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WWDC20 General Impressions

First, my thanks to everyone at Apple for making this happen, even more so this year. It has been a great Dub Dub, and I am inspired and excited about the coming year.

TL;DR

Excellent week. I still miss being there with everyone in person, but that’s life right now. Hope we can converge the online and in-person format going forward.

Keynote

Keynote was so well done. The intro instantly made me feel connected with all my virtual participants. The content was well paced and formatted. The video quality was as always very much to Apple standards, but what stood out was how nicely it zoomed through different presenters. Going into this week, I dreaded that the keynote would feel like a lame online conference, where presenters would either just get on a video call, do their parts, or had somehow already done their parts to form a linked up disparate demo. None of that at all, it was a pleasant show, and almost felt interactive in a way. The blending of different sites of Apple Park, Craig running, Julz dancing, and so much more, made it delightful. In a way this keynote felt light and refreshing, the presenters felt smooth, and it went fast.

SOTU

Platforms State of the Union is a must watch if you are a developer and get to watch only 1 session from this week. While I am super interested and can’t wait to be on Apple Silicon, the details about it felt like it could have been a dedicated session in itself. It sort of felt inverted, because the keynote talked about the Apple Silicon at the end, and SOTU started with it, and I was more curious to hear about new software parts first.

Sessions

Sessions have been my favorite part this year. It’s Friday, and I do not feel exhausted from watching hour long sessions in dark. It’s been very easy to stay up-to-date. 

  • The short and to the point sessions help maintain the rhythm for me, even with other distractions while at home.

  • I love the ability to copy code while watching a session.

  • Quick links to forums from each session is convenient.

  • When I originally saw the schedule, I wondered why not just upload all the videos on Monday, but the daily pacing has helped maintain my sanity and not get overwhelmed.

  • The brevity of these sessions will make them great reference for future work too. I usually have to plan around rewatching a WWDC session for reference, or it takes a good 10-15 mins to parse through one to find what I am looking for. This year’s sessions are so compact and to the point that I will be able to just watch the whole thing instead of scrubbing through them. And copying code feature is going to be extremely useful here too.

Labs

Labs have been easy to schedule and really well done. I have been to 2 labs (and 1 scheduled for today), and like every year, each one has been a pleasant and insightful 1-on-1 discussion that quickly helped me figure out what I needed.

I almost missed one of the labs, because I didn’t realize that my request could still be confirmed after an initial decline. It would have been nice if there was a push notification sent to the Developer app about the status change of my lab request.

Daily Recaps

Serenity Caldwell’s daily recaps are blazing fast ongoing summary of Dub Dub. They are fun to watch! I am pointing everyone, who are not actively participating this week, to go watch these as a quick rundown of what’s happening at WWDC this week. I hope these are put together somewhere in a playlist for future reference.

Announcements

I will leave the detailed comprehension and analysis of all the new announcements for the experts. As a developer, my generalized take is that following will make my life so much easier,

  • Xcode Improvements. So much faster!

  • SwiftUI Updates

  • Apple Watch Complications using SwiftUI

  • StoreKit Testing framework

  • SF Symbols 2

Other things to highlight here from the announcements,

  • It’s pretty clear that SwiftUI is the future of UI development on Apple platforms.

  • Apple Silicon is here! With that + Catalyst from last year, it seems that we should all start planning and preparing for our iOS apps running on Mac in some shape or form.

  • Once again, Apple just showed everyone how privacy is an ongoing thing that Apple relentlessly focuses on, and made it so much easier for all of us to have better control over our privacy. These new controls seem very user-friendly, and they will enable everyone to be aware of what we might be sharing, or share in a limited manner. 👏

There is a lot more that will affect both my apps and daily life as a developer, but it’s only the Friday of WWDC week, and I am still processing it.

The Apple Way

I can’t imagine the crazy logistics that went into orchestrating all of this. This was the first year, and I hope the only year with current circumstances, but in no way it felt like a 1.0, with rough edges. You can tell a lot of thought and care went into every detail. The finesse through all of it is something that we take for granted from Apple, but in this case there were no years of behind-the-scenes refinements, time for a thousand no’s, ability to collaborate physically in one place, without any distractions, and Apple did what Apple does best—everything felt right and just worked.

