I am wondering about the lack of integration here. Is it just me, who is too stupid to find the integration, which is actually there, or have Garmin wasted an opportunity?
Example 1: Ability to get location from other apps.
I have some IOS maps, which have information on a location, but have no built-in way to show a route to that location. For example a Danish shelter app with information about free shelter spots in the nature, or the hotels.com app where I make my hotel reservation.
So what do these apps do when I want to be directed to my chosen shelter or hotel? They give me a list of installed apps, which can use those coordinates for something, and then I choose my preferred app from that list. In my case, those apps are Google Maps and Apple's own Maps app.
It would be obvious to have Garmin Explore in this list too, so I can send the location of my shelter to the Garmin Explore app, where I can add it as a new waypoint and send it to my watch.
Example 2: Default actions on watch when creating a new waypoint in app.
I use the Explore app together with a Fenix 5X+. My prime usage of the app is quick creation of watch waypoints on the go. Instead of trying to create a waypoint directly in the watch, it is much easier to create the waypoint in the app and send it to the watch.
So 9 of 10 times, I will use a waypoint on the watch, shortly after syncing it from the app. And yet, the watch does absolutely nothing to help me. I have to menu dive to find the list of saved locations, and then I have to scroll through the list to find exactly that waypoint, hoping that I still remember what name I gave it. (And hoping that I remembered to add it to the collection, which is synchronized with the watch, because there is not even such a thing as a default collection for new waypoints created in the app.)
I think there are at least two ways, this experience could be made much more smooth.
Suggestion 1: Start navigation from app.
When creating a new waypoint in the app, make it possible to tell the app that I want to navigate to this waypoint now, using a selected device.
If the watch is already doing a GPS-enabled activity, automatically start navigation in that activity.
If the watch is not already in an activity, either ask which app I want to use, or make it the first item in the in-activity menu, so it is easy to find. (The latter is sort of how scheduled workouts works already, to give an example of what I am thinking about.)
Suggestion 2: Add new waypoints to the in-activity menu in the watch for 24 hours after creation.
So for the first 24 hours after adding new waypoints, if I for example start a kayaking activity and open the in-activity menu by pressing the Up button before pressing the Start button, I will see "Navigate to new waypoints" as a menu item, and if I select this item, I will see only the newly added waypoints, not all the other waypoints in the watch.