Apps WorkOutDoors: New workout features

[FunkyMagicUK]

So I finally decided to buy this app. I don't normally spend money on apps which replicate existing functions, and if I do, I tend to stick to 99p or so. What convinced me to do it is @cfc being so active on this forum, and adding features, responding to requests etc. That kind of dedication should be rewarded.

My first impression was holy customisation batman. This app has options for everything. It also seems to do things by default that more 'professional' apps seem to be unable to do. For example, the Strava app does not draw the map in the Apple Activity app. WorkOutDoors does. So that's nice - I can use WorkOutDoors and don't appear to lose any functionality from other applications.

I do have a couple of questions. I'm currently using HealthFit to export my runs to Strava. It was already setup as I was using the Apple Workout app before. WorkOutDoors provides the ability to login to Strava to export. Is there functionally any difference in doing this compared to what HealthFit does? Does WoD export more details, or are these basically the same thing? If they do the same thing then I'll leave it, as HealthFit is currently setup and working.

Second question: Maybe not completely app related, but you guys will know. What's the best way of plotting a route and exporting to GPX on iPhone? I have an app called Footpath which is nice. Has maps, can draw on them export the GPX. But when imported to WoD, it says the GPX has no elevation data. Footpath does have elevation data but apparently doesn't include it in the GPX. Are there similar apps for drawing a route and exporting, including elevation data?

Last question (This one for @cfc). I did my first run with WoD today. It seemed to have a wobble a couple of km in. You can see on the right-hand side of the screenshot that I was running along a road (green), and then it seems to take me left through a field (the red part). In reality, I continued along the road until I got to the junction at the top (approx where it's going a little crazy - which didn't happen). I've done this run a lot of times using the default app and it's never done this. Was this just unlucky? Does WoD have any control over this, or do apps just get the GPS data from the Watch and don't get much say in the data itself?

With regards creating routes, the best app I’ve found is MapOut - https://mapout.app/

Not sure bit I think it may be a couple of £. An odd interface at first but once you’ve had a good play with it I found it to be the most usable of all the route creation apps out there that I tried...and it has the most incredible 3D visualisation of hills which I’ve used quite a lot to aid with finding a flatter (but longer) route when plotting long runs...the ability to just redraw bits of your route without lots of fiddly dragging of routepoints or deleting back from the end is incredibly useful too and doesn’t seem to be commonly available.

 

[Akrapovic]

Many thanks for buying the app. I am glad that you like it. To answer your questions:

The data exported by the app to Strava is actually slightly different to that exported by HealthFit. This is because the app currently sends a GPX file to Strava whereas HealthFIT sends a FIT file. In most situations they will be about the same, but a GPX file just contains a route and cannot contain distances, so Strava has to calculate the distances from the route. If the GPS was poor then the HealthFit version could be more accurate, but if the watch pedometer was poorly calibrated and the GPS was good then the WorkOutDoors version could be more accurate.

The next version of the app will allow you to export to Strava using either GPX or TCX files (which can contain distances), so you can choose what to send to Strava. I hope that makes some sense? In conclusion I would stick with using HealthFit to send the data to Strava if you already have it set up and working, but it's your choice,

That makes sense! Thanks for the explanation. Sorry for all the questions - just getting it all setup as I like it and trying to understand my new environment

I would guess that your "wobble" was just unlucky and simply poor GPS. As you guess apps don't have any real control over GPS signals. They simply request them and receive the updates back. They can specify an accuracy but WorkOutDoors requests the highest accuracy that it should do.

You can check if the wobble was GPS related by tapping the Steps tab and then "Show GPS". This colours the route according to the GPS strength using the same colour scheme as the signal bars in the watch app (blue is good, grey is poor, red is bad). So you can check what the signal strength was like at that point. If it is grey or red then the GPS signal strength was probably the cause.

Also if you swipe your finger along the profile at the bottom then all the figures (including the GPS strength) change to show their values at the position you are touching on the profile. This allows you to see the exact GPS signal strength in metres at any point on the route.

