[nharada]

Comments in this thread are fairly dismissive of the Ultra as a serious competitor for Garmin's high end sport watches, and this article seems like an example of it not stacking up.

But if I was Garmin I'd be terrified of Apple coming into the space. I was at Fitbit when the first Apple watch came out, and we laughed at how inferior it was to many of our products for the first several releases. Then around series 3 we started saying things like "actually it would be really nice if we had this too", and now (series 8) they're clearly the smartwatch leader in most dimensions.

I hope Garmin can remain competitive in this space, but Apple's massive resources and the long term strategy that enables is very hard to compete with.

[Woeps]

Meh.... 18 hours vs 18 days of battery life and an ridiculous price gap. I think that's all that needs to be said.

[simonh]

I hope Garmin don't think that way, or they're toast. Fortunately it looks like they have an advantage in enough areas they should be ok for now.

[_fat_santa]

Apple will definitely take the more casual part of the market, the folks going on day hikes. But Garmin will I think stay king among the more serious hikers. The battery life is the Achilles heel of the Apple Watch, it really needs to be at least ~3 days long before anyone serious is even going to consider it.

[totetsu]

How many people buying the Garmin are only using it for day hikes, or a few day trips where they're taking along a mobile battery anyway to charge their phone to take photos. I'd guess the % of people who need 18 days of battery life is very small.

[_fat_santa]

> I'd guess the % of people who need 18 days of battery life is very small.

It's not that you will need 18 days of battery life, it's simply knowing that you have it there. If you're going off for 3-4 days on a hike, there's a possibility your trip is getting extended by bad weather, wild animals, and whatnot. Knowing that's a possibility you always pack extra gear, and the idea of your main map on the trail dying is not an option.

[ghaff]

I would hope they have a paper map and compass as well (and probably a phone). The actual map on any smartwatch isn't super useful.

[D13Fd]

The vast majority of people who walk are those doing long walks or day hikes rather than multi-day hikes. That's the audience Apple is targeting here.

That fits my use. I go on 1- to 4-hour walks pretty regularly and the existing Apple Watch is already helpful for rough distance/time/calorie tracking. If the Apple Watch didn't exist, I'd probably have a Garmin, but I'm pretty happy with the "good enough" tracking features on it. I like that the Ultra shows that they care about this market.

[ghaff]

People need to understand the advertising is mostly aspirational. Just like most GoPro buyers film their trip down the intermediate downhill ski slope, not over a waterfall in a kayak or base jumping.

The extra battery life of the Ultra will be nice as will the new apps. Garmin still makes more serious "adventure" watches but for really hard-core mountaineering, I'm not sure to what degree people actually depend on watches that still need periodic charging.

[kylehotchkiss]

I bet apple has a solar charger of some sort sitting in a table in their R&D department now: maybe it’s a strap, maybe it’s under the screen? I’m thinking it’ll just be for the watch and not the phones (they get too hot sitting in the sun) I think we’ll see it when satellite SOS comes to the watch.

[kristofferR]

Getting these vibes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U

[saiya-jin]

Yes in the future maybe Apple will eat Garmin's cake and lunch. But for now its just a shiny not-so-useful gimmick compared to Garmin's. I bought my wife same Garmin as author compares to, I have few friends who are deep into drinking Apple's cool-aid... and its uncomparable device for outdoors.

One is jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none, the other possibly the best civilian gadget for map-on-wrist hiking (apart from 7 series which are way too expensive but stack up on that shininess better).

Plus lets not forget a very important point skimmed in article, where Apple fails even if rest would be comparable - miserable battery life. The topic is about going to wilderness, and gadget desperately needing recharging much more often is simply vastly inferior to one needing less. Also they seem much less rugged, which is pretty bad for outdoors where you bang watches against trees and rock frequently.

So situation for outdoors is unlike in phones segment, where on most fronts (but far from all) when you pay Apple money you get a very decent and capable phone. In watches you get just OK watches within their segment (compared to products from Xiaomi, Samsung etc.)

[savrajsingh]

Do you think apple held off for 20 years because some of Garmin’s patents are expiring? Interested to know the behind the scenes of the inevitable patent issues.