Garmin is the watch for you, AW is working nicely for me
Feel free to look me up on Strave, I did a 2 hour MTB ride yesterday, showered when i got home (might not have put it back on straight away, but I didn’t note what the charge was before the ride), recorded a turbo session this morning and a core workout this lunch and currently at 55%, (so day / day and a half left) I let you know what it is after I shower
The thing is…I WANT Apple to be the watch for me. That’s why I’m asking so many questions. Thanks for sharing!!
May be, but
And especially
I just think you will have buyers remorse
Definitely my concern as well. Everything in my house is Apple except my watch and my head unit. It would be so nice to have everything in one ecosystem
I am a garmin fanboi, so thats that… 
in any case. I think the whole argument boils down to:
Apple will NEVER do a watch that has more than the buttons it has right now. That will alienate many users who want physical buttons.
Making apple watch battery last longer will require a different screen and philosophy related to screens… Apple will not make anything worse than what they have now. They rather have people charge daily or every other day than having a tv quality screen on the wrist.
Apple WILL NEVER allow android users to fully use an apple watch. There are more that 0 android users out there. I am not interested in getting an iphone (pixel fanboi here), so that immediately put me out of apple watch market.
I dont know. Apple watch might be amazing… Its just not what I want on my sport watch. And I am certain I am not alone there. I think apple is not really eating market share. The market is expanding, Many apple watch users would never get a sports watch to begin with.
What I would like to see is how many sport watches users have make a switch to apple. That is a better metric on how garmin vs apple is doing.
FWIW no problems with battery however my AW comes off when I ride and put on the charger. Garmin 840 and heart rate strap on rides. My AW is only used to record mobility work and walks. Wear it at night and use Sleep+ to record. Turned on a-fib tracking for all-day HRV (4 times an hour?) and that really started draining the battery. On days that I don’t ride, or a short one like last night (didn’t take off watch), I do pop it on the charger while getting ready for bed and in the morning. Im not compelled to record every minute of my life so charging is good it gives my wrist some time to breath.
I use a series 8 to record strength and mobility workouts and bike workouts if I have to do them on a hotel bike and paced by HR.
That being said, I don’t think my phone will ever replace my head unit. I use a Garmin 530 for outdoor bike workouts because it is great at showing me directions/map while I ride with minimal distraction from the road and (and that’s the most important part) it doesn’t cost 1000 dollars to replace in case of a crash. If Apple wanted to replace headunits, AppleCare would have to get a lot better (and cheaper than a 250 dollar one-time payment to replace an edge device).
I’m not 100% sure about this as a lot of Garmins recent profit fall have been put down to watch sales
I only know about this because I watched this video, where at 8:58 mins he sites that Garmin have just post a revenue decline in the first quarter of 2023 for their outdoor segment, with Garmin blaming this for a decline in their adventure watches
PS in the video he seems to know more about the FTP detection than dc rain does (or has posted) which is a bit strange
Just some minor items to pick and choose from the last 6 hours of not being on the forum.
I don’t do any paid consultancy with any companies that I review. I’m happy to have discussions on what I think with engineering/product manages/executives from these companies, and often do - both Apple & Garmin included. But none of it is paid. The only paid stuff I do is for large Wall Street investing firms that want my thoughts on the market. Basically, people that have more money than time and don’t want to read my reviews, but want it consolidated into a 15 minute phone call for silly money. 
It’s important to remember that when you try and compare a previous quarter where Garmin launched their most important update to their most important product line (Fenix 7) in 3 years, sales are nuts. Then comparing that to a quarter where nothing happens, sales are lower. It’s why context is important. While Apple sells the most watches out there, Garmin has by and large never had better years than the years since Apple launched their watch. Rising tide and all ships thing.
At present, according to Apple developer NDA’s, I’m not supposed to discuss much more in the way of how watchOS 10 works until public beta happens in July sometime. Fear not though, once that happens, I’ll be diving into it in far more depth than you can shake a stick at. Both the FTP detection (which honestly isn’t that out of left field), as well as the power meter operation/functionality components.
Like I wrote, it is cool that you have different preferences and your needs are being served. I plan on buying a smartwatch maybe next year. I really would like one, but couldn’t justify it (I bought two expensive bikes and a trainer in the last 2.5 years and my wife got very little in comparison).
Just a quick comment on that: Apple has been working on cutting ties between the iPhone and the Apple Watch. E. g. you can set up the Apple Watch without having an iPhone of your own. My dad doesn’t have one and my brother used his iPhone (as someone else’s Apple Watch). Ditto for children. In a few years the Apple Watch will be untethered, I think.
I stand corrected. Sorry, I misunderstood.
By the way, what are your thoughts (in case you can share): is Garmin’s market expanding or are they in trouble mid- to long-term? Any still speculation on what they will do?
Sure. But to get full advantage of the watch you need an iphone.
Agreed, to get the most of it, you want as many Apple devices as possible. And that won’t change.
Out of curiosity, what would you do if you were in Garmin’s exec team? You seem to have a finger on the pulse.
To be honest I would stay the course and hope Apple doesnt figure out a 5 day battery life.
