Garmin v Apple Watch – Technology Serving a Purpose
Don’t worry, this is not a product review. This is an examination of purpose and technology (with a sneaky lesson learned for real life).
I’m a casual runner and have been for about 25 years. More serious than the odd jog around the block but much less serious than those who ‘train’. However I’m a bit of an analytics junkie so I’ve owned several iterations of running watches over the years.
Generally these iterations have shown massive improvements over the years. Things like battery life, gps accuracy and other running metrics.
Basically, what I need is:
- Responsiveness – when I press the start button it should respond immediately
- Accuracy – pace, distance, location etc
- Battery life – as a minimum, as long as my run lasts. But ideally more than a day so I don’t have to keep charging it
I’m also a big music fan and like to run with music to keep me going.
I remember going to long runs with a pocket MP3 player and lightweight over the ear headphones. I didn’t run with music before that as my Walkman or MiniDisc player was just too heavy (more about runner’s bounce later). If you are interested, I’d recommend reading Haruki Murakami’s book, What I Talk About When I Talk About…
