Strava abruptly ends 3rd party data sync to Apple Health • Hacker News Board

Re: Strava abruptly ends 3rd party data sync to Apple Health

#111

Post by mulmen » Tue, Mar 15, 2022, 10:14 PM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #108

mulmen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt the actual leaderboard calculation requires full granular data down to the meter. Segments can be aggregated from the meter level data in advance. I’m sure there are clever choices in creating those aggregates but that seems like the obvious (and admittedly naive) approach.

> Segments can be aggregated from the meter level data in advance. Not for a segment that doesn't exist. When I create a segment, it goes back over all nearby activities since the dawn of Strava time. That's the part where geographic sharding helps. Then, it has to check each one to see whether it traversed the segment without interruption or deviation - not within one meter but AFAICT within only a few. Does further…

Absolutely, I am also interested in the details. I'm sure it is very interesting and clever. But I expect the meat is in the ingestion, not in the leaderboard calculation. To provide a new leaderboard so quickly the work must have been done up front.

Re: Strava abruptly ends 3rd party data sync to Apple Health

#112

Post by outside1234 » Tue, Mar 15, 2022, 10:32 PM UTC

KindAndFriendly wrote: post #16

outside1234 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes - they pile up ride and run data over years for me - but get the same $5/month.

Re: Strava abruptly ends 3rd party data sync to Apple Health

#113

Post by Riseed » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 4:43 PM UTC

NoboruWataya wrote: post #105

exabrial wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Garmin was designed to work off grid and not need the internet lifeline to San Francisco or us-east. Can't say that about any of their competition.

And yet when they got hit by ransomware a while back their mobile and web apps were rendered useless. You could neither add new activities, nor view old activities, nor sync with other apps. You could of course access the .FIT files directly on your device via USB, so maybe that's what you meant. Their hardware is pretty good for working off grid but you need other software to do anything with the data it creates unl…

> And yet when they got hit by ransomware a while back their mobile and web apps were rendered useless. You could neither add new activities, nor view old activities, nor sync with other apps.

Isn't that to be expected, if you're using their cloud services? The point is that Garmin is (or was, I've had my watch for a few years) designed in such a way that the cloud services are not a requirement for full use of the device.

Yes, you can access the .FIT files directly via USB and then sync with other apps, such as TurtleSport, GPXsee, etc.

Re: Strava abruptly ends 3rd party data sync to Apple Health

#114

Post by NoboruWataya » Tue, Mar 22, 2022, 8:24 PM UTC

Riseed wrote: post #113

NoboruWataya wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet when they got hit by ransomware a while back their mobile and web apps were rendered useless. You could neither add new activities, nor view old activities, nor sync with other apps. You could of course access the .FIT files directly on your device via USB, so maybe that's what you meant. Their hardware is pretty good for working off grid but you need other software to do anything with the data it creates unl…

> And yet when they got hit by ransomware a while back their mobile and web apps were rendered useless. You could neither add new activities, nor view old activities, nor sync with other apps. Isn't that to be expected, if you're using their cloud services? The point is that Garmin is (or was, I've had my watch for a few years) designed in such a way that the cloud services are not a requirement for full use of the d…

> Isn't that to be expected, if you're using their cloud services?

For the most part, yes, though I don't think it is particularly unreasonable to expect that you could view some of your recent activities in the app without having to phone home, given how small the .FIT files tend to be.

Syncing with other apps is also something I would expect could be done without phoning home, assuming the other app is capable of parsing your .FIT file directly (which Strava is). In that case all the app needs to do is fetch the .FIT over Bluetooth and pass to the third party app using whatever phone API.