Garmin Connect is so much better than Strava it's not even close. The only reason I could possibly imagine preferring Strava is if I desperately need my social circle to be aware of my every workout. For those of us who do this for ourselves and not the approval of our peers Strava is miles behind.
Strava abruptly ends 3rd party data sync to Apple Health
11–20 of 114 posts
Re: Strava abruptly ends 3rd party data sync to Apple Health
#12I wonder what is going on at Strava. It feels like peak Strava was some time around 2018. Since then, it seems like features have only been getting disabled, hidden behind opt in flags, or moved to the paid plans. I completely understand the decision to move things to paid since their service does cost a lot to run and the subscription isn't expensive, but where are all the new and cool features that should have come…
There is no business here that scales sadly. In fact, it gets more expensive for Strava to operate the longer you are a subscriber
And it apparently isn't valuable enough to charge more for ($5/month)
Re: Strava abruptly ends 3rd party data sync to Apple Health
#13I wonder what is going on at Strava. It feels like peak Strava was some time around 2018. Since then, it seems like features have only been getting disabled, hidden behind opt in flags, or moved to the paid plans. I completely understand the decision to move things to paid since their service does cost a lot to run and the subscription isn't expensive, but where are all the new and cool features that should have come…
> And I wonder if the article is correct in that they are pivoting away from segments
That's not what DCR wrote, that part was clearly about user perception: Strava has grown into something bigger than just that app that declares you KOM when you go really fast.
Re: Strava abruptly ends 3rd party data sync to Apple Health
#14I’ve rearchitected my data flow for cycling multiple times now, and it’s frustrating to do it again
Re: Strava abruptly ends 3rd party data sync to Apple Health
#15Sad to see this happen to Apple, a strong crusader for open standards across competing systems.
Honest question, is that comment meant at face value, or is it sarcastic?
My impression of Apple has been that it's a mixed-bag for privacy, etc., so I'm actually not sure.
Re: Strava abruptly ends 3rd party data sync to Apple Health
#16I wonder what is going on at Strava. It feels like peak Strava was some time around 2018. Since then, it seems like features have only been getting disabled, hidden behind opt in flags, or moved to the paid plans. I completely understand the decision to move things to paid since their service does cost a lot to run and the subscription isn't expensive, but where are all the new and cool features that should have come…
There is no business here that scales sadly. In fact, it gets more expensive for Strava to operate the longer you are a subscriber And it apparently isn't valuable enough to charge more for ($5/month)
>> it gets more expensive for Strava to operate the longer you are a subscriber
What are you referring to? That Strava has to store&compute more and more data from a user the longer they are using the platform?
Re: Strava abruptly ends 3rd party data sync to Apple Health
#17Sad to see this happen to Apple, a strong crusader for open standards across competing systems.
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Re: Strava abruptly ends 3rd party data sync to Apple Health
#18The weird thing is that they claim it's to avoid duplicate activities, but they totally know how to recognize duplicates already. Every so often, there's some sort of glitch in one of my activities getting from Garmin to Strava. If I'm feeling impatient, I download the .fit file from Garmin and upload it to Strava myself, and I never get a duplicate that way. Happened for the first time in a while just last week. Clearly, whenever Garmin does send the data, Strava is perfectly capable of recognizing an activity it already has, and it does the right thing. I'm just not buying that excuse.
BTW and a bit OT, I find it very impressive that Strava can retroactively create a leaderboard going back years for a newly created segment, meaning that they must evaluate potentially millions of nearby activities for overlaps, often in just a few minutes. That's a hell of a query. Anybody know of more information on how they do it?
Re: Strava abruptly ends 3rd party data sync to Apple Health
#19Sad to see this happen to Apple, a strong crusader for open standards across competing systems.
Honest question, is that comment meant at face value, or is it sarcastic? My impression of Apple has been that it's a mixed-bag for privacy, etc., so I'm actually not sure.
Sarcastic :) (but hopefully not snarky?)
For privacy, certainly they have been a crusader. For open standards, considerably less so.
Re: Strava abruptly ends 3rd party data sync to Apple Health
#20I wonder what is going on at Strava. It feels like peak Strava was some time around 2018. Since then, it seems like features have only been getting disabled, hidden behind opt in flags, or moved to the paid plans. I completely understand the decision to move things to paid since their service does cost a lot to run and the subscription isn't expensive, but where are all the new and cool features that should have come…
From discussions I've had with people at Strava, they're trying to be more focused on implementing a few key features really well. When the original founders returned in 2018 or 2019, the app had a ton of features that had been half integrated, couldn't be found in order to be used, etc etc.
They paired back things that weren't working, moved to focus on revenue (as they weren't going to be able to grow into the social network for all activities like they tried).
I think it's the right strategy, but this move makes no sense. It's very easy for them to manage duplicate data, and I'm surprised to see them suggest users set-up their garmin device to connect directly to Apple. This essentially makes it easier for strava to be cut out of the loop in the future if the social aspect isn't working for you.