Excellent feature, thanks for that! I have checked and it did indeed go grey, and lost signal completely. Somewhat amazingly, it also did it on Monday whilst using the standard Workout app and I never noticed. It's never done it until this week, and then it did it two days in a row. The signal was blue for the rest of the run so very odd. There are trees there, but it hasn't changed in the last week.

Thanks again for buying the app and for your detailed post about it!

Not at all! Thank you for the app and all the support you do on the forum. That's why I bought it, because it's clear the amount of work that's put in and that you respond to requests and assistance!

I've emailed the Strava dev email address to find out if the Live Segments that Garmin uses has a public API or not, and I'll feed back once I have an answer.
[doublepost=1554885332][/doublepost]

With regards creating routes, the best app I’ve found is MapOut - https://mapout.app/

Not sure bit I think it may be a couple of £. An odd interface at first but once you’ve had a good play with it I found it to be the most usable of all the route creation apps out there that I tried...and it has the most incredible 3D visualisation of hills which I’ve used quite a lot to aid with finding a flatter (but longer) route when plotting long runs...the ability to just redraw bits of your route without lots of fiddly dragging of routepoints or deleting back from the end is incredibly useful too and doesn’t seem to be commonly available.

Thank you for that, I'll take a look at it! Footpath is pretty good (although can get a little buggy using longer routes, and sometimes it snaps to paths in odd ways), but the lack of elevation export was odd. I shall look at MapOut.

 

[rbart]

There is one BIG difference between workoutdoors export and healtfit export:
If you use autopause, it's correcly synced to strava (pause are taken into account) whet it's directly exported from workoutdoors
If you export with healtfit, the pauses are ignored and your average pace will be lower.

 

[Akrapovic]

There is one BIG difference between workoutdoors export and healtfit export:
If you use autopause, it's correcly synced to strava (pause are taken into account) whet it's directly exported from workoutdoors
If you export with healtfit, the pauses are ignored and your average pace will be lower.

Oh that's very interesting, thanks for that!

 

[cfc]

There is one BIG difference between workoutdoors export and healtfit export:
If you use autopause, it's correcly synced to strava (pause are taken into account) whet it's directly exported from workoutdoors
If you export with healtfit, the pauses are ignored and your average pace will be lower.

This is true, but to be fair this is not the fault of HealthFit (which is an excellent app). It is because of a bug in the current version of WorkOutDoors that does not save the pause events to the health system. This will be fixed in the next version. Sorry about that.

 

[rbart]

This is true, but to be fair this is not the fault of HealthFit (which is an excellent app). It is because of a bug in the current version of WorkOutDoors that does not save the pause events to the health system. This will be fixed in the next version. Sorry about that.

I know it's due to something wrong between Workoutdoors and Apple health data.
I have raised this bug few months ago

 

[BD1]

As you add more support for routes do you plan any off the following:

1. Tracking stats for a route like personal best time, etc.?

2. Any navigation routing? (like Footpath)?

 

[cfc]

As you add more support for routes do you plan any off the following:

1. Tracking stats for a route like personal best time, etc.?

2. Any navigation routing? (like Footpath)?

At the moment I don't have any plans for tracking best times over a route but I may add it in the future if enough people ask for it.

The current plan is that the version after next will have turn by turn navigation, but I don't plan to add route creation just yet. Again I may add it in the future but it isn't high on my list of features to add because other apps can already do it and easily export routes to WorkOutDoors.

 

[Akrapovic]

At the moment I don't have any plans for tracking best times over a route but I may add it in the future if enough people ask for it.

The current plan is that the version after next will have turn by turn navigation, but I don't plan to add route creation just yet. Again I may add it in the future but it isn't high on my list of features to add because other apps can already do it and easily export routes to WorkOutDoors.

Tracking best times over a route would be nice, although we are getting into Strava type territory. So it depends on what you want WorkOutDoors to do - add features to systems like Strava, or out-do systems like Strava.

If you're going down the best time tracking over a route, then you're getting to the point where people (like me) will then start talking about segments, and tracking multiple attempts over set segments. Even if it's just locally stored and not global. I do use Strava segments a lot but I'm not interested in other peoples times - only mine and how I compare. So if I could set my own segments in WorkOutDoors and just use those then I'd be happy with that.

