You can view maps and a wealth of fitness data on your wrist during your Apple Watch workouts.
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All Apple Watches have a heart rate sensor and GPS capability, so they can all track outdoor workouts like runs and bike rides. But the built-in app has its limitations, and most of the third-party apps (like Strava) have very simple interfaces.
If you’re used to the rich customizability of a true sports watch like a Garmin, you’ll likely be disappointed by what the Apple Watch has to offer for runners, hikers, and cyclists—unless you download WorkOutDoors, which provides almost everything you’ve been missing.
You can configure any data screens you like, watch your position on a map, and even program in interval workouts. And you can download your workout data after the fact, or export it to Strava. I took WorkOutDoors out for a few workouts, including a trail run, and was favorably impressed—once I got the hang of the interface, which is definitely confusing at first.
Maps
Credit: Beth Skwarecki
The first thing you’ll notice when you start a run with WorkOutDoors is the map. There’s a big one, taking up most of the screen. I was utterly lost as to how to operate the watch app (despite being not lost at all in the real world, thanks to the map) because any action I took with my finger just interacted with the map. I swiped, and the map moved. That kind of thing.
But there’s always a sliver of screen that doesn’t have a map on it, and using that you can swipe to the next data screen, showing your pace or distance or whatever you’ve set it up to show.
The maps are handy if you’re running in an unfamiliar area, and you can use the digital crown to zoom in or out. The map includes roads and their names, points of interest, and plenty of trails and paths. Maps are available worldwide, and can be downloaded for offline use. You’ll also see a trail of blue breadcrumbs showing where you’ve been, and a little green compass pointing the way to where you started the workout—in case you get lost, or forget where you parked.
This is all pretty impressive for a wrist-worn device, given that maps are a premium feature on many fitness watches. For comparison, Garmin’s Forerunner series only includes them on the 965 and the new 970, but not the 165, 265, or 570; Coros has full map functionality on the Pace Pro but not the Pace 3.
I don’t value maps as much as some runners—I like to pick a route and just follow the road or the trail blazes—but I used the map interface on a trail run. It was handy to see where I’d been, although manipulating the tiny map wasn’t always easy.
Customizable data screens
What you’ll see on your phone as you customize screens for your watch
Credit: Beth Skwarecki
This app is customizable out the wazoo. Open the WorkOutDoors app on your phone, and tap on Screens. Here you can see all the screens for all the different activities (running has a different set of screens than hiking, and so on), and you can put any data you can imagine on any of the screens.
For example, if I tap on “pace,” there are 164 possible data fields that display pace in some way. My current pace, the pace for this lap, the maximum speed I’ve done this workout in miles per hour, my rolling pace over the past mile, my rolling pace over a past interval that I define (the last 1.3627 miles, should I decide that’s important to me)… you get the idea. If an Apple Watch can measure it, WorkOutDoors can display it. You can even display the data from your Apple Fitness “rings,” like how many Stand hours you’ve got so far today.
Thankfully, the app comes with preset profiles that have a reasonable selection of data you’d probably like to see. The downside of all this customizability is that it can take forever to tweak everything exactly the way you like.
Credit: Beth Skwarecki
Though I tested the app with outdoor running, WorkOutDoors supports just about any activity you can think of, including strength training, indoor walking, cycling, golf, skiing, horseback riding, and so many more.
Controls and shortcuts
Credit: Beth Skwarecki
I mentioned that I was confused by the interface at first, so let me give you a cheat sheet for your own first experience with the app.
What do you think so far?
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Swipe left or right to get to a different data screen (most activities have at least three or four)
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Long press to pause the workout
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Long press and then select End to end the workout
That should be enough to get you through your first workout. If you ever get confused, though, you can open the WorkOutDoors app on your phone, tap Settings and then Commands, and in front of you will be 15 buttons for different actions you can take. Tap the “pause/resume” button, for example, and the workout on your watch will be instantly paused.
From that same settings page, you can select Shortcut Gestures and be treated to a wealth of options for gestures and inputs. You can assign actions to double or triple tapping the screen, to shaking the watch, to pressing the crown and side button at the same time, and so on.
This is where I found a holy grail of fitness smartwatch features—the ability to end a lap without fumbling with touchscreen buttons. I set a double tap to start a new interval! Now I can finish an interval, aggressively poke the watch face twice with my finger, and the lap will end without me having to find a specific button on a specific screen of the watch. It’s almost enough to make up for the fact there is no physical lap button on an Apple Watch.
You get tons of data after the fact, too
Credit: Beth Skwarecki
Even before I tested WorkOutDoors for this review, I’d been using it plenty in the course of my job. If I wanted to check how well the Apple Watch tracked heart rate, for example to compare it with a Fitbit, I couldn’t usefully download the data from the watch if I had used the stock Workout app.
But WorkOutDoors logs everything to its own app, as well as sharing it to Apple Health. