Apps WorkOutDoors: New workout features

[cfc]

Just a quick idea: I just created a new 5-3-1-3-5 interval workout and it would have been great to clone elements of a workout. Would be cool to see the estimated workout time, too

There is a Make Default button at the top of the interval creation screen on the iPhone. If you tap this then all future intervals of that type that you create will be clones of that interval.

The app has estimated time/distance remaining metrics that can be shown during a scheduled workout, and which use the performance for previous intervals of the appropriate type. However it doesn't show an estimated time when creating a schedule. No-one has ever asked for that before. It sounds a good idea but it would require using previous workouts and exactly how to use that data would be complicated and subjective, which I try to avoid.

If all intervals have time-based durations, or distance-based durations with a target pace, then it would be pretty easy to calculate an estimated total time. But if there were any intervals that were not easy to calculate a time for, then I would probably get questions about why the estimated time didn't match the actual time.

 

[cfc]

Did you plan additional languages?

Not at the moment. Sorry about that. I am just one guy and I am currently focussed on adding features. I translated a previous watch app and it was very time consuming, both for the initial translation and also for maintenance such as updating screenshots, app store descriptions, website etc.

One particular problem for watch apps is that it is very difficult to find the words that fit on the small watch screen. You need to try a phrase; build the app to see if it fits (which it rarely does first time); and then try again until it does. And you have to do that for all 4 of the watch sizes. So it is not something that can be done very well remotely - the translator probably needs to be able to build the app to do a good job.

There is also a chance that Apple will release watches with new screen sizes this year, so I don't want to translate it until after that happens in case I have to re-translate it for the new sizes.

Reviews on the App Store often dock points for the app not being in a local language. For instance it got a 2 star review in Spain last week that simply said "spanish language" (in Spanish of course). I can understand why they wrote that, because the use of English may mean that the app is of little use to them, but it is still depressing to see.

If the app ever gets successful and grows to need a small team instead of just me then translation would be more likely, but at the moment it is just me and that doesn't look like changing in the near future.

Apologies for giving a very long answer to a very short question but it is something that I get asked a lot, so I thought I would lay out my excuses!

 

[Kridal]

What version of watchOS are you using? Apple removed force press with watchOS 7 and now you need to do a long touch without any force.

I have noticed that.. I´m using 7.2! But I tried with a force touch, long force touch, only long touch etc... As I said I had no problem with it in other apps at the time it happened, and after I restarted the watch there where no problem again! But mabye it is a problem only in WOD in watchOS 7? Is that the case??

I have one more idea for the app also, that I could not fint alredy. During the metric it would be nice if the speaker alert was telling the time left, not only time spent, half way og quarter.. It does that for 20 seconds and down, but I set it up to speak every minute, it only says how many minutes into the interval I am. Dont know if that is the case for distance interval, but I guess it would be the same there. Instead of "interval 500 meter" it could probably say "500 meters left". Just an idea

 

[cfc]

I have noticed that.. I´m using 7.2! But I tried with a force touch, long force touch, only long touch etc... As I said I had no problem with it in other apps at the time it happened, and after I restarted the watch there where no problem again! But mabye it is a problem only in WOD in watchOS 7? Is that the case??

I have one more idea for the app also, that I could not fint alredy. During the metric it would be nice if the speaker alert was telling the time left, not only time spent, half way og quarter.. It does that for 20 seconds and down, but I set it up to speak every minute, it only says how many minutes into the interval I am. Dont know if that is the case for distance interval, but I guess it would be the same there. Instead of "interval 500 meter" it could probably say "500 meters left". Just an idea

Glad a reboot fixed it. It was probably just a glitch with watchOS. The app just tells watchOS what icons it would like to appear when the user calls up the menu, and what to do if the user presses one. WatchOS does everything else, including detecting the long touch and displaying the menu. So if the menu wasn't displayed then it was probably watchOS getting confused.

You can configure what metrics are displayed and spoken for the notifications during an interval, just as you can for the general notifications. It will always say the time for a time notification but you can also make it say the time remaining as well if you want. Although I guess I could make the time metric itself optional as well.

 

[Miggui]

Hi, last few weeks I had 2/3 crashes on my AW4 while running with WOD. ( last watch iOS). Seems like I had no more battery. Watch is rebooting and it was ok ... an idea for this problem ?