I've said before that something I personally would like is a more Nike style theme. However, as was discussed at the time, the font is a big issue. I can see why now that I've bought the app - the insane level of customisation means you have to be very very careful with how fonts display.

So if it was up to me then I personally would use route tracking, especially if it allowed custom segments. And since I'm easily distracted by pretty themes, I'd choose that. But I'm not sure my opinions would match the majority of users priorities, lol.

 

[cfc]

Tracking best times over a route would be nice, although we are getting into Strava type territory. So it depends on what you want WorkOutDoors to do - add features to systems like Strava, or out-do systems like Strava.

If you're going down the best time tracking over a route, then you're getting to the point where people (like me) will then start talking about segments, and tracking multiple attempts over set segments. Even if it's just locally stored and not global. I do use Strava segments a lot but I'm not interested in other peoples times - only mine and how I compare. So if I could set my own segments in WorkOutDoors and just use those then I'd be happy with that.

I've said before that something I personally would like is a more Nike style theme. However, as was discussed at the time, the font is a big issue. I can see why now that I've bought the app - the insane level of customisation means you have to be very very careful with how fonts display.

So if it was up to me then I personally would use route tracking, especially if it allowed custom segments. And since I'm easily distracted by pretty themes, I'd choose that. But I'm not sure my opinions would match the majority of users priorities, lol.

My aim for the app is to make it the best watch app to use when doing a workout. I don't think it can compete with the likes of Strava for post-workout analysis, but it can compete in terms of the experience whilst exercising. So the idea is that you use the app during a workout. Afterwards you can analyse that individual workout in quite a bit of depth in the WorkOutDoors iPhone app, but you can also export it to the likes of Strava for more analysis if you want.

You are right about the themes. The customisation possibilities on such a small screen make it difficult to add another variable such as the font. Every pixel counts so a different font could make a big difference, which is why I just use the standard font for the watch.

 

[BD1]

I am only interested in my times (vs sharing/social aspects of other apps) and it would be nice to have some basic route stats (like personal best) without trying to mimic strava type apps (which I don't use).

But of course you need to stick to your development plan. I am anxious to get indoor workouts to use your heart zone info and to get outside apps to default to true direction (vs north). Those our my personal priorities and I think both are on your next release.

Again, great app!

 

[cfc]

I am only interested in my times (vs sharing/social aspects of other apps) and it would be nice to have some basic route stats (like personal best) without trying to mimic strava type apps (which I don't use).

But of course you need to stick to your development plan. I am anxious to get indoor workouts to use your heart zone info and to get outside apps to default to true direction (vs north). Those our my personal priorities and I think both are on your next release.

Again, great app!

When you say default to true direction do you mean the mode where the map automatically rotates according to direction of travel? If you switch it on (by tapping the red compass) then it should remember that setting for the next workout that you do.

The only issue is that when you start a workout then it will always show north up because it does not know your direction of travel until you have moved. There is no compass in the watch so it needs movement to determine the direction. So even if it remembers that you want auto-rotation then it will take a few metres before it can rotate.

One thing that may change in the next version is that the app may default to this auto-rotating mode when the app is first used instead of waiting for the user to switch it on. This is because most people prefer an auto-rotating map and many users do not realise that it can auto-rotate because it is not obvious how to switch it on. However if the map is rotating and you want to stop it then tapping the compass to switch rotation off is hopefully more obvious than tapping it to switch it on.

Glad you like the app!

 

[BD1]

Yes I mean the mode in the map. Even though I switch it it always seems to switch back to north for next workout. I will watch more carefully next time are report back if I continue to see this. Could be user error.

I would like it to default to auto-rotating in next version.

 

[cfc]

Yes I mean the mode in the map. Even though I switch it it always seems to switch back to north for next workout. I will watch more carefully next time are report back if I continue to see this. Could be user error.

I would like it to default to auto-rotating in next version.