I missed making new friends, seeing folks I admire, catching up with old friends, being together in person with everyone, but there are so many great parts to this, and part of me wants this format going forward. I hope Apple figures out a way to converge the online and physical formats into a new WWDC of the future.

Battery Performance of Apple Watch in a Marathon

On Sunday, October 13, I ran the 2019 Chicago Marathon with an Apple Watch Series 5. This is a quick report on how well the watch battery performed.

TL;DR: Apple Watch Series 5 used only 50% battery over a full marathon distance, ran in 3:53:25.

⚡️ 50%   ⏱ 3:53:25   🏃‍♂️ 26.2 miles

Apple Watch Setup

  • Series 5, 40mm in Titanium, with ‪watchOS 6.0.1‬
  • Untethered — ran without tethered iPhone
  • Cellular was Off
  • Theater Mode was On‬
  • Used the Workout app to track the run
  • Power Saving Mode for the Workout app was Off
  • No streaming audio — no music or podcast was played
  • Water Lock was On

Total Run Duration

  • 3 hours, 53 minutes, and 25 seconds

Total Run Distance

  • 26.2 miles
  • Distance tracked by the Workout app: 26.91 miles (See Notes below)

Battery Used: 50%

  • Only 50% battery was used to run a full marathon
  • 96% charge before start
  • 46% charge at the finish
Battery at 96% before start

Battery at 96% before start

Battery at 46% after finish

Battery at 46% after finish

Notes

  • [7:15 AM] Kept the watch powered down until 15 minutes before the race officially started.
  • [7:18 AM] On startup, battery was at 99%, I tapped on the Weather complication to refresh. That seemed to take too long (couple of minutes), so I immediately turned off WiFi and Cellular. Battery was now at 97%, probably from the network call trying to refresh weather.
  • [7:20 AM] Turned On theater mode about 10 minutes before the race started. Bad idea, because it got tricky to wake up the watch display and start a workout with gloves on. Yes, that was me standing past the start line to start a workout 🤪. I usually put it in theater mode after starting a run. Never go off script during a race.
  • [7:45 AM] I crossed the start line at 15 minutes past official start time. About 45K runners run the Chicago marathon every year, so the race is started in waves with different corrals of runners.
  • [7:45 AM] The watch had been on now for about 30 minutes, and in theater mode for about 25 minutes, at 96%.
  • With Power Saving Mode for the Workout app disabled, Apple Watch tracked the heart rate with the built-in sensor through out the run. But with Theater Mode On and Cellular Off, it essentially utilized 2 out of the 3 techniques that the Workout app's Power Saving Mode uses.
  • Turning Theater Mode On disabled always-on display, and required tapping the screen everytime I wanted to view my running data (pace, distance, etc) in progress. I am used to this, because I have been using the same setup during my long runs for the past year, with Apple Watch Series 4.
  • Workout app reported final distance to be 26.91 miles vs the official 26.2 miles. The additional distance of 0.71 miles is pretty normal for most of the tracking devices at such long-distance races due to reasons like erratic GPS signal around tall city buildings, or turns and curves adding up.

Marathon Ready

I have been training for and running marathons with Apple Watch since it launched in 2015. In total, I have run 6 marathons with Apple Watch(es), at least one marathon with every year’s model. There is no question on how well can the Apple Watch handle marathon training and racing. With only 50% battery utilization for an almost 4-hour marathon run, Apple Watch is an extremely versatile and powerful fitness device that no runner should ignore.

Here’s my marathon run in Tempo

IMG_0499.JPG

Battery Improvements in Apple Watch Series 2

Summary:

The latest Apple Watch (Series 2) used only 46% battery for a 3 hours, 35 minutes run vs the first generation Apple Watch that drained most of the battery on a similar run last year. Both the watches are 38mm in size.

Some data from last year:

During a 20 mile run last year (9/19/15), Apple Watch (first generation) drained almost 99% battery.

Apple Watch (2015): Post 20 mile run. Battery at 1%.

Apple Watch (2015): Post 20 mile run. Battery at 1%.

