Forerunner 955 discontinued?

jmto said:

Also most people are pretty simple and stupid. They look watches and see the bland colors in MIP screen and just don't buy it.

Yep ppl have been complaining about Garmin screens for 10+ years. When ppl asked me why I use a Garmin instead of AW, I tried to use the analogy where Garmin (MIP) is to Apple (AMOLED) as ereader is to ipad, but it didn't convince them. (Bc ppl who use AW are fine with outdoor visibility, and bc we don't spend hours on end staring at our watches.)

It is very ironic that Garmin used to market MIP as being free from "distracting brightness and superfluous colour", and now the exact opposite pitch is used to sell AMOLED watches. You can't say they didn't try.

I disagree that it's stupidity tho. Most ppl want things that look nice and confer status. That's why apple when was successful in making aesthetics and design an important selling point for laptops and phones, everyone else followed them. That's also why I've talked to ppl who admit that they got an Apple Watch Ultra for the social status. I don't think all Garmin users are that different, as many runners only buy Garmin bc their friends have Garmins, and there's def C-suite types who buy a Garmin with a colorful tri band to tell the world "hey I do triathlons". Then you have people who say that Garmins are for sEriOuS aThLeTeS as if pro runners can't use an apple watch, polar or timex. (Some pro marathoners have vocally preferred a dumb timex to a gps watch, bc the inaccuracy of gps messes up their race pacing.) And as if most of us Garmin users don't just use it for hobby sports.

And again, as far as my use cases go:

- most ppl don't care about being able to instantly glance at their watch, including people focused on performance (after all, when you're running a hard workout, you're usually not supposed to be constantly looking at your watch.) The person I know who can win a 5 miler (and bought a 255) is probably an exception (I think he at least likes to glance at his watch when he does intervals), but then again I also know someone who's won local 5ks who happily bought a 265.

- obviously very few ppl care about watchfaces which constantly display seconds or live HR (I have to admit there's not much utility for either of those things, although live HR is kinda cool to me personally)

jmto said:

. Like people wanting to have AMOLED Fenix and not realizing that well, Epix is that. Reasons for the changes coming.

Yeah, DCR called this out specifically - people have asked "where's AMOLED Fenix", causing Garmin to realize they dun goofed when it came to marketing Epix (gen 2). It's only further evidence that normies don't want AMOLED (and probably never cared about MIP in the first place.)

However, the upcoming changes also signal that "MIP Fenix" will be the "discount version" of the "AMOLED Fenix" (despite costing more than the previous gen, ofc), which is def another sign that MIP's days are numbered. The overall narrative is that MIP (or non-AMOLED) is either unnecessary (Forerunner), niche (Instinct/Enduro) or discount ("Fenix E").

And as before, the only marketing reason to get anything other than AMOLED is for battery life. Nobody is going to say "well MIP performs better than AMOLED for use cases X and Y (not including battery life)" because:

- they tried that before and it didn't work

- it would go against everything they've said about AMOLED in a (successful) effort to get ppl to buy new Garmins

Also it's really hilarious in hindsight to read this thread from 2018, where a new Fenix 5 Plus user complains that the display sucks and everyone tells them that MIP is objectively better than AMOLED.

[https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation-archive/f/fenix-5-plus-series/149937/really-disappointing-screen-fenix-5-plus-saphire]

Regardless of which side you agree with, it's pretty clear that customer preferences are not objective, as they change over time. At a certain point, nobody will even remember what MIP was, let alone care. (Arguably, nobody outside of Garmin/Polar/other legacy sportswatch users ever knew or cared.)

FlowState said:

I disagree that it's stupidity tho. Most ppl want things that look nice and confer status.

I mean stupid in a sense, they are not interested in the tech specs, what is the technology behind, why it is as it it's.. Just this looks better to me, I'll take it.

And what comes to marketing.. it's marketing. Always make claims and such. But for the MIP those claims were against the old dot matrix LCD ones. I think compared to no colors, MIP colors are pretty huge thing.