Every workout will start with the map north upwards, but if you were auto-rotating in the previous workout then it will start rotating when it can, which is after you have moved enough for it to determine the direction you are moving in.

This is what happens in the current version and will also be what happens in the next version. The only difference with the next version is that the first time you ever use the app it will assume that you want to auto-rotate when it can. So this will make no difference to existing users such as yourself who have already switched auto-rotation on.

 

[rbart]

My aim for the app is to make it the best watch app to use when doing a workout. I don't think it can compete with the likes of Strava for post-workout analysis, but it can compete in terms of the experience whilst exercising. So the idea is that you use the app during a workout. Afterwards you can analyse that individual workout in quite a bit of depth in the WorkOutDoors iPhone app, but you can also export it to the likes of Strava for more analysis if you want.

You are right about the themes. The customisation possibilities on such a small screen make it difficult to add another variable such as the font. Every pixel counts so a different font could make a big difference, which is why I just use the standard font for the watch.

You are right !
You have to keep in mind your initial goal and the "target position" of your app and avoid to bloat it with to much features that will introduce confusion and bugs.
I think you have a lot to do to fulfill your own roadmap and you must put your effort into that and sort or forget a lot of user requests if you want to keep your app great and consistent.
Your are right, you can't compete with social platforms like strava or NRC, but you can have a better app than them on the apple watch as they don't put any effort in enhancing their watch app.
Its great to have a great app like workoutdoors which have some unique features and allow the user to send the data on other platforms for post-run analysis

 

[cfc]

You are right !
You have to keep in mind your initial goal and the "target position" of your app and avoid to bloat it with to much features that will introduce confusion and bugs.
I think you have a lot to do to fulfill your own roadmap and you must put your effort into that and sort or forget a lot of user requests if you want to keep your app great and consistent.
Your are right, you can't compete with social platforms like strava or NRC, but you can have a better app than them on the apple watch as they don't put any effort in enhancing their watch app.
Its great to have a great app like workoutdoors which have some unique features and allow the user to send the data on other platforms for post-run analysis

Thanks. As you say there are still plenty of features that I can add to improve the app during a workout and when exporting to other systems, so I am concentrating on those areas at the moment.

That's not to say that I won't improve things outside of that in the future (such as route creation and improved analysis), but those features are lower down my list of things to add.

 

[Akrapovic]

So I was thinking about what I personally want from a workout app, and looking at the reasons I flick between Strava, NRC and the standard Apple Workout app (and now using WorkOutDoors). And for me, the features I really want to see fleshed out are segments and achievements. Local user ones, rather than a global system like Strava has.

The ability to do a run and then use the iPhone app to cut a section of that run and name that segment. So you'd have your own library of segments tailored just for you. So you could re-run segments and it would keep a list of the attempts you made at it, etc.

Then add to that a really fleshed out achievements section. NRC does things like "Fastest 1km", "Fastest Mile", "Longest Run" Etc. But you could add so many more - "Completed a segment 50 times", "Fastest completion of a segment", "Most consistent pace", etc. Achievements exist in Strava, NRC and Apple Workouts, but it's a token effort in them all. A fully fleshed out achievement system (like XBL and Steam do for games) is something we currently don't have.

Currently, I think WorkOutDoors is the best app I've used to actually run with on the Watch. It has the least lag (Strava app isn't great, but NRC is horrible), and it can be setup for how I want it. Frankly, it's miles ahead of apps developed by professional companies, which is remarkable.

I realise that this isn't the priority for WorkOutDoors, and that's ok - just thought I'd add my thoughts on what would improve the entire experience.

 

[cfc]

Thanks for the suggestions. As you say that sort of functionality is not high on my list at the moment but it's always good to know the features that people want to see in the future.

 

[Akrapovic]

Thanks for the suggestions. As you say that sort of functionality is not high on my list at the moment but it's always good to know the features that people want to see in the future.

I think the reason I’d be good for WorkOutDoors is because every other implementation of achievements has been half baked. Strava does segments well but nobody else does and nobody combines it with a good achievement system.