At this point, Garmin and sport watches are just incremental changes, nothing huge. New versions bring better battery life, better screen, better HRM, better accuracy. But nothing else. Nothing earth shattering…
The next step for them is maybe get their feet deep into smart watches that do sports… really dig into the venu and make viable apple watch competitor with apps and stuff like that… maybe not as comprehensive… but something like phone calls and and API for people to create apps. A smart watch that has buttons for a proper structure wo (I know apple JUST added this).
If I was Garmin I would go on offense with a smart watch with crazy battery life. It will not transform any apple watch users, but it might give others an alternative if you dont have an iphone.
In short, they can’t. Apple blocks them.
That’s the crux of the issue that I think a lot of people don’t understand. While they can get closer on Android, they simply can’t on iOS due to hard blocks Apple puts in place. Garmin can’t access iMessage on an iPhone. That in an of itself is DOA for any messaging function. Garmin tried a few years back, it failed miserably (Vivoactive 3 LTE), because messages were bifurcated due to this limitation.
And while non-US folks focus more on WhatsApp or other messaging options, the reality is most US iPhone users are hardcore into iMessage, and that hasn’t changed (nor do I see any reason it will).
Its like apple is afraid of competition or something… 
Long-term it’s tougher, as Apple will keep creeping onto their turf in these areas. I think a lot of the focus of this thread is missing the point of Apple and power meters: This isn’t about competing with bike computers.
It’s about competing with other watch companies. Apple is playing the long game here. The very long game. They’re slowly ticking away reasons why you might need a Garmin watch (or any other competitor).
Last year, it was about removing battery life (with Ultra) as an objection for 90%+ of athletic use cases. They did that. They also removed most barriers associated with running metrics. And they removed some barriers associated with screen size and visibility (though, I’d argue it’s still tough to use with gloves or wet conditions). Same goes for structured workouts. They also removed the barrier related to triathlon support - heck, it probably does it better than Garmin does.
This year, it’s removing purchasing barriers related to cycling stuff. As well as 3rd party apps API to push structured workouts. TrainingPeaks is onboard, and TrainerRoad could so so too if they wanted to (and frankly, they’d be wise to). You scan likewise start to see them laying the groundwork for maps as the next frontier.
Next year will be about mapping, routing, and all things navigation. Again, removing barriers/objections.
There will always be people that want more advanced sports functions - and right now, Garmin is clearly the leader in there. For every sports-focused item I outlined above, Garmin tends to do it 10x better and deeper. But there are cracks in that. Take running track mode. Apple’s is better is you live in a supported country: It just works, instantly. But Garmin’s is better for the other 170+ countries. Yet Garmin actually has more track data than Apple. Why doesn’t Garmin split the difference and do both modes?
Garmin has to get out of the ‘do everything on the device’ mentality. They need to start leveraging their cloud services more. Not in a ‘must always be connected’ way, but in a ‘we have a ton of data we can leverage’. Garmin has long held the belief that you can buy their device at a store and never connect it to the internet. It’s still true today for 99.99% of features. Never update it if you don’t want to. While that’s enviable, I think they’re starting to pigeon-hole themselves in areas.
All that said, what Garmin is really good at doing is rolling out features that athletes want. I think it’s easy to forget when you see seemingly incremental upgrades every 14-18 months from Garmin (e.g. Fenix 7 to Fenix 7 Pro). But when you step back, Garmin releases more features than Apple does on that release cadence. And then you step back further into the lens of a 3-4 year cycle, and the increases in functionality is insane. Sure, not everyone uses every feature, but everyone has their own “I need this” feature. It’s what’s largely crushed competitors like Wahoo in the bike computer space.
Finally, I think it’s impressive to see what real-world market share looks like. A very simple tests is just get on an airplane and look at what people are actually wearing as they board and walk down the aisle. None of this supposed ‘market study’ stuff that’s mostly just guesses, and often heavily skewed towards promotional activity in countries that have low long term usage. These days, it’s overwhelmingly Apple Watch & Garmin’s, with Samsung and the odd Fitbit tossed in.
People are buying Garmin that aren’t TrainerRoad users. Nor would they ever imagine that something like TrainerRoad exists. They’re buying a Garmin because the battery life is good, and the smart features are good enough. And they might vaguely do something fitness focused (especially on the Fenix/Epix lines, where many people are buying them more for looks/style than anything fitness related).
Regulators have failed to create open, encrypted and interoperable standards. I would love to see Sigbal’s and Telegram’s protocols adopted. Google has backed a few suggested standards, but they all lacked end-to-end encryption. Instant nope.
At least when messaging is concerned, Messages does not have a very dominant position outside the US. I use Messages, Signal, Line, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. I think one or two friends prefer Telegram which I don’t use actively. And I wish I could give up on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, though.
Would you go with wear OS or something homegrown?
Regarding battery life, my impression is that Garmin er al. are essentially maxed out. Even hypothetically going from 10 to 15 days does not seem like it would have any practical impact on most users. Going from charging daily to weekly does.
“Wear OS” and “crazy battery life” do not go in the same sentence.
This… It’s getting better but is not looking great