[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.)