Apps WorkOutDoors: New workout features

[cubodado]

Just a quick confirmation for the official release of iOS 18 / watchOS 11 : I have a trail run this weekend and I need to trust the app, but I am also curious in trying the new features. Are there known issues that suggest me to delay the upgrade? I didn’t read any of them but I didn’t scroll backwards all the pages… Thank you in advance!

AW6 cellular iPhone 13 pro

 

[Dovales]

Just a quick confirmation for the official release of iOS 18 / watchOS 11 : I have a trail run this weekend and I need to trust the app, but I am also curious in trying the new features. Are there known issues that suggest me to delay the upgrade? I didn’t read any of them but I didn’t scroll backwards all the pages… Thank you in advance!

AW6 cellular iPhone 13 pro

Great question! Same thing here, I'm going to race a 58k trail run this Saturday. I have an Ultra 2.

 

[cfc]

Just a quick confirmation for the official release of iOS 18 / watchOS 11 : I have a trail run this weekend and I need to trust the app, but I am also curious in trying the new features. Are there known issues that suggest me to delay the upgrade? I didn’t read any of them but I didn’t scroll backwards all the pages… Thank you in advance!

AW6 cellular iPhone 13 pro

TLDR: the signs are good that upgrading iOS, watchOS and WorkOutDoors will be fine, but you probably don't want to risk it if you have an important event coming up.

As far as I know there aren't any major issues with the app on iOS 18 / watchOS 11. They have been in beta for over 3 months and no-one has yet reported anything significant. A handful of people have reported issues that they thought may be related to the fact they were running the watchOS 11 beta, but no two people have reported the same problem so they are probably just the sort of strange issues that sometimes occur.

This kind of reliability has never happened before so I am very grateful to Apple for what seem to be pretty stable major releases of iOS and watchOS. However the real test will be over the next few days now that they have been officially released. That should give me a much better idea.

The only thing I have noticed is that the "picker" controls that the app uses in some of the settings screens in the watch app look different in watchOS 11 and can occasionally be hard to read. However I have fixed this in the version that I plan to release before the watches are available on Friday.

The new version of WorkOutDoors won't have any new features and the changes should only affect the new watches, so you may not want to risk upgrading to it. In terms of upgrading watchOS / iOS the indications are good that things will be fine, but I can't guarantee it, which is why I also recommend against upgrading them if you are particularly worried.

 

[nexusone2012]

So I can confirm that WorkOutDoors workouts do not autogenerate a training score. I think I read somewhere developers need to take advantage of this as an API?

 

[cfc]

So I can confirm that WorkOutDoors workouts do not autogenerate a training score. I think I read somewhere developers need to take advantage of this as an API?

Thanks for the confirmation. There is a new API allowing apps to allow users to enter an effort for a workout (relateWorkoutEffortSample). I looked at it briefly after WWDC back in June and decided to wait until watchOS 11 was finally released before investigating fully (which is my usual policy with new features).

At the moment I am focussed on releasing the version for the series 10 watches by Friday because otherwise the app will not run on those watches.

Apple have already approved this version (in lightning fast time!) which is great, but I am waiting until tomorrow before releasing it, to give the beta testers as much time as possible to test it. So far there haven't been any problems but Apple only released the final version of the development environment required for iOS 18 / watchOS 11 on Monday, so the beta of WOD which was built with that has only been tested for a day or so.

Unfortunately timescales are always quite tight in the short period between when Apple announce the new hardware and when users start receiving it.

And then things will get even busier for me after the new watches are released on Friday. That always means lots of support work for a while (exactly how much work varies from year to year). After that has died down then I will properly assess the new watchOS 11 features. Although I have been playing with the new APIs as a background task this week, and will continue to do that in-between support work next week.

 

[oric1sg]

Ian,

WOD was updated to v5.5 on my phone but when I checked the version on the watch app, it's still showing v5.4.8

I checked the App Store on the watch and it's showing v5.5 but how come it's not updating app to v5.5?

Thanks.

