Every day, when I launch the Strava app on the Apple Watch, I get the loading spinner with the app icon while the app launches, then a screen that just says “Loading…” that blocks the UI for anywhere from 60 to 120 seconds or more.
Why does the Loading screen need to be there?
Blocking the app is extremely frustrating from a UX perspective, and it’s becoming a dealbreaker after years of waiting an extraordinary amount of time (and sometimes forgetting) to start my activity every day.
Whatever it’s doing (e.g., updating the list of sport types based on frequency of use), could it instead be done in the background for the next app launch?
I use my Apple Watch for limited periods of fitness tracking each day, so I turn it off every day. That seems like it could be a factor in the choice to present this Loading screen every single time, but I think that’s further evidence it needs to change, as a cold launch after a restart is not a good proxy for “the app hasn’t been used in a while”.
Best answer by -Charles-
Thanks for sharing your experience, @nekno. It does sound like the Strava app is getting resources ready on your Apple Watch when first started due to the watch having been powered off beforehand.
While I don’t have any life-changing suggestions to make, there are a couple options for navigating around this trouble:
Immediately start the Strava app after rebooting your Apple Watch Well before you are ready to start your activity, go ahead and tap on the Strava app to start it on your watch. Letting the app do its thing as you go about other business will prevent you from having to wait through any loading time if you launch the app right before a workout.
Use another app One of Strava’s strengths is that it is a platform which accepts activity uploads from a wide range of apps and devices. There are many apps for Apple Watch beyond just the Strava app which can be used to record your activities and upload them to your Strava account. Apple’s own Workout app which comes preinstalled on all Apple Watches is one good option whose finished activities can be imported to Strava through the Apple Health integration in our iPhone app: Health App and Strava. There are also many different 3rd party apps which can connect to your Strava account so that finished activities are uploaded. We encourage exploring the world of options available in case there’s an option which fits your needs read well.
Again, it’s certainly helpful to hear about your experience using the Strava Apple Watch app. We’ll be sure to incorporate your thoughts as we continue development of the app.
Turning it off is the best option, all things considered. Cycles are hard on the battery. Charging it, discharging it for one workout, then charging it again for ~20 hours at a time would dramatically shorten the battery life compared to just shutting it off when I’m not using it and turning it on when I do.
Thanks for sharing your experience, @nekno. It does sound like the Strava app is getting resources ready on your Apple Watch when first started due to the watch having been powered off beforehand.
While I don’t have any life-changing suggestions to make, there are a couple options for navigating around this trouble:
Immediately start the Strava app after rebooting your Apple Watch Well before you are ready to start your activity, go ahead and tap on the Strava app to start it on your watch. Letting the app do its thing as you go about other business will prevent you from having to wait through any loading time if you launch the app right before a workout.
Use another app One of Strava’s strengths is that it is a platform which accepts activity uploads from a wide range of apps and devices. There are many apps for Apple Watch beyond just the Strava app which can be used to record your activities and upload them to your Strava account. Apple’s own Workout app which comes preinstalled on all Apple Watches is one good option whose finished activities can be imported to Strava through the Apple Health integration in our iPhone app: Health App and Strava. There are also many different 3rd party apps which can connect to your Strava account so that finished activities are uploaded. We encourage exploring the world of options available in case there’s an option which fits your needs read well.
Again, it’s certainly helpful to hear about your experience using the Strava Apple Watch app. We’ll be sure to incorporate your thoughts as we continue development of the app.
Immediately start the Strava app after rebooting your Apple Watch
Use another app
Thanks, @charles — I appreciate it if you’re able to relay my experience (as a representation of many others’ experiences) to the development team for intake.
What you shared are the workarounds I use now.
Launching the app early sometimes works, but given the fact that the watch times out and dims the screen when not actively using it, and that watch apps have limited time to run when that happens before they are deactivated and moved to the background (put to sleep), it doesn’t often work, and so takes multiple attempts.
When needing to start the activity immediately, I have used Apple’s Workout app as an alternative, but then have noticed differences in the stats from when the Strava watch app is recording, so it leaves me to wonder if Apple’s recording is more accurate because they prioritize their own access to system resources for a 1st-party app, or if they’re trying to be more efficient with battery usage, and it’s Strava’s recording that’s more accurate.
@nekno regarding the stats difference - the most visible one would probably be the calories burned. While the native AW workout app records both active and overall calories, it prioritises active calories; Strava only records overall (i.e. significantly higher number). Personally I prefer using the native workout app as it has much more detailed options for interval trainings, voice notifications etc, and then sync to Strava, but it's a matter of personal choice I suppose.
Apple devices in general are designed for continuous use rather than frequent turning on and off. I understand that you don't wear your AW other than for the workouts - which is a bit unusual, as people usually wear it pretty much 24/7, to utilise all the health features it has as well as the smartwatch functionalities. Again this is a matter of personal preference, and you probably have your reasons why you only want to wear the watch for your hikes, though it's actually not what the device was designed for… it's a great watch, but loading everything after turning on isn't super fast, I only assume this wasn't prioritised by Apple, as their engineers designed the system rather for continuous use.
i know this won't help to resolve the issue you're experiencing, but I thought I’d add some context into the discussion 🙂
Thanks, @Jana_S. I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said, except that the loading screen for the launch of the app is relatively quick, and the “Loading...” screen I’m referring to was added by the Strava devs, so it’s a design choice for the app that could be made differently.
Today, I turned on the watch, unlocked the device, launched the Strava app, saw the launch screen load, and then the “Loading...” screen only lasted a few seconds. So while the discussion has focused on my restarting the watch, it’s clear there’s more in play here.
The differences in the stats I’ve seen are actually in the GPS data, and as a result the length of a cycling workout, where the differences aren’t small (I recall the diff being more than a mile on a ~30mi ride, but I’d have to go back to find a direct comparison). So, I was thinking more about the relative frequency of recording geolocation changes between different apps.
@nekno what I meant is that without a restart, the apps remain running on the background - and (re)opening them is faster than a new launch after the OS boot.
I can't comment much on the distance difference, but in terms of accuracy, I’d say that the native workout app is pretty good (when running a certified 5k/10k, the milestones are usually spot on).
@nekno what I meant is that without a restart, the apps remain running on the background - and (re)opening them is faster than a new launch after the OS boot.
Thanks, I get that there is a difference between launching and resuming an app, because apps in suspended and background states stay in memory.
So the important parts to keep in mind are:
This problem isn’t about the OS process of app launch. The OS launches the app quickly even after a reboot. This is about an additional “Loading…” screen implemented by the app after the launch of the app.
We’ve been focusing the discussion on rebooting the watch, but since I do not see this problem after every reboot, it clearly isn’t the (only) factor that matters. If I can reboot and not see the problem, then something else is the determining factor.
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