 

[cfc]

Hi, last few weeks I had 2/3 crashes on my AW4 while running with WOD. ( last watch iOS). Seems like I had no more battery. Watch is rebooting and it was ok ... an idea for this problem ?

So is the watch rebooting during a workout? And what exactly do you see in terms of the battery?

 

[Miggui]

So is the watch rebooting during a workout? And what exactly do you see in terms of the battery?

Yes rebooting during a workout and message from the watch low battery 10%. At the beginning I was more than 80%.

 

[cfc]

Yes rebooting during a workout and message from the watch low battery 10%. At the beginning I was more than 80%.

I have heard of that before. It is a rare issue with the watch that Apple is aware of.

Another WOD user had the same problem a couple of months ago. He contacted Apple and they suggested the following procedure to try. It didn't work for him but hopefully it will work for you:

"- Connect the Apple Watch to its charger and let it charge for at least three hours
- Take the watch off the charger
- Press and hold the side button on the watch until the Power Off slider appears
- Drag the Power Off slider to the right to turn off the watch
- Keep the watch turned off and disconnected from its charger for at least 30 minutes
- Turn on the Apple Watch
- Repeat the same if the issue occurs again
- It's an ongoing issue and Apple is aware of it"

He is still experiencing the issue and hasn't heard any more from Apple, so it sounds like they haven't fixed it yet. He suspects it is hardware related.

I hope that helps!

 

[Miggui]

I have heard of that before. It is a rare issue with the watch that Apple is aware of.

Another WOD user had the same problem a couple of months ago. He contacted Apple and they suggested the following procedure to try. It didn't work for him but hopefully it will work for you:

"- Connect the Apple Watch to its charger and let it charge for at least three hours
- Take the watch off the charger
- Press and hold the side button on the watch until the Power Off slider appears
- Drag the Power Off slider to the right to turn off the watch
- Keep the watch turned off and disconnected from its charger for at least 30 minutes
- Turn on the Apple Watch
- Repeat the same if the issue occurs again
- It's an ongoing issue and Apple is aware of it"

He is still experiencing the issue and hasn't heard any more from Apple, so it sounds like they haven't fixed it yet. He suspects it is hardware related.

I hope that helps!

Thanks ! I ll try this and will tell you if it works

 

[pmxams]

Hi, any news on the new version?

Also quite keen to understand if you decided to implement the Stryd integration and what would be time plan for that? Your best estimate without any commitment would be appreciated.

Keep up the good work, one of the best apps I have and the best support for sure.

 

[cfc]

Hi, any news on the new version?

Also quite keen to understand if you decided to implement the Stryd integration and what would be time plan for that? Your best estimate without any commitment would be appreciated.

Keep up the good work, one of the best apps I have and the best support for sure.

I am still hoping to release the new version at the end of the month. To be honest the current beta looks stable enough to release now but I am still quite busy with support stuff after Xmas. Although the amount of support work is generally proportional to sales, so I don't mind too much when it gets busy!

My current plan is to release a final beta with very minor modifications sometime in the next few days, and then if that goes well then to release it to the App Store at the end of the month (or maybe slightly earlier if the support work gets quieter).

I don't like to give estimates as to when Stryd will be ready, mainly because I don't want to set myself even an informal deadline. I have 2 or 3 major features planned for the next release: Stryd and improved route functionality have been top of my list for a while, but I am also investigating a different source of map data that also includes contours.

In the past I usually have long periods between releases but add several features in each release, but this time I am considering separate releases for each major feature. I plan to look at Stryd first, and see how things go. I hope they are as helpful as they were when I spoke to them a while ago.

 

[NME42]

Thanks, cfc! Excellent idea to bring smaller releases.

 

[stridemat]

I plan to look at Stryd first, and see how things go. I hope they are as helpful as they were when I spoke to them a while ago.

Being as another app has recently added integration, I would hope they are still keen.

 

[NME42]

Being as another app has recently added integration, I would hope they are still keen.

If the other app is iSmoothrun, they have Stryd support since a long time.

 

[leescottdavis]

Been enjoying WOD more and more. My biggest concern has been battery life. However this morning I did a 4.5hour bike ride, with OHR left on, wrist raise off, cellular off and always on display off. Ended the ride with 71% battery. WOD was flawless.

