Comment by ben7799
2 years ago
Interesting, I've had 2 Garmin Smart Watches and never felt like Apple was restricting them.
I am curious what things the iPhone does that others aren't allowed to do.
Most of the differences between Garmin and Apple Watch seem like they were conscious decisions where they each decided to take a different direction.
It's one of those weird things where it seems like the case has a bunch of holes. You can use an iPhone with some but not all non-Apple Smart watches. You can use a non-Apple phone with non-Apple smartwatches. There are other non-Apple smart watches that those manufacturers have decided can't be used with an iPhone, no different than Apple. Lots of choices in the market, I certainly don't feel restricted.
I am not sure how requiring something like WeChat to break into multiple apps would be a big issue. Apple even breaks it's own apps up into different apps.
The Pebble was very obviously hampered by iOS limitations. In order to offload any code to the phone, you either had to write the code in Javascript (so it was basically a web app) or direct the user to manually download a separate companion app from the App Store. If iOS killed the companion app because it hadn't been opened on the iPhone recently (because, y'know, you were using it on your watch and not your phone), you had to manually relaunch the app on your phone.
This is all before even getting into things like ecosystem integration.
The Pebble was released in 2013. The two way communication SDK with Pebble was released in May of 2013. In February of 2015, the 2.0 Pebble SDK was released with further integrations.
The first iWatch was announced in September 2014 and released in April of 2015.
The Pebble was discontinued in 2016.
What integrations are you expecting Apple to have released prior to its own release? What functionality did iOS lack that android provided that hampered Pebble's development on iOS?
"The first iWatch was announced in September 2014 and released in April of 2015."
Just a side note: apple has in past started limiting other companies products as soon as they decide to create a competitor and sometimes years before it hits the market.
IIRC Spotify has been bitten by this at least once, which resulted in a lawsuit.
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Well to begin with, it is my understanding that the specific limitations listed still exist. Can Bluetooth devices remotely start apps now, or keep them in the background? I only used Pebble as an example because I owned a Pebble, I'm not familiar with Garmen's watches.
But seperately, I think it's really bad for innovation if no new product categories can exist unless Apple makes them first! You can imagine a different type of company that would have been delighted to work with Pebble and add functionality to their operating system, because third party compatibility strengthens their core product.
And of course, if this were the Mac, Pebble would not have needed Apple's cooperation...
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With non-Apple Watches, you can't 1) reply to texts, 2) answer phone calls (or place calls), 3) interact with other native iPhone applications (like Apple Health).
You'll pry my Garmin from my cold, dead hands but there's no mistaking it for an actual "smart"-watch. I value it entirely for health & fitness, and the very few "smart" things it can do are just nice-to-have icing on the cake.
FWIW you can answer and place calls via smartwatches on ios.
Also, you can interact with Apple Health from any smart device via a companion app. You just have to grant permission.
#1 is valid though.
I couldn’t get the Afib tracker working consistently on my Fitbit Charge 5. Had to switch to an Apple Watch and an iPhone. Much more reliable.
Also I don't believe you can control music
You can! I use my garmin a lot to switch songs on my iPhone, change volume, etc.
But like the other commenter said, you can’t reply to notifications or calls when the watch is paired to an iPhone, but you could when paired to an Android, which is a feature I definitely miss from when I had a Pixel.
not sure "non-apple watches" is accurate here. I can do all of those things with my Pixel watch
edit: as comment below points out, I was missing the obvious context of paired with an iPhone.
OP obviously meant non Apple watches paired with iPhones.
My guess is around notifications and handoff to iPhone apps.
I tried Garmin watches, and they're certainly better as "exercise tracking devices" than anything Apple offers, but they weren't tightly enough integrated with my iPhone to make it "worth it" to me to wear them all the time.
An Apple Watch Ultra - on the other hand - is a poorer exercise tracking device, but gives me enough "integrated with my iPhone" benefit to become the first watch I've worn consistently in 30+ years.
I assumed this was the result of design and development choices by Garmin, but it'll be interesting to see if their are meaningful ways that Apple restricts smartwatch developers from including similar levels of integration.
Can you expand on what "integrated with my iPhone" means in concrete terms? I don't really understand what you mean.
I don't use smart watches but I have an example on the trackers.
Tile created trackers and every so often I get an annoying popup
> ~"Tile has been using your location, do you want to stop this?"
Apple then created a competitor product, 'AirTags', but their product does not have these popups.
This is anti-competitive because Apple bypass the restrictions they made on their platform for their product that their competitive have to follow.
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Not the parent, but just a few things I’d guess would be Apple Watch specific:
- I’ve had employers that require a confirmation step from an app as a form of 2FA. If my phone isn’t awake, the notification comes to my watch and I can approve my login from my wrist
- If some action requires typing on my watch, I get a prompt on my iPhone to do the typing there instead of on the tiny watch keyboard. The characters I type via the phone appear in real time on the watch as if I were typing directly
- Dismissing and snoozing notifications syncs so I don’t have to dismiss and snooze notifications on multiple devices
- Similarly, if I set an alarm on my phone, the alarm will ring on my phone and, if I’m wearing it, vibrate my watch without further setup. Again, actions I perform to that alarm can all be performed on the watch or phone.
