While it’s too soon to tell, the team at Garmin seems responsive and willing to listen to issues and feature requests from both users and developers alike. The CIQ team are great listeners, and are willing to consider features that developers want no matter who proposes them. In many ways, this feels similar to the early days at Pebble. While there’s a smaller dev community, in general folks seem more willing to help out, and share their code & knowledge at the drop of a hat.
eir3apps: We monitor the forum, but we're not always able to respond to every thread. Aside from the forum, we have a general inbox at [email][email protected][/email] that the whole team checks. We typically use it when we need to work directly with a developer to sort out an issue (e.g. receive error logs, source code, etc.).
I'll review the other thread you linked above and follow up with you about it.
Unlike for Pebble, Apple requests developers to provide Garmin hardware to Apple, in order for them to be able to test and review the submitted app,I'm not sure that it is something “Pebble provided and Garmin does not”, though. If Garmin offers hardware to reviewers such as DCRainmaker (who apparently makes it his personal policy to return the offered gear after testing it, not that Garmin requires or requested it), then I'd hazard a guess Garmin also has no issue with giving Apple one or more test units. However, Garmin doesn't control Apple's policies or how Apple distributes test units it receives from the manufacturer.
I'm not sure
If Garmin offers hardware to reviewers such as DCRainmaker (who apparently makes it his personal policy to return the offered gear after testing it, not that Garmin requires or requested it), then I'd hazard a guess Garmin also has no issue with giving Apple one or more test units.
The user/developer experience is not the source of truth of what Garmin has or has not provided within its power directly to either Apple or to developers.
But, the end point is that when a Garmin developer tries to publish an iOS companion app (a scenario which is supported by Garmin, since they offer an iOS SDK), then that same developer has to provide Apple some Garmin hardware for them to test on!
A much smaller, and now not-existing company, such as Pebble, made sure that when developers for their smart wear decide to build an iOS companion app, they won't need to supply Pebble hardware to Apple.
It's not the source of the truth, but it is the developer experience which, presumably, companies such as Garmin want to make better. They published an SDK, tutorials, developer sites, this forum which they also monitor, etc. One thing that seems to be missing is the "publish for iOS" part.
I write this hoping for someone to prove me wrong. That's what I need.
- iOS SDK with clear instructions how to build and submit to Apple's App Store. Not only does Pebble provide the detailed instructions and resources necessary to build an app acceptable to the App Store, but they also provide Photoshop templates for the image assets that would be required when submitting an app.