I think in 2018 the AMOLED just wasn't feasible to get the battery life, so it was like 1 day of AW or multiple days for MIP. Technology evolves and opinions also. Should kind of just read that in the context of 2018 and I doubt AMOLED would have been good then.

jmto said:

But for the MIP those claims were against the old dot matrix LCD ones. I think compared to no colors, MIP colors are pretty huge thing.

No, again, the quote reads:

Garmin Chroma Display is built to withstand the rigors of the outdoors. Focused on aiding performance rather than distracting brightness and superfluous colour, this display is easy to read under the harshest sunlight and has ultra-high battery endurance, allowing it to reliably function in the most challenging conditions.

Clearly "distracting brightness and superfluous colour" does not refer to dot matrix LCD, it can only refer to high-res / high-colour LCD or AMOLED.

And again, even 10 years ago, people were complaining about how dull and washed out Garmin displays were, and how the real screen didn't look like the pictures on the box.

My point is that Garmin did a 180 on the marketing narrative when they switch to AMOLED. "Brightness and colour" were bad things when they wanted to push MIP, now they are good thing when they want to push AMOLED.

Which again goes back to how none of this stuff is objective.

jmto said:

I mean stupid in a sense, they are not interested in the tech specs, what is the technology behind, why it is as it it's.. Just this looks better to me, I'll take it.

I understood what you meant by stupid, my point is that it's not really stupid if customers get what they want. Again, for me personally, I don't want AMOLED because I value being able to glance very quickly at the screen during a hard running workout. Clearly the vast majority of people don't care about that, they just want a nice screen that looks good, so they don't look like they're wearing a watch from 2002. Again, when ppl openly state that they bought an Apple Watch Ultra for the social status, it's clear that the underlying tech is not a priority for normies (and it probably shouldn't be.) Similarly, if I see bugs, sluggishness and UX issues in Garmin, I don't really care that it's the result of various tradeoffs related to battery life (such as using underpowered components.)

This is like how laptop and phone manufacturers other than Apple had traditionally focused on tech specs that very few people cared about or understood. Apple took a different approach, where not only did they not focus on tech specs, they also hid certain specs that normally would've been revealed.

To play devil's advocate, it's stupid for someone like me to care about tech specs that don't improve my life.

BTW, even Garmin doesn't publicize things like CPU speed, the presence of a GPU, or RAM.

because you could use that argument to differenciate yourself from the opposition...  but what the client wants can trump company marketing strategy...  but they had the epix already....   when oled has a much higher screen resolution it makes MIP look dated. in the end the issue of the brightness and superfluous colour werent big enough drawbacks, and for a lot of people were actually desireable.  so their strategy didnt hold enough water so they ditched it. 

Wayne C said:

because you could use that argument to differenciate yourself from the opposition...  but what the client wants can trump company marketing strategy...  but they had the epix already....   when oled has a much higher screen resolution it makes MIP look dated. in the end the issue of the brightness and superfluous colour werent big enough drawbacks, and for a lot of people were actually desireable.  so their strategy didnt hold enough water so they ditched it. 

I don't disgree, but it's still hilarious to me. We see this kind of flip-flopping in marketing and politics all the time. I realize this isn't a profound point, but it just shows that marketing doesn't reflect "reality" or "objective facts", simply the *current* narrative the company wants to push. Clearly "distracting brightness and superfluous colour" was a disingenuous argument of the highest order - an attempt to make the well-known weaknesses of MIP into a strength. If they had wanted to be completely honest, they would have simply said that it performs better in sunlight, rather than also pretending that brightness and colour are bad things. The lack of brightness and colour were the number 1 things that people complained about regarding Garmin displays for 10+ years.

But it is funny that ppl on the forums have said "I don't want AMOLED bc it's too bright and distracting". IRL, nobody ever said that, not even 10 years ago. What they did say is that MIP looks dull and washed out, like it's not "real" (yes, 10 years ago someone told me my Garmin doesn't look real.)

