Sorry, but if any company that wasn’t Apple was making this watch, no one would want it. Especially not as a sports/triathlon watch.

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

Garmin makes great sports/triathlon watches.

Apple makes a good watch when you are not doing sports/triathlon. Very good integration with the apple eco system. Great integration with the Telco infrastructure.

Apple is closing the gap in terms of sports features.
Garmin is not doing much in terms of integration with the Telcos and their support of third party apps is ...well....

Apple will continue to close the gap. In a little bit, you will have a watch that does 99% of what you want on the bike/run, you will no longer need to carry a phone, you will have access to your podcasts, music, etc. You will connect to the telco infrastructure.....

And one critical component why Apple with eventually eat Garmin's lunch : the apps you can put on the watch. Nutrition, health data, connectivity to backend resources....not even close.

I can see the Apple watch with a HUD (glasses or visor ) being the killer combo.

exactly. the crappy battery life and more importantly, lack of ANT+ is a deal killer for most. I wanted to like since the screen is so much more vibrant, colorful, and easy to ready than my Garmin fenix, but that is not going to get me to accept all the other shortcomings.

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Cheers, Ray

For me, the battery is a huge shortcoming. All my devices now have BLE (even more PT G3).
I bought a nice charging pad that has a receptacle for the watch and I simply leave my iphone on.
I put the watch there for an hour every morning. Not perfect.

I wonder how much the data connectivity is part of the battery problem.

Two years ago there were way more cons than pros. Today, it's 50/50 and of course it depends on how you weigh each. Example, for me a good podcast player for the run has more weight. But there is way more potential in the Apple watch, mostly because of the developer community.

Heck, the nicest feature for me is swipe up, find my phone in 2 seconds :-)

Exactly. Raise your hand if you have a power meter and don't have a Garmin watch or bike computer.

*crickets*

Yup, and you will likely be able to run it for about 2 hours.

What's a great watch if it couldn't even last half a day.

That's the only thing holding me back from getting the Apple Watch. My wife has one and she doesn't do a lot on the watch, but she has to charge it every night. That's just not what I want for a daily watch.

I don’t. Apple Watch, iPhone, PowerTap joule gps+ computer if I need longer battery life, and power2max. Though I do have some vector 3’s, too.

Garmin stuff is good for it’s intended purpose, but hardly the only option for multi sport.

In the sport space, Apple kills almost all competition the day they make the watch 5mm thicker and fill that space with battery.

Except apple being apple they won’t do it.

*raises hand*
I use RideWithGPS on my phone... but now maybe I'll use my Apple Watch too, sweet.

The big improvement for me is finally being able to sync structure workouts from TrainingPeaks.

I'm still using my Garmin for now and probably will for a while yet (especially for racing), but being able to follow my workouts, listen to podcasts on long runs and be able to call home in an emergency, all without having to carry a phone, is appealing.

The Apple Watch Ultra, which would be the most triathlete friendly model anyway, has way more battery life than the other Apple Watch models.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

When I went to the Apple Store they said it did not. Harder screen, more features for other sports, but same battery life

Maybe he was wrong

Edit : you are right, it is double

How are all of you running out of apple watch battery in 6 hours? I get 2 days + a workout easy on my SE.

Not saying its a replacement for a sport-specific device, but it will make a good backup.

I did not know this. Thanks. I still think they’re another factor of 2-4 away from being truly compelling.

mine dies by early afternoon from logging workouts and listening to music on runs.

I have the Apple Watch Ultra

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Make Inside Out Sports your next online tri shop! http://www.insideoutsports.com/

I get over 18hours, listening to podcasts, a few calls and about 1.5 hours of workout. If you can get on a habit of charging it when you go to bed, it's fine.
I was getting less with the "always on" option.

There was an article recently in the NYT or WSJ that talked about Garmin having a cult like and enviable position in the sports watch market that Apple is gunning for. Its because the average selling price of Garmins is appealing to Apple, Garmin dominates the high price points and Apple would like this position. Garmin has like 5% market share but much higher rev share. I think Garmin has established a brand that is more than just features, its a wearable brand that says you are serious about sports, and when you see others with Garmins it usually strikes up a conversation about sports. Apple watches dont call out that you are serious about sports. Its a visual symbol to others which is part of why Garmin will continue to dominate.

As someone who works for a well established, global med device / connected care / health tech company I cringe when people reference most health apps that are half-baked bro-science Elizabeth Holmes like junkets. The standard of evidence of benefit to most of these apps is non-existent. They put some health app out there with literally no evidence or proof whatsoever that the data is providing you is worth anything, have some paid athlete shilling the app like its a needed to create a sucker market. I would advise people to be really skeptical of most of the claims of the health apps out there, there is no standard of proof like there would need to be for a med device or pharma product.

I bought when when my Fenix 5 wouldn't hold a charge anymore and have really liked the Ultra. The battery life is more than enough for me, and it charges better than my 5 ever did, wished there was an Amazon auto ship option on those stupid "prongs" chargers that stopped working after about a month, used to buy them three at a time.

Resurrecting this with the ultra 2 having 1.5 days battery life now. Haven't given it a shot but, indeed Apple is closing and fast.
My guess is that they aren't closing entirely because they're much bigger than Garmin and probably do not care all that much.
But some 10 years later, Garmin still has this utterly shitty connect interface, and generally all the UX stuff is incredibly poorly
designed by Garmin. Short of those running insanely long events past the 30hr or so mark, Apple is getting right there with Garmin
but with much nicer ecosystem and design.

100%

Apple is easy on the eye and the wrist - when they figure the battery stuff it will be over for garmin.

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The entire event (IM) is like "death by 1000 cuts" and the best race is minimizing all those cuts and losing less blood than the other guy. - Dev

Their tech might be getting there, but not sure about the form factor. The ultra I tried on was like a big bulky rectangle hanging off my wrist...