Activity App Developer Support Group?

All I can say is I see the same kinds of problems and complaints from Garmin devs and users, over and over again. I've experienced a lot of bugs firsthand, too.

What bothers me the most are:

- obvious design issues (especially the ones that can still be remedied but we know it will never happen)
- poor documentation
- recurring bugs (the same kinds of bugs come back year after year)

At some point, "you're holding it wrong" or "all companies have bugs" doesn't cut it (for me, anyway).

I will just say I think it's a systemic problem and not the fault of any individuals at Garmin. I'm sure everyone is very passionate about their job, but I think lots of us have also worked in environments where that kind of passion was stifled or snuffed out, due to the overall culture.

I personally know what it's like to "care too much" about product quality, and have internal bug reports be ignored by managers for years.

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/running-multisport/f/forerunner-955-series/323038/developer-criticism-for-the-software-in-the-955-watch

FlowState said:

I will just say I think it's a systemic problem and not the fault of any individuals at Garmin.

I agree with you on this 100%. I don't know where the breakdown is (or if there are multiple points spread around) but everyone I've met on the Connect IQ team seems amazing and clearly want the platform to be great. But the CIQ team is dependant on the device teams and the teams responsible for Garmin Express and GCM and, and, and. There are a lot of moving parts at Garmin and I think that likely ends up causing many of the issues that end users experience. That said, I found some of the information in this podcast quite telling, especially when the Garmin developer says they don't track memory and simply crash/reboot the watch if necessary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKCLmYH7uqw

And I'm not convinced that the device teams necessarily eat their own dogfood. Or if they do, they aren't using the devices in the same manner that regular users are. And they certainly aren't using the devices outside of the internal Garmin ecosphere. I know for a fact that the developer responsible for the D2 Bravo (pilot version of the Fenix 3) wasn't even a pilot. And while a pilot license isn't necessary to be able to program aviation functionality, it certainly helps with some of the more obscure edge use cases.

That all said, Garmin is the superior platform for any kind of activity tracking, even if a GPS isn't involved. And I'd argue that it's also the best platform for programming for, in terms of functionality and developer time ROI. And even with the bugs, crashes and frustrations, it's still mostly stable and so users like me keep coming back. But that doesn't mean I don't get frustrated... from time to time.

dbrobert said:

And I'm not convinced that the device teams necessarily eat their own dogfood.

Yup.

dbrobert said:

And I'd argue that it's also the best platform for programming for, in terms of functionality and developer time ROI.

Do you mean amongst all wearables? I think the only competitors are Apple Watch and Wear OS, and I'm guessing you could make a lot more money (and reach a lot more users) with an AW app at least.

Supposedly the AW userbase is 100 million and the Garmin wearable userbase is 60 million. Given the fact that garmin's CIQ store doesn't even have payments built in, I don't see how CIQ gives you a better ROI, unless you're just talking about a warm and fuzzy feeling from writing something useful.

I say this all the time, and it's purely anecdotal, but pretty much none of the people I've run with know or care about CIQ. That includes a whole range of runners from 2:30 to 5 hour marathoners.

I would also mention that Garmin needs to hire at least one full-time person for a role I would call "Developer Champion", whose job it is to be super active on the forums and bridge the gap between Connect IQ developers and all the Garmin teams. The level of frustration that users of all types feel could be dramatically reduced if communication was increased. Right now, each release of an SDK is a surprise, as is what it will contain. The latest release of Epix 2 firmware might have a fix for one of my reported bugs but the release has been stuck at 10% for the past two days -- why?? A little honest communication goes a long way.

FlowState said:

Do you mean amongst all wearables? I think the only competitors are Apple Watch and Wear OS, and I'm guessing you could make a lot more money (and reach a lot more users) with an AW app at least.

Yes, across all wearables. I was referring to "developer time" and what can be accomplished as a developer. The AW has too many limitations and I know zero people with Wear OS devices. But most of my CIQ work is for apps that support another product. I don't think there is much money to be made anywhere in mobile and wearable apps given that everyone wants everything for free, or at worst "99 cents".

FlowState said:

garmin's CIQ store doesn't even have payments built in

Yes, I have no idea how or why that was decided. Or why it's not been actioned now that Connect IQ is clearly here to stay.

FlowState said:

I say this all the time, and it's purely anecdotal, but pretty much none of the people I've run with know or care about CIQ. That includes a whole range of runners from 2:30 to 5 hour marathoners.

Yeah, I don't know what the percentage is but I do meet a lot of people that don't even know the Garmin Store exists or if they do know about it, they have zero apps installed.

At least with iphone, ipad and (to a lesser extent) AW apps, you have a chance to win the lottery and make it big (maybe less of a chance than 5-10 years ago).

There's zero chance with Garmin.

Even if all you care about is reaching a large number of users, that's not going to happen with Garmin unless you create a popular watchface and give it away for free.

flocsy🤠 said:

The whole forum is just a big "anonymous Garmin developers helper group" It, and the top commenters especially have strong resemblance to the anonim alcoholists

I'm in this comment and I don't like it

I think you understand what I mean :) but to be sure it was not meant to hurt anyone, quiet the opposite: we're all addicted to whatever hacking CIQ means to each and every one of us. And we're all "alone", more or less helping each other without much support from G.

Yeah, I understood. My response was a meme - a jokey way of saying, "yup, that sounds just like me!"