I can't find it rn, but there's a 3rd party marketing site related to Garmin (aimed at ppl in marketing, not customers), which argued that customers make purchasing decisions based on emotion, not fact. (Which goes back to the tech specs thing.) The site went on to list some of the emotional reasons that customers buy Garmin, such as the idea that Garmins make some of their users feel like "athletes" (I'm just paraphrasing ofc, but I do see this argument in the forums all the time whenever Apple Watch comes up: "AW is for noobs, Garmin is for real athletes!!!!!111!".)

This is ancient history, but It's just like when Steve Jobs said nobody wants to read books on a tablet, a little while before Apple introduced iBooks (now Apple Books.) Is it possible that reality changed drastically in the timespan of a few months to a year or so between that statement and the unveiling of iBooks?

Wayne C said:

when oled has a much higher screen resolution it makes MIP look dated

Yeah but it goes back to form vs. function. An ereader's "epaper" screen looks very dated compared to an AMOLED (or LCD) tablet (it's monochrome with an extremely low refresh rate), but it still performs better for reading, bc the reflective display is easier on the eyes when you stare at it for hours. Funnily enough, epaper is also said to look better in sunlight than AMOLED (same claim that's made for MIP vs AMOLED.)

I mentioned my use case for MIP (which, clearly, very few ppl share): "I value being able to glance very quickly at the screen during a hard running workout"

Ofc ppl use their ereader/tablet in a very different way than they use their watch. Again, many people don't even look at their watches when they run (and arguably, they shouldn't, in many cases.)

Having said all of that, if I didn't run and I only wanted a general-purpose smartwatch (to use at the gym and when I play basketball), I would def get an Apple Watch and not any kind of Garmin. It would be a no-brainer.

marketing can involve a lot of psychology, to subtly manipulate people, far more than people realise... appealing to your vanity, your wants and convincing you they are your needs... do you really need that new watch? or is it a habit you have that you upgrade because theres something new to buy.. and that's what people do in a consumer society... theres the whole novelty value of buying something different, that's how fashion works and goes round in circles, eventually they will bring out retro MIP watches. I remember when stereo systems were first coming out... they were shiny bright unpained steel, to show off your new tech, then when everyone owned one and they were just common they started coming out in black, because now the technology was something to sit unobtrusively in the background because it was a normal part of modern homes now.... now we have dark coloured TV sound bars...
psychology was used to create a whole new market in the 20th century to tap into the untouched market of women smokers, and it was done with great effect,

the argument of do you actually need a screen?  when all your data will synch to your phone or your internet browser, , whoop users dont seem to have an issue of no screen, arguably the screen is a distraction, you can obsess about the data its spitting out constantly... 

Wayne C said:

that's how fashion works and goes round in circles, eventually they will bring out retro MIP watches

Yeah again I don't disagree. We're already seeing a lot of 90s stuff coming back into fashion, same as some 80s stuff came back in the 2010s.

It's also the same as how white is now a popular colour for gaming tech after black dominated for so long. Or how some apps/websites default to light mode after dark mode has dominated for years.

I def know high-school / college-age ppl who wear Casio-style watches. It's pretty ironic that things from 5-10 years ago are deemed to be hopelessly old and uncool, but stuff from 30-40 years ago is "retro". It's fairly obvious why (stuff from 30 years ago can be cool if you weren't alive then, but stuff from 10 years ago is no longer cool bc everyone eventually adopted it.)

It's just kinda sad that when there's a tech / fashion shift and you lose some utility. But if that utility was something that very few people cared about, then it's not that sad.

Also, idk if retro MIP watches will ever actually be a thing, bc stuff usually only comes back when it was once popular in the first place. I would argue that MIP watches have always been niche products.

Wayne C said:

marketing can involve a lot of psychology, to subtly manipulate people, far more than people realise... appealing to your vanity, your wants and convincing you they are your needs... do you really need that new watch

That's why I kinda respect ppl who can say out loud that they only bought that Apple Watch Ultra for the social status. It's a lot more honest than saying "Garmin is for real athletes". (Again, some elite runners feel better served by a simple timex.)

Again, I know some very fast runners (some of whom can either win their age group or win a race outright) who get by (or got by) with the same Garmin for ~10 years.