The 20 mile run was in preparation for the Chicago marathon, and based on above data, I knew that Apple Watch won't last for the full marathon at my pace. On race day, I decided to not bring my iPhone so I could carry enough energy gels instead. This meant all of Apple Watch tracking was done using the built-in accelerometer. Surprisingly, I found Apple Watch to be way more reliable than a Garmin Forerunner that went erratic around tall city buildings. Unfortunately, with no paired phone, it also drained 100% battery in the first 16.3 miles.

For my spring 2016 marathon, I discovered power saving mode that disables heart rate sensor during workouts. I verified it during a 20 mile run and used it for the marathon. It worked great, and while the battery lasted for the entire race, I have no heart rate data from that run. It was a hot and humid day to run a marathon and heart rate data would had been an effective way to analyze how I faded off during the last 8 miles.

 

Same run with the new Apple Watch Series 2:

Last Saturday (9/17/16), I did the same run, a bit longer (21 miles), mostly along the same course, with Apple Watch Series 2. Here are some screenshots taken before, during and after the run,

A quick side experiment:

This was the final long run of my training cycle for Chicago marathon, so I did not want to risk not bringing my phone along and possibly lose or have inaccurate data for it. While I still carried my phone, I decided it was safe enough to do a little experiment at mile 19 and turn off the phone. In the presence of a paired phone, Apple Watch relies on phone GPS reception for better signal and to conserve battery. So I was curious to see how the watch (specifically built-in GPS) would react, when a paired phone disappears in the midst of a run.

The transition was flawless. Apple Watch GPS took over seamlessly when the phone was turned off. This was verified with a course map generated from accurate location data for the whole run.

Not surprisingly, the built-in GPS did use more battery. In the last 20 minutes, battery availability dropped from 57% to 48%. That's 9% for 20 mins with built-in GPS vs 39% for the first 182 mins with a paired phone.

Again, this was mostly to test how well the watchOS and Workout app is built/tested for random GPS source switching. It's impressive that the watch GPS picked up without any glitch and it tracked the remaining run with no issues. In retrospect, considering I didn't want to mess with my data for this run, shutting the phone down was a risky move. I am glad that watchOS and iOS could pick up and sync nicely when the phone was back online.

Results – Battery improvements by numbers:

At mile 19, while still paired with a phone, the new Apple Watch had drained only 39% battery (that's about 41% for 20 miles *). This is substantial improvement over first generation Apple Watch that drained almost 95% battery for the same 20 mile run, done last year.

Mapping the above numbers to total running duration: first generation Apple Watch drained most of the battery for a 3 hours, 35 minutes run, where as the current Series 2 model needed only 46% (**) for the same 3 hours, 35 minutes run. That's over 7 hours of running time on one charge with still some battery power left. (Apple's official tech specs suggest 8 hours of workout from a full battery charge)

Even by including the variance caused due to the above side experiment, 48% for first 21 miles without power saving mode means I can run with the new Apple Watch Series 2 for a full 26.2 miles and still collect all the useful heart rate data.

This is great news for me as a runner and I am sure for many runners out there. If you are looking to buy a new running watch, I would highly recommend Apple Watch Series 2.


Battery was at 96% at start and 57% at mile 19. That's (96-57)/19 = 2.05% per mile.

** Battery drained for 182 minutes was (96-57=39%). That's about 46% for 215 minutes.

New Apps We Love

New Apps We Love is the very first section of the Featured tab in the App Store. On Sunday, May 29th, Tempo showed up as the first app listed there.

I ran a marathon on May 28th and was still high from the 26.2 mile run on Sunday evening, when Tempo was featured. Words can not describe the feeling of getting featured in the App Store while already in an elevated state of runner's high. The fact that Tempo is all about running made it even sweeter.

To say that it was really amazing would be an understatement. I was ecstatic! Tempo is a labor of love. Love for the sport of running. Love for building quality software. Software to help me become a better runner. To see that it can be useful for other runners and getting recognized in the App Store is not only gratifying and exhilarating, but also inspiring.

Getting featured has helped Tempo to be noticed by more runners. Runners have been sending e-mails of appreciation - claiming Tempo to be exactly the app they have needed for a while. Some runners have also been gracious to rate Tempo in the App Store. This is very encouraging. It's fuel for me to keep making Tempo better. I am very grateful for all of it.

Thank you, App Store team, for featuring Tempo and allowing it to be discovered by runners all around the world. ❤️