I’d guess these are all tiny, tiny quality of life features, but I’d be very surprised if other non-Apple watches have the ability to implement them.
Not the original poster but for me it means not having to look at my phone for many tasks. I can see who texted or messaged me and the message without opening my phone. I can take or ignore a call. Basically anything that hits your message alerts can be displayed on the watch in most cases.
Maybe the Apple Watch is not the best fitness tracker watch but it’s plenty good for me and it’s health integration is pretty good especially with the ultra.
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It's been years, but IIRC the main disparity was with responding to notifications.
On Android you could pick a pre-written reply to texts or even dictate a response.
On iOS you couldn't do anything but close the notification.
For example, the Apple Health App automatically talks to my dieting app, so when I walk, I get credit for the calories.
A Garmin watch can’t track heart rate during an Apple Fitness Plus workout, an example.
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>weren't tightly enough integrated with my iPhone to make it "worth it" to me to
To buy them in the first place, for many consumers. Which is exactly what apple had hoped to achieve.
> Interesting, I've had 2 Garmin Smart Watches and never felt like Apple was restricting them. >
The two main differences are notifications filtering (choosing which apps can send notifications to the watch) and actioning notifications from the watch.
Both of which are possible on Android, with a Garmin Fenix 6s.
Huh? I can filter notifications with third-party smartwatches. Did it on Pebble, Fossil, and others.
In the Garmin Connect iOS app, you can choose to display notifications for any combination of Calls, Texts (i.e. Messages app), or Apps (i.e. every other app). With Pebble and Fossil, are you for example saying you can choose to display Instagram notifications but hide Snapchat? Garmin seems to indicate that their limitation of iOS, as the Android Garmin Connect app allows the user to choose individual apps to display on the watch.
https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=TLeDN92ZU0AgN4df6HakwA...
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If you clear a notification on your watch does it clear it from the phone? It's a tiny thing, but it's really nice to have.
Similarly, if the notification has a "Reply" option (say a Slack message), can you reply on your watch? Very useful when I get a work message when I'm walking the dog.
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Maybe Garmin chooses not to implement it but it is all or nothing on iOS-> Garmin.
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Not on a garmin sadly.
> Interesting, I've had 2 Garmin Smart Watches and never felt like Apple was restricting them.
Sending messages from watch for example. Apple only allows that for Apple watches
I've also had two Garmin watches and I've always been on Android. I also have had Tiles since long before Airtags existed.
Both Garmin and Tile work flawlessly on my Android devices. I've tried to help my wife add them to her iPhone and it's just not worked right, it's a fight to keep things connected and the Tile app only works when it's open and you can't reply to messages from the Garmin and on and on.
I appreciate the efforts to protect privacy and battery life, I can certainly imagine a different Bluetooth device than the Garmin with a worse app that would use the permissions granted it for nefarious purposes, or a worse tracker than the Tile that would wear down battery life with poorly-coded constant background activity, but Apple are clearly also acting in their own selfish interests.
> Interesting, I've had 2 Garmin Smart Watches and never felt like Apple was restricting them.
Apple block Garmin watches from replying to text messages as they do on Android for example.
Only Apple Watches are allowed to do that.
I also note that iOS regularly tries to nag me into blocking Garmin Connect from sending notifications to my watch.
Ostensibly that’s to preserve battery life but they don’t do that for their own watches either.
Yeah, there are some inconsistencies with Apple products interop-ing with non-Apple stuff.
I've noticed this with wireless bluetooth headphone pairing. Sometimes it works, othertimes there are odd limitations and devices unpair randomly.
Also Samsung's Adaptive Fast Charging sends lower wattage through the cable if it detects a non-Samsung device. So Apple is not the only offender here.
I’ve got an iPhone and an Apple Watch. Wife has an iPhone and a Garmin.
The Garmin sadly misses out on notification filtering, focus modes, replies, solid Bluetooth (it drops out from time to time and the app needs reopening).
I've had friends that have trouble syncing their Garmin devices with syncing to their iPhone. I've wondered if this is caused by their wireless communication protocol that is proprietary and only available on other apple devices.
Airpods and other bluetooth Apple devices seamlessly sync with iPhones because of a wireless protocol they use that is only available on Apple devices. I forget what it's called, but this definitely limits connectivity of devices that aren't made by Apple.
I used to be able to approve my duo notifications from my Garmin when I had an Android phone, but that functionality isn't available when using an iPhone. I found out recently that you can still do that from an apple watch on an iPhone, when my wife got one. So there is at least one area of functionality that Apple is likely restricting.
You can't reply to text messages from other smartwatches, or at least not organically (only canned responses).
Likewise, I'm a happy Garmin watch owner. Wondering what I'm missing because I don't feel like I'm missing anything.
Almost all the stuff Garmin leaves out is the stuff I don't want to do on my watch anyway.
I bought an Apple Watch and it was so fiddly and always trying to get my attention to the point I returned it.
replying to sms is one: garmins can do this on Android but only recently (venu 2+, venu 3) got limited ability to do so on ios.