I’ve tested out Fitness+ in the past and thought the presentation was great, there’s a good range of exercises and it’s not too expensive but you need an Apple Watch to use it.
As someone that stopped wearing an Apple Watch a while ago it’s frustrating that I get Fitness+ as part of my Apple One bundle but am unable to use it. I prefer a mechanical Watch but would like to use the fitness classes I’m paying for, it seems like this Apple Watch lock in is ripe for change.
I understand Apple wanting to link them, it may sell a few more watches and linking it so closely to rings makes sense for those that it motivates. I’d argue that the quality of the lessons is so good though that there would be a lot of Apple ecosystem users who would still pay to use it without this link to activity and rings.
I know I’ll get push back here but for those of us that can’t deal with a wearable simply getting one to use Fitness+ isn’t an option.
The rumours were true and yesterday Google officially announced the Pixel Watch. To me it looks nice, kind of like a round Apple Watch. In fact if Apple changed the design of the current square Watch this is what I’d imagine it would look like.
As someone that loves mechanical watches I find the current design of the Apple Watch boring, a square slab that’s both too thick and square to really look like a cool Watch.
I think though that in terms of functionality, especially when it comes to fitness it’ll be hard to beat what Apple have established and it’s the main reason I still look over at Apple Watch and wonder if I could wear one again.
Watching Google I/O I think Google are definitely taking a lot of inspiration from Apple with Apple Pay like features, integrating Fitbit as a fitness brand and and also having similar changeable bands.
It’s hard to fully compare though because neither play well with each other. If you’re on iOS then Apple Watch is the only real choice and if you’re on Android then you’d have to say even though it’s not out yet to hold off and get a Pixel Watch.
You wouldn’t switch platforms just for a wearable but I’m hoping Apple and Google are successful and push each other. The Apple Watch needs some competition to push it forward.
Unpairing your Apple Watch is a little less obvious these days compared to watchOS 6 so I like to create a post with each release to help others. This time it’s with watchOS 8.
To unpair you’ll need to head into the Watch app on iOS.
Tap ‘All Watches’
Tap ‘i’ next to your watch
Tap unpair Apple Watch’ and then enter your iCloud password
I’ve gone all in with the beta’s this year and for the first time in a while went in with watchOS. I thought I’d share my experience of using it for a day, which may help you decide to go for it or not.
Battery life
This is the first thing you’re going to notice. For me I ended the day with about 30% less battery life than I normally do. I still got through the day ok but couldn’t have done sleep tracking (I don’t anyway). That was with two 40 minute workouts and general use throughout the day. If you’re a heavy user DO NOT USE THE BETA. This is even more important if you’re out for the day at your job and can’t throw it on a charger.
Is new functionality worth it?
Well, there isn’t a lot of new functionality in my opinion. No new watch faces added to the beta yet and the only thing I’m enjoying was the new always on timer. The downside though is that it wasn’t keeping in time, yes that’s right the timer was randomly changing how long was left.
Multiple timers is a nice addition but again for me at least they aren’t consistently working.
It’s more about little UI tweaks here and there like the one above when choosing faces.
In day to day use I didn’t really think wow this is worth putting the beta onto my watch.
Performance and stability
Let’s talk about performance first. I’m on a series 6 and for me I haven’t noticed any slow down with using the beta. Just like iOS 15 it’s running as good as the public release, remember for performance.
Now in terms of stability it’s the worst of the new beta’s. I can’t close recently used apps without a crash, the timer is inconsistent and I can’t dismiss time to walk in workouts so far. As long as I don’t care about these I’m fine so I’m ok to continue using but I’d be careful if you really do rely on your Apple Watch to get you through the day. I still love my Casio so I’ll most likely switch back and forth between a traditional watch and the Apple Watch.
Should youuse the beta?
I know it’s tempting but given the stability I’d hold off on this first beta. Jump on at public beta or wait for developer build 3.
Updating the iPhone and iPad to the beta at WWDC isn’t too difficult to reverse but the watch is totally different. With watchOS if you want to go back a version then you have to send it off to Apple.
This is a process that doesn’t take long (typically around 4 days) but in the current times may take longer. For me I’m using the watch every couple of days so I probably will install it but if you rely on your watch every day then I’d avoid.
Your battery is going to be down and it may lose fitness data, it’s done both of these to me in the past so be warned.
For me it’s an easy choice if you use and rely on your watch every day, as tempting as it may seem – don’t install watchOS 8 at the early beta stage.
I’ve been back using the Apple Watch and I thought I’d share my setup with you. First off I will say that I’m still not completely satisfied with the face options we have, like my wallpaper I switch around a lot. I’m not sure if that’s just the way I am or the watch face options. I suspect even if we had third party watch faces I’d still be swapping and changing things on a daily basis.
I tend to switch between a couple of digital and an analogue.
This is the one that I use most of the time – infograph modular.
Date
Moon phase (just because I love space)
Events
Activity
Timer
Temperature
Next is Activity digital. I find this the easiest to read when the always on display is active. Pretty simple with just temp and date.
Lastly is the GMT. I love traditional watches (it’s the reason I tend to have breaks from Apple Watch) and this one is the best I’ve found. You can see I still use weather and timer for my complications.
I find with the Apple Watch setup I’m constantly fiddling with it, never quite settling.
I’ve been using the Apple Watch a lot more recently in a bid to improve my fitness and have a few thoughts on what I’d like to see in the next update.
Third party watch faces aren’t coming
I’m going to finally stop wanting third party watch faces, I don’t see them coming at all. Sorry for starting off negative on this one. I don’t see Apple wanting to deal with the constant copyright claims from the likes of Omega and the watch faces are part of the Apple Watch identity now so I see Apple wanting complete control.
Show me the timer or stopwatch all of the time
It’s always on for series 5 and 6 so it’s strange that when I run a timer I lose the info. My timer is replaced with the time, I then have to tap the screen to see the timer. Please Apple leave the timer on the screen.
Separate Fitness+ from the fitness app
I’m enjoying Fitness+ but it would feel less like a pressure sale from Apple if they took it into it’s own app like on the Apple TV.
It’s a small list
Yes, I’m using the watch almost daily and I feel it’s not far off done to me. Interactions are quick and for the most part it’s intuitive.
I’ve been back on the Apple Watch for the last few weeks and I’m reminded of the little things you can do to speed up your experience across any of the models.
Luckily there’s only really one set of changes you need to make. Within the accessibility settings on the watchapp on your iPhone you can change
Reduce transparency to ON
Reduce motion to ON
Auto play message effects to OFF
You’ll immediately notice the improvement in navigating around the UI and even on a series 5 or 6 it’s nice to reduce some of those animations and get straight to where you want to be.
Time to walk workouts are a nice addition to Fitness+ but they do get in the way of your other workouts if you use other workout types in the workouts app on your Apple Watch. Well the good news is that you can easily remove them.
When you tap on the workouts app since Fitness+ you might see the something like the following
If this is getting in the way and you have to keep scrolling down to get to your favourite workout, all you need to do is swipe to the left and hit the X.
Once you have done this you won’t see time to walk in the workouts list when you next fire up the workouts app.
LJPUK 