WorkOutDoors does not do half baked. Every feature is implemented extensively and then given every customisation feature imaginable. That’s why I see achievements and segments as being a potentially good thing for this app - because it’d be done better than current versions.

However there are more important priorities.

 

[cfc]

I think the reason I’d be good for WorkOutDoors is because every other implementation of achievements has been half baked. Strava does segments well but nobody else does and nobody combines it with a good achievement system.

WorkOutDoors does not do half baked. Every feature is implemented extensively and then given every customisation feature imaginable. That’s why I see achievements and segments as being a potentially good thing for this app - because it’d be done better than current versions.

However there are more important priorities.

Thanks! I do tend to go a bit overboard with functionality and customisation. It's one of the reasons that the next version of the app is taking longer than I expected. I was planning to start with a simple version of the intervals functionality and then gradually improve it in future versions, but instead the first version will be highly configurable.

 

[oeagleo]

@cfc I have a question that perhaps you can answer. I bought your app in the pretty early stages, and am amazed about how far it's come. But, I do have one question. I do some walking outside, and may in the future use the app for bike rides, but for now am going to be using the Fenix 5+. Notwithstanding that, I have a question about the configuration in the Apple app. Is the data generated by WOD used to calculate the distance on an outside walk, or do I have to use the internal "Outside Walk" activity to get that done? I'm asking, because on a 2 mile walk today, carrying both the fenix and the AW. there's a .2 mile difference in the distances estimated. I have done several outside walks, probalby totaling a couple hours, but I've used WOD (naturally, it's a way better app!) for the data.

 

[cfc]

@cfc I have a question that perhaps you can answer. I bought your app in the pretty early stages, and am amazed about how far it's come. But, I do have one question. I do some walking outside, and may in the future use the app for bike rides, but for now am going to be using the Fenix 5+. Notwithstanding that, I have a question about the configuration in the Apple app. Is the data generated by WOD used to calculate the distance on an outside walk, or do I have to use the internal "Outside Walk" activity to get that done? I'm asking, because on a 2 mile walk today, carrying both the fenix and the AW. there's a .2 mile difference in the distances estimated. I have done several outside walks, probalby totaling a couple hours, but I've used WOD (naturally, it's a way better app!) for the data.

It's good to get feedback from a long-term user! By default the distance displayed is supplied by Apple's estimates, so it will be the same as that estimated by Apple's Workout app. They are very coy about how they calculate this but it involves the pedometer (and probably also GPS) and requires calibration. There will often be a 1% or 2% difference between two devices that estimate distance but a 10% difference probably means that one or both of them need calibrating.

To calibrate the Apple Watch follow the instructions here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204516 . This uses Apple's Workout app to determine an estimate of your average stride length. I do not know if the watch can also be calibrated when using other apps such as WorkOutDoors or if you have to use Apple's Workout app. I have heard conflicting opinions so it is best to use Apple's app.

If you don't like Apple's estimates then you can make the app calculate distance from the raw GPS with no pedometer input. To do this press the watch screen hard and tap Settings then Workouts and then switch off Intelligent Distances. Some people prefer these estimates but they obviously require a good GPS signal, which isn't always the case. Personally I prefer to use Apple's distances, which is why they are the default for the app, but it its useful to have an alternative.

 

[john991]

A couple of questions about the work outdoors app.

1. Does the workout appear in the Apple activity app on the iPhone? (Move, Exercise and stand goals)

2. Does the run / hiking map show in the Apple activity app on the iPhone? (Like the Apple workout app does)

Thanks

 

[cfc]

A couple of questions about the work outdoors app.

1. Does the workout appear in the Apple activity app on the iPhone? (Move, Exercise and stand goals)

2. Does the run / hiking map show in the Apple activity app on the iPhone? (Like the Apple workout app does)

Thanks

Yes to both questions. The app uses Apple's workout system, so all workouts will appear in the Activity app, along with the map of the route. The map also appears in the WorkOutDoors iPhone app and can be analysed there in more detail than that offered by the Activity app.

Please let me know if you have any more questions.

 

[BD1]

Does the app also capture the weather conditions like the Workout app?