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Comment by jval43

3 years ago

Apple only truly started competing against Garmin recently. Improved running metrics, low power mode, better battery (Ultra) etc only showed up recently while Garmin and others had them for years. Even GPS wasn't on the first iteration.

I am not looking for a fitness tracker, so Garmin is not even close to competition for an Apple Watch to me. Why? I use VoiceOver. Garmin does not have any speech output at all, so they can not even be compared for me. I do a lot of FaceTime Audio from my watch, another use case where Garmin doesn't even come to mind. Dont forget that products these days have a pretty diverse feature set. Assuming everyone is looking for a fitness tracker just because this is the new hype is rather, erm, unimaginative.

I’m still unsure that they’re any sort of competition for Garmin and co yet.

  • They are not (yet), but target group doesn't care about raw stats, or price/performance ratios. But I love them, because they will push Garmin making even better watches, so everybody wins.

    • Yeah it's a win/win for users I think. I just upgraded to the Fenix 7 Pro range and it's very nice.

    • Not sure how you can say they are not competing. Anecdata but I considered a garmin vs apple watch. Biggest driver was cellular to call either my wife or 911 when kitesurfing alone (yeah I know I just shouldn’t do it) so chose the apple watch 3 when it came out. Now have an ultra and that’s really starting to catch up with some of the other features I wanted. Seen several people in the kiting community pick apple vs garmin and vice versa for a myriad of reasons.