However, can you use Apple Maps to navigate while WOD is recording? Further, @cfc is there any intention to add basic navigation to WOD, like navigate me back to start?

 

[cfc]

Been enjoying WOD more and more. My biggest concern has been battery life. However this morning I did a 4.5hour bike ride, with OHR left on, wrist raise off, cellular off and always on display off. Ended the ride with 71% battery. WOD was flawless.

However, can you use Apple Maps to navigate while WOD is recording? Further, @cfc is there any intention to add basic navigation to WOD, like navigate me back to start?

Glad to hear that the battery life is so good. I think that switching off wrist raise can really help for some people because the watch can frequently wake incorrectly if it is confused by the way they swing their arms.

There shouldn't be a problem using Apple's Maps app to navigate at the same time as using WOD. I do plan to add navigation functionality in the future, starting with the ability to read navigation instructions contained in GPX files. Any route calculation would require me to pay a company, which would require some sort of extra in app purchase or subscription, which I want to avoid.

In terms of navigating back to the start you can either follow the breadcrumbs if you are going back the way you came, or you can head in the direction of the green compass, which always points towards the start. If you tap it then it will show how far away the start is as the crow flies.

 

[kwclr]

New to Apple Watch and WOD. Like so many others, I have been in the Garmin world for 10 to 15 years. Was never really sold on the AW being able to provide what I needed as a semi serious runner (5 years of Boston in a row until the pandemic ?). Love the apple ecosystem and have been trying not to get an Apple Watch for years but finally gave in. Love the watch it all it offers. WOD being available was one of the factors and helping me make this decision. Series 6 w/ cellular, and phone not with me before or during runs.

I had a question about weird GPS behavior. I’ve been running one particular route a couple of times a week for many many years and it’s exactly 5 miles on six or seven different Garmins over the last decade. WOD Recording in GPX mode with maxxed-out GPS signal bars, said this same run was 5.15 miles on two occasions and once uploaded to Strava no changes or adjustments were made so it also says 5.15 miles. Have all of my garmins and various running apps been wrong all these years or is there something inaccurate about this watch or the app? Thanks for any tips

 

[cfc]

New to Apple Watch and WOD. Like so many others, I have been in the Garmin world for 10 to 15 years. Was never really sold on the AW being able to provide what I needed as a semi serious runner (5 years of Boston in a row until the pandemic ?). Love the apple ecosystem and have been trying not to get an Apple Watch for years but finally gave in. Love the watch it all it offers. WOD being available was one of the factors and helping me make this decision. Series 6 w/ cellular, and phone not with me before or during runs.

I had a question about weird GPS behavior. I’ve been running one particular route a couple of times a week for many many years and it’s exactly 5 miles on six or seven different Garmins over the last decade. WOD Recording in GPX mode with maxxed-out GPS signal bars, said this same run was 5.15 miles on two occasions and once uploaded to Strava no changes or adjustments were made so it also says 5.15 miles. Have all of my garmins and various running apps been wrong all these years or is there something inaccurate about this watch or the app? Thanks for any tips

Distance estimates are provided using Apple’s calibrated pedometer based system by default so usually the first thing to try is to calibrate the watch as described here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204516

When you say that you are using GPX mode what do you mean? Have you switched off calibrated distances and are using the GPS locations to determine the distance? If you haven't and the calibrated distances are not working for you (even after calibration) then you can do this by touching the watch screen for a second and tapping Settings then More and then turning off the "Use Calibrated Distances" switch.

In either case Strava usually ignores the distance sent to it and calculates the distance itself from the GPS locations. This is usually very annoying but in this case if Strava is saying the same distance then that distance is probably accurate. Especially if you are using the default pedometer option because it is very rare that a pedometer distance exactly agrees with Strava's GPS distance algorithm.

I hope that helps. Thanks for buying the app!

 

[kwclr]

Distance estimates are provided using Apple’s calibrated pedometer based system by default so usually the first thing to try is to calibrate the watch as described here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204516

When you say that you are using GPX mode what do you mean? Have you switched off calibrated distances and are using the GPS locations to determine the distance? If you haven't and the calibrated distances are not working for you (even after calibration) then you can do this by touching the watch screen for a second and tapping Settings then More and then turning off the "Use Calibrated Distances" switch.

In either case Strava usually ignores the distance sent to it and calculates the distance itself from the GPS locations. This is usually very annoying but in this case if Strava is saying the same distance then that distance is probably accurate. Especially if you are using the default pedometer option because it is very rare that a pedometer distance exactly agrees with Strava's GPS distance algorithm.

I hope that helps. Thanks for buying the app!

Thanks so much for your very helpful reply and all the work you’ve done on this amazing app! When I said GPX I meant that I toggled for the app to record GPX instead of TCX. I will probably try to force it to record GPS only instead of the pedometer unless I’m indoors or otherwise. I’ll give some calibration tricks a try. Thanks again!

 

[agerly]

How you calculate the distance from a bike ride? Gps? You apply some correction due the vertical ascent ? I noticed that in a 25 km ride calculated with wheel sensor , WOD is 10% short

 

[NME42]

Thanks for any tips

Welcome to the AW world. Also have been a Garmin nerd all the years and got fed of them. Never regretted it to switch to AW.

I have tons of comparisons between Garmin devices and AW and AW is measuring about 1-2% longer tracks than Garmin. And when running with a calibrated Stryd footpad and comparing the track lengths to Garmin, they are slightly shorter than Stryd. So Garmin is undermeasuring and AW is overmeasuring.

Running with my AW and Stryd since about 1.5 years now and really happy, get very consistent results only differing when I change shoes.

 

[leescottdavis]

Welcome to the AW world. Also have been a Garmin nerd all the years and got fed of them. Never regretted it to switch to AW.

I have tons of comparisons between Garmin devices and AW and AW is measuring about 1-2% longer tracks than Garmin. And when running with a calibrated Stryd footpad and comparing the track lengths to Garmin, they are slightly shorter than Stryd. So Garmin is undermeasuring and AW is overmeasuring.

Running with my AW and Stryd since about 1.5 years now and really happy, get very consistent results only differing when I change shoes.

I too run with a Stryd and whilst there’s no integration with WOD when I sync my Stryd to the stryd app, the calculated distance is very close to the WOD (read aw) distance.

 

[cfc]

How you calculate the distance from a bike ride? Gps? You apply some correction due the vertical ascent ? I noticed that in a 25 km ride calculated with wheel sensor , WOD is 10% short

The app uses Apple's cycling distance estimates by default and I don't know if that allows for vertical ascent. Unfortunately they never reveal that sort of detail. They do not mention cycling in their calibration process (which I guess is all about stride length) so I do not know if it is possible to improve the Apple cycling estimates.

Again if you switch off the "Use Calibrated Distances" switch then the app will use GPS. This doesn't allow for vertical ascent but it should be closer than 10% out. However I imagine that Apple are using GPS as well, so it could be that the GPS was poor for that ride. To see if this was the case go to the GPS tab for that workout and see what the average accuracy is. It should be about 6m or so. Anything 10m or more was a poor signal.

What sort of ride was it? It is very hard to measure a twisty mountain bike ride using GPS with an accuracy of 5 to 10m, so if it was that sort of ride then it could explain why Apple's estimates are short. They may be able to improve things by including information from the accelerometers, but nothing can match a wheel sensor.

 

[agerly]

What sort of ride was it? It is very hard to measure a twisty mountain bike ride using GPS with an accuracy of 5 to 10m, so if it was that sort of ride then it could explain why Apple's estimates are short. T

Yes it was an mtb ride, I agree with gps it's almost impossible to get accurate total distance, I just asked out of curiosity if there was any implementation possible to reduce the error

 

[cfc]

Yes it was an mtb ride, I agree with gps it's almost impossible to get accurate total distance, I just asked out of curiosity if there was any implementation possible to reduce the error

As I say I think it might be theoretically possible to improve the distance estimates for very twisty routes that turn tighter than the GPS accuracy can detect (and GPS is often poor in forests etc). It would involve using the accelerometers to detect the "twistiness" and adjust the GPS distance accordingly.

It might be the sort of thing that is suitable for machine learning, with loads of training data from bikes with both GPS and wheel sensors. In any case it is far beyond what I could achieve, which is why I leave that sort of thing to Apple!