other wearable I have tested the Apple Watch streams music to my Bluetooth headset flawlessly,” Miller writes. “The Apple Watch is also a fantastic smartwatch, allowing me to communicate with people, track my other activity, see key information quickly, and more. Battery life has been fantastic and even after tracking my day there is still enough juice left to go on a nice run in the evening.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: With the GPS aboard the Apple Watch Series 2 and Apple Watch Nike+, the more responsive Apple S2 SoC, and the extremely wide range of apps, no other smartwatch can compete.
We used to use Runkeeper with Apple Watch (original), but switched back to the Nike+ Run Club app (née Nike+ Running app) which gives us the majority of what we require during a run (distance, duration, pace, heart rate, music controls) when we got our Apple Watch Nike+ units last September as all of our older data was already Nike+ and for the large Nike+ community.
We’ll give Runkeeper a test ASAP – perhaps during our Super Bowl 10K this afternoon!
Any way this ‘runs’ on the Watch 1???
(Any help appreciated — Thank you!)
Not with GPS. You’ll have to take your iPhone along with you on runs.
Even the Nike Run app is hobbled on V1 of the Apple Watch. Only the newer watch version can measure heart rate in the Nike App.
My only real complaint about the Apple Watch is that the dial is a bit too big and easy to turn. I’ve had instances where bending my hand or sleeves have invoked it and turned it, a little bit more resistance wouldn’t hurt.
So what the article seems to say is that the Apple Watch with 3rd party software now has the capabilities that the Garmin Fenix 3 has always had built-in. And as a purpose-built device, the Garmin offers altimeter, barometer, compass, accurate temperature, accurate heart rate monitor, activity specific trackers, and real world battery life, etc.
Hats off to Garmin for making a great and an attractive INTEGRATED smartwatch for active people who want the best training smartwatch , not just a general purpose smartwatch reliant on 3rd party software to eventually add features.
I remember when Apple used to pride itself if offering the best integrated hardware + software. Now the App Store is what Apple cares about, and they do not lead in offering the best integrated software anymore. You end up with a cobbled mess of overlapping apps on your Apple device, some better than others, none complete.