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Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

david-smith.org

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Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#31

Post by Schiendelman »

Sir_Twist wrote: post #22
cromka wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the less Apple made apps, the better for the ecosystem and the quality of the apps in general. Apple's recent "sherlocked" apps are not good quality at all, but they make it substantially more difficult for 3rd parties to compete with the now default offerings.

Not a developer, but I feel like Apple improving the defaults has been good for the ecosystem. The Reminders app is an example of this, because as it has gotten better over the years, the baseline for a good iOS to-do app has been raised, without reducing the market.

I agree 100%. I ended up building myself a utility to wrangle my reminders (like keep them from getting missed/lost) instead of using a third-party app.

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#32

Post by SpyCoder77 »

monk_grilla wrote: post #26
SpyCoder77 wrote: post #2

As a pedometer++ user, it is amazing the attention to detail David has maintained over the years. The evolution is crazy.

I’m interested since it’s clear this is a passionate and talented developer, but it seems the primary feature is step tracking, which iPhone already does by default. Is Pedometer++’s step counting somehow more accurate?

Yes, the primary feature that is being marketed is step tracking, but the app in general is much more than that. It's like how flighty just is a wrapper for the flights API that you could access through Google, yet flighty is the best app for flight tracking nonetheless and is a really cool app.

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#33

Post by coldtea »

thrownawaysz wrote: post #3

The fact that there is no 1st party Apple made hiking and topography map on the Apple Watch is such a failure, not even on the most expensive “made for explorers” Watch Ultra. And things like gpx import is just a mere dream It’s a lifestyle device after all but still

Is it? They have a platform you can run other apps on, and this one in TFA and others provides this functionality.

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#34

Post by coldtea »

Schiendelman wrote: post #31
Sir_Twist wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a developer, but I feel like Apple improving the defaults has been good for the ecosystem. The Reminders app is an example of this, because as it has gotten better over the years, the baseline for a good iOS to-do app has been raised, without reducing the market.

I agree 100%. I ended up building myself a utility to wrangle my reminders (like keep them from getting missed/lost) instead of using a third-party app.

Can you describe that utility?

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#35

Post by xp84 »

coldtea wrote: post #34
Schiendelman wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree 100%. I ended up building myself a utility to wrangle my reminders (like keep them from getting missed/lost) instead of using a third-party app.

Can you describe that utility?

Nice try, Claude Code

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#36

Post by Centigonal »

thrownawaysz wrote: post #3

The fact that there is no 1st party Apple made hiking and topography map on the Apple Watch is such a failure, not even on the most expensive “made for explorers” Watch Ultra. And things like gpx import is just a mere dream It’s a lifestyle device after all but still

I trust people like David Smith and companies like onX more than Apple when it comes to creating and supporting a top tier outdoor mapping app.

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#37

Post by coldtea »

xp84 wrote: post #35
coldtea wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you describe that utility?

Nice try, Claude Code

Is that meant to be a joke? I've been on HN for over a decade. Closer to ELIZA's era than that of LLMs.

I'm curious because I'm also interested in hacking the Reminders app via its API, to add some features in a side app

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#38

Post by jsbisviewtiful »

thrownawaysz wrote: post #3

The fact that there is no 1st party Apple made hiking and topography map on the Apple Watch is such a failure, not even on the most expensive “made for explorers” Watch Ultra. And things like gpx import is just a mere dream It’s a lifestyle device after all but still

Apple is so intent on making the Apple Watch a catch-all that it doesn’t necessarily do any specific activity amazingly. After three Apple Watches over many years I finally sold my 10 last year and won’t be buying another. I bought a Coros and am pretty pleased with it, would consider a Garmin in the future. Coros and Garmin devices are built with activity in mind and not unneeded apps, like Uber. Garmin and Coros both have maps too.

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#39

Post by kobieps »

I spend a lot of time in wilderness areas that I don't know, and I simply pull my phone out of my pocket to see where I am. My watch measures my heart rate and that's it. While I have no doubt that pedometer++ is great and the work that went into it is impressive, I can't really see myself switching away from a big screen workflow to see exactly where I am. And I don't need to check where I am every 5 minutes. Typically only every 30 minutes or longer. Dunno, maybe I'm missing something :shrug:

Re: Six years perfecting maps on watchOS

#40

Post by Razengan »

While traveling in another country, I once forgot my iPhone passcode (don't ask, I'm autistic like that)

After a few retries it put me on a 2 hour timeout.

I had to get back to my room. I knew the way back on foot well enough, about 30 minutes away, but I wanted to take a look at the map anyway.

I thought I'd try it on my Apple Watch Ultra 3. It was a few months ago so it was the latest OS.

There were a few bugs in trying to do that simple task, like when typing out the name of a location the keyboard kept disappearing as if the UI was crashing or something.

I sighed, muttered a few curses at the state of things and the people in charge who let it get this way, and lowered my wrist and just enjoyed the stroll.

Like so many things in Apple software since the past 5 or so years, so much shit just doesn't work when you REALLY need it. F'n hell

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