not sure about you all, but i would have a hard time following a workout from a watch vs a headunit, doesn’t seem super practical to use a watch for structured workouts
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I totally agree, but I think the FTP estimation is interesting, as indicates a couple of things, firstly, intent, like @dcrainmaker said when they entered the “sports watch” arena, they should be taken seriously, not for what they have now, but where they are going
Where did they get the FTP / HR estimation (dcrainmakers recent post indicates that is based on both)
I would suggest that this either indicates they are very serious, as they will be jumping from can’t pair with power meters, to we can estimate your FTP, or they have partnered with somebody
Usually those companies have some sort of technology / patent that Apple wants, if they have come up with their own FTP estimation based on Power and HR, I think they just walked passed TR and didn’t even notice
I apologize for my cynicism. Sarcasm is prevalent on the internet so sometimes I just default to assuming that is always the case.
I feel like there are some technical restrictions to this. As @NateP mentioned, Apple Watch only supports Bluetooth and not ANT+. I am not familiar with what bluetooth protocol Apple Watch uses (I think it is supposedly going to be upgraded in the next Apple Watch release) but I am somewhat skeptical if an Apple Watch can handle connectivity with a power meter, indoor trainer, cadence meter, etc. This skepticism can be unfounded though.
I do agree with the popularity of Apple Watch and I think people do underestimate its market power within niche sport usage. I think the fact it will support connectivity with cadence and power meters is a big and worthwhile step.
I mean if you love your business and truly believe in its mission then I would disagree. But TR is not mine to sell.
They actually have. The biggest example I can think of is Dark Sky. A niche weather app that was known for their very elegant UI. After Apple purchased them they incorporated a lot of DarkSky’s features into their native app before they sunsetted the Dark Sky app itself.
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I see no correlation between Dark Sky (which had absolute crap for forecasting BTW 
) and TR…
Dark Sky had potential appeal to a much larger audience than TR. TR caters to a niche audience.
(none of that is a slag on TR…I just can’t see any reason why Apple would want them)
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But Apple didn’t buy Dark Sky for the app, they bought it for the forecasting technology and the weather service itself.
Again it comes down to having something/a patent that Apple wants, so unless TR has been working with Apple on the FTP estimation, I fail to see what TR has that Apple would want
That is a fair point. But I think Apple has indicated that they want to start appealing to the “niche” sports audience e.g Apple Watch Ultra.
Now do I think Apple acquiring TR is a decent possibility? No. But as Apple starts adding more sport specific functionality to watchOS and Apple Health I do envision a scenario where Apple starts building (or acquiring) technology that only “serious” athletes would be interested in.
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I think you answered your own question. I think TR AI FTP technology is pretty ground breaking and IMO a game changer for cycling tech. And it would certainly fall under the “TR has something that Apple would want”.
Now I don’t see it likely or close to it Apple acquires TR but I would just reiterate this point again:
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I think you miss understand me, Apple have just announced that they can pair with power meters and predict FTP, my question was what left for Apple to buy, as Apple already has this, so it isn’t something that they would want/need to buy from TR
So I totally disagree with this, why buy something you already have … unless they have already been working with TR to get this
it’s not just the power, it’s the workout steps and interval time. I dunno, when I’m riding my bike I don’t want to look my wrist, I look at the headunit.
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I did, sorry.
Well I guess the question is how do they predict FTP? Are they using AI that compares your data to all rides submitted from the user base (like TR) or are they just using the “x did x minutes at x watts” and compare that to some type of power curve to estimate your FTP (like intervals dot icu or Zwift). I would guess that Apple does the latter and argue the former is better.
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different strokes for different folks, i’d rather just have the information in front of me and have to glance at my watch or do other things to change data screens while riding
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Yes totally agree, the fact that it needs HR data to predict the FTP is intestesting, as it does indicate/hint that it not just “max effort”, but that’s just a guess reading into words
Like I said in my first post, all this is interesting (as much from a intent point of view as anything) , and I’d be interested to know where they got this “technology” and what it is, as it could indicate that they are already working with somebody, I would expect that if they had bought somebody we would have heard about this first
I expect we won’t fully know until the release of WatchOS 10,
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If Apple wants to acquire TR, they will reach out to TR.
There’s no way Apple doesn’t know about TR. Wouldn’t be surprised if there are hundreds of TR users who work at Apple in Cupertino.
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Yeah, none of these watch features are new. They are just catching up to what Garmin’s multi-sport watches have been doing since the late 2000s. 95% of the audience connecting a power meter will want a head unit to display information, be it power/hr data, routes, or just time.
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yup. Will be nice feature if I ever forget to pack my Garmin Edge.
Guess this means Apple Watch will estimate vo2max for cycling.
Tell 'em to get on it!
If it’s true that Apple is beginning to target niche applications, that would be awesome.
I’m heavily into the Apple ecosystem but haven’t bought a Watch since Gen 1 because it was too “enthusiast” oriented. Didn’t really need a device to tell me to stand up.
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There is no way I want to rely on haptic feedback for 30/30s. I’d be looking at my watch constantly, which would literally be a pain. Also, Apple Watches die so fast. I don’t want to use up half of my battery to do a workout with all those Bluetooth connections. Then throw in wrist based HR reliability and I would just never do this.
Now, having said that, if the app on the phone will do all those things, I could see this being a low end cycling computer killer.
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They are probably don’t see them as serious competition yet. That will change when apple figure out how to make a watch that can last a week between changes.
People try to put apple vs Garmin. They are not even on the same realm. Apple is a smart watch that can do sports, Garmin is a sport watch that can receive notifications. Different target audience
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I prefer my Garmin, but here you go.
For the AI FTP fans I’ll just say my Garmin 530 has given me good estimates since early 2020 and with sub-max efforts. It uses machine learning. A huge data set is not necessary. Thats not a knock against AI FTP, but we’ve seen that like Garmin the accuracy of the estimate might be really good or a bit off.
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