Acknowledged
4 months ago

Feature Request: Allow CIQ 4.0 "super apps" to exist only as glances (and not icons in the activity/app launcher)

Background:

In CIQ 4.0 devices, native apps have the ability to exist only in the glance list, and not in the activity/app launcher. There are many of examples of this, such as the steps glance and HR glance.

In general a native app has at least 3 combinations of "launcher modes":

- glance list only

- activity/app launcher only

- glance list and activity/app launcher (this seems rare)

(I'll ignore other launcher modes like the controls menu, hot keys, settings menu, and watchface complications)

However, CIQ 4.0 device apps / widgets ("super apps") only have the following 2 combos:

- activity / app launcher only

- glance list and activity/app launcher

Feature Request:

As a CIQ developer, I would like to be able to implement an app which is only available from the glance list, and not the app launcher, for the following reasons:

- it's an app meant primarily to provide "glanceable" information that can be quickly accessed by the end user. It doesn't make sense for this app icon to clutter up the activity/app launcher,

- native apps can do this, so why not CIQ apps?

As a user who recently upgraded from 945 LTE to 955 myself, I found it disconcerting that my favorite CIQ widgets now appear in the activity list by default. I know that I can remove them manually, but that's an extra step. I realize that this behavior is intentional, though. Maybe a compromise would be to add a new flag to the manifest which specifies that a super app should not appear in the activity/app list by default?

I also noticed that some CIQ widgets (which were originally created prior to the introduction of super apps) actually have *less* functionality in the activity list as opposed to the glance list. This is because the newly implemented glance view provides information that isn't present in the activity list or when actually "opening" the app.

e.g. Battery Graph: https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/923cd514-fe15-476c-855e-26846d2007ec#0

When I first install this widget, the glance shows me my current battery level, but when I initially open the app, all I get is a message saying that battery information is still being gathered. To be fair, this is a temporary situation but it seems like an example of an app which makes more sense to live in the glance list rather than the activity/app list.

FlowState
  • over 1 year ago

    Remember, it's always been the case where native apps can do things differently than CIQ app.

    Yeah I know. Remember, I have been here for years and I have seen you say this multiple times. I think I was clear that:

    - I know that native apps can do more than CIQ apps in this regard (it's the basis for my feature request)

    - In this case, I would like CIQ apps to be a bit closer to native apps, in order to improve the user experience

    Also, you can edit the activity loop on the watch itself to remove something you don't want there. On a touch device like the 965. youcan press the icon in the activity loop and able to do things like set as a favorite, reorder and remove.

    Yeah, I think I made it clear that I know the user can remove apps from the activity list or glance loop. Did you read what I wrote?

    Did you just get your first CIQ 4 device?

    Yeah, I think I sort of mentioned that:

    "As a user who recently upgraded from 945 LTE to 955 myself,"

    "When I upgraded to 955 (my first 4.0 watch),"

    You also won't see much (if any) discussion about this in the forums and it's been this way for years

    I'm aware of both of these things. Just because something has been a certain way for years and nobody complained, doesn't mean it can't be improved.

    People complained for years that all resource strings (including strings only used for settings) impact app memory. Years after the initial complaint, Garmin actually added a "settings" scope for resources.

    Every time someone asks for an improvement, you have one or more of the following responses:

    - it's been this way for years

    - nobody is asking for this

    - people have asked for this for years but it's never happened

    By this logic, nobody should ask for anything.

  • over 1 year ago

    The other downside to the "super apps" is that it has impacted activity apps, in that you can no longer access CIQ widgets when running a CIQ activity. On the Fenix 6 series you get an error that the activity will stop when you try to access a CIQ widget and on the Fenix 7 (Epix 2) series the activity just ends.

    I think it's great that widgets/glances have access to more memory but if I was making the decision, I would have kept widgets as is but simply have made more memory available to them. I have only built a dozen widgets or so but I have trouble seeing how any widget needs as much memory as is available.

  • over 1 year ago in reply to FlowState

    Remember, it's always been the case where native apps can do things differently than CIQ app.

    With Super apps on a 4.x device, you can use Garmin Express to remove something from the activity loop or the glance loop.  PiTemps is a single app, but you see it as both a glance and an app in Garmin Express.  

    Also, you can edit the activity loop on the watch itself to remove something you don't want there. On a touch device like the 965. youcan press the icon in the activity loop and able to do things like set as a favorite, reorder and remove.

    The default is it shows in both places, but it's easy to exclude it from one place or the other.  In the years since CIQ 4 came out and very many downloads I don't think I've had a single user ask me about this.  And there are times I might use the the item in activity vs starting from a glance, as on a watch, the glance times out after a couple minutes, when when started from the activity loop, it runs until I terminate it.  You can also add some of the native glances to the activity loop if you want.

    Did you just get your first CIQ 4 device?  You also won't see much (if any) discussion about this in the forums and it's been this way for years

  • over 1 year ago

    Sounds like you want them to bring back the actual "widget" type app on CIQ 4 devices.

    I kinda do.

    When you build an app with type="widget" for a CIQ 4 device, it's built as a device-app.  If you do a "build for device" of a pre ciq 4 device and sideload it to a CIQ 4 device, you'll see an error in CIQ_LOG about how widgets aren't supported,  If you build for a CIQ4 device, it will run fine.

    While the mechanics of of how a widget actually gets compiled as a device app for CIQ 4 devices are interesting, I'm just concerned about the loss of functionality / elimination of a use case. The end user doesn't need to know or care about how this stuff works under the covers.

    On a CIQ 4 device, with a supper app (think of it as a device app with a glance view), when you select a glance (a tap on it or using the upper right button) it will open in full screen mode and should be the same as if you had started it from the activity loop,  That's the case for every one of my "super apps"

    I understand that, but like I said, the request is to able to exclude a given super app from the activity/app list (even if it's just by default). Again, this is something that's clearly possible for native apps, since something like the Steps glance doesn't show up in the activity list and can't be added there.

    It doesn't have to be a case where the widget type is literally brought back (I realize that won't happen), it could be something like adding a new manifest flag which specifies that the app shouldn't appear the app/activity list (even if the user still has the ability to manually add it in later.) I realize how that could be a usability issue (it might confuse users who are expecting every CIQ app to appear in that list).

    Anyway, I don't expect this to happen, I just wanted to point out the loss of functionality (although I realize I'm stating the obvious.) Think of all the apps on the store that were released as widgets (and not widget + device app) pre-CIQ 4.0. The app developers made a conscious decision to have their app available via the widget carousel only. Now these apps are all available in both the glance list and activity/app list by default, even for something like a battery gauge which arguably doesn't belong in the activity/app list. When I upgraded to 955 (my first 4.0 watch), I installed all my favorite widgets and immediately deleted them from the activity/app list, since they were only cluttering it up.

    I absolutely see the advantages of merging widgets and device apps, I just think there are some apps which only make sense as glances. Garmin obviously thinks so too, since they have many native glances which do not and cannot appear in the app/activity list. This is just another case where native apps have superior usability to CIQ apps.