 

[patsio]

Yes, still ver. 5.4.8 on my AW7, i guess it's only for the newest AW10 with the bigger screen.

 

[Fabio8]

Hello Ian! Is there a way to set a pause-reminder if I manually pause a workout? Sometimes, it happens that I pause a workout (no auto-pause, as I might move/walk while paused), then after a while I start running again and forget to resume the workout.
Thanks!

 

[cfc]

Ian,

WOD was updated to v5.5 on my phone but when I checked the version on the watch app, it's still showing v5.4.8

I checked the App Store on the watch and it's showing v5.5 but how come it's not updating app to v5.5?

Thanks.

Unfortunately Apple don't always update the watch app when you update the iPhone app.

I wouldn't worry if you aren't one of the lucky few to already have a series 10 watch because the changes should only affect that.

However if you do want to update the watch app then I recommend doing it via the App Store app on the watch. If you uninstall and reinstall the watch app from the phone then it will lose the data on the watch and you will have to send it back again from the phone app (Settings / File Management). If you install via the App Store app on the watch then this is not a problem.

But, as I say, if you don't have a series 10 watch then it shouldn't matter that the versions are inconsistent.

 

[cfc]

Hello Ian! Is there a way to set a pause-reminder if I manually pause a workout? Sometimes, it happens that I pause a workout (no auto-pause, as I might move/walk while paused), then after a while I start running again and forget to resume the workout.
Thanks!

That has been on my to-do list for many years but is surprisingly rarely requested. I will probably add it one day, if only because I often forget to resume as well!

 

[Fabio8]

That has been on my to-do list for many years but is surprisingly rarely requested. I will probably add it one day, if only because I often forget to resume as well!

Awesome! Speaking of which, Workoutdoors doesn't track anything while paused, correct? Otherwise, even if paused, we would be able to recover the lost metrics.
Cheers!

 

[cfc]

Awesome! Speaking of which, Workoutdoors doesn't track anything while paused, correct? Otherwise, even if paused, we would be able to recover the lost metrics.
Cheers!

No, it doesn't track anything that is preserved. It does show breadcrumbs in grey but that track is lost when you resume.

 

[patsio]

Unfortunately Apple don't always update the watch app when you update the iPhone app.

I wouldn't worry if you aren't one of the lucky few to already have a series 10 watch because the changes should only affect that.

However if you do want to update the watch app then I recommend doing it via the App Store app on the watch. If you uninstall and reinstall the watch app from the phone then it will lose the data on the watch and you will have to send it back again from the phone app (Settings / File Management). If you install via the App Store app on the watch then this is not a problem.

But, as I say, if you don't have a series 10 watch then it shouldn't matter that the versions are inconsistent.

On my AW7, App Store shows the 5.5 version now, but there is no option to upgrade.

 

[cfc]

On my AW7, App Store shows the 5.5 version now, but there is no option to upgrade.

Sometimes the updates can take a while to get through the system, especially with the watch App Store.

So maybe try again tomorrow although, as I say, unless you have the series 10 then it's not necessary to update the app.

 

[oric1sg]

Unfortunately Apple don't always update the watch app when you update the iPhone app.

I wouldn't worry if you aren't one of the lucky few to already have a series 10 watch because the changes should only affect that.

However if you do want to update the watch app then I recommend doing it via the App Store app on the watch. If you uninstall and reinstall the watch app from the phone then it will lose the data on the watch and you will have to send it back again from the phone app (Settings / File Management). If you install via the App Store app on the watch then this is not a problem.

But, as I say, if you don't have a series 10 watch then it shouldn't matter that the versions are inconsistent.

Thanks Ian. I went to the App Store on my watch this morning and was able to see the "Update" icon. You're right, it took a day for the update to appear on the watch even though the version number on the watch app store is showing v5.5 yesterday.

I've updated it to v5.5.4 on my Ultra just now and I noticed the fonts are easier on the eyes as it's slightly bigger now on the Ultra 49mm screen.

 

[javataco]

Love the new update with the yellow PAUSED bar when paused. Twice in the last fortnight I was paused without realising!

 

[cfc]

Love the new update with the yellow PAUSED bar when paused. Twice in the last fortnight I was paused without realising!

That is the only change that I took from the code of the new version. It was a very simple change to one line of code, so I figured it was worth the risk to slip it in despite having such a relatively short amount of testing.

 

[estesbubba]

So I can confirm that WorkOutDoors workouts do not autogenerate a training score. I think I read somewhere developers need to take advantage of this as an API?

I just did a test workout using WOD and also didn't get an auto-generated training score 😢 I've been doing all of my workouts for the past 2 months using WOD and it currently shows I have to wait 28 days to get my training load. I wonder if I would have done all those workouts with the native app it would have went back and assigned a training load to them and I would be in business already?

 

[cfc]

I just did a test workout using WOD and also didn't get an auto-generated training score 😢 I've been doing all of my workouts for the past 2 months using WOD and it currently shows I have to wait 28 days to get my training load. I wonder if I would have done all those workouts with the native app it would have went back and assigned a training load to them and I would be in business already?

That is interesting. At least it sounds like it will work with WOD even if you have to wait 28 days. I seem to remember hearing that somewhere before, so it's good to get it confirmed. Now we just need to wait 28 days to see what happens...

 

[nexusone2012]

That is interesting. At least it sounds like it will work with WOD even if you have to wait 28 days. I seem to remember hearing that somewhere before, so it's good to get it confirmed. Now we just need to wait 28 days to see what happens...

You’ll have to go back into each individual workout and manually score it with an RPE. You can go as far back as you can remember. My training is heavily polarized so I was able to remember what the workouts felt like reasonably well.

 

[estesbubba]

You’ll have to go back into each individual workout and manually score it with an RPE. You can go as far back as you can remember. My training is heavily polarized so I was able to remember what the workouts felt like reasonably well.

Funny, I did that last night and used the Bevel strain score to add the RPE of each workout. I now have Training Load working on my phone but the watch says pending 18 days remaining. I wonder if I have to go back further than 30 days for the watch to work?

 

[nexusone2012]

Funny, I did that last night and used the Bevel strain score to add the RPE of each workout. I now have Training Load working on my phone but the watch says pending 18 days remaining. I wonder if I have to go back further than 30 days for the watch to work?

It took a day or so to click over to the watch and have the watch reflect what the phone says. Maybe restart the watch to see if that works. DCrainmaker also indicated that apples system even if it auto generates is mostly just a RPE x duration calculation. It doesn’t take into account heart rate as much as I thought it does, so the manual input of RPE isn’t as big of a deal. It just “auto generates an RPE score” in the native workout app.

 

[estesbubba]

It took a day or so to click over to the watch and have the watch reflect what the phone says. Maybe restart the watch to see if that works. DCrainmaker also indicated that apples system even if it auto generates is mostly just a RPE x duration calculation. It doesn’t take into account heart rate as much as I thought it does, so the manual input of RPE isn’t as big of a deal. It just “auto generates an RPE score” in the native workout app.

I just went back to July 1st adding RPE to those workouts, and I restarted the phone and watch several times hoping to get the watch to update 🤣 Maybe it will just take a few days.

Now that yours is working does doing a workout in WOD and not manually adding RPE work with the training load? Or do you have to manually add RPE to every WOD workout for it to work properly?

 

[nexusone2012]

I just went back to July 1st adding RPE to those workouts, and I restarted the phone and watch several times hoping to get the watch to update 🤣 Maybe it will just take a few days.

Now that yours is working does doing a workout in WOD and not manually adding RPE work with the training load? Or do you have to manually add RPE to every WOD workout for it to work properly?

Still requires a manual RPE rating.

 

[estesbubba]

Still requires a manual RPE rating.

Bummer! I wonder if 3rd party apps can make an API call to automatically calculate it like the native workouts app does? I like recording workouts using WOD, but I also want the automatic RPE calculation and can adjust if necessary.

I'm going to do a short outdoor cycle at lunch using native app and see if maybe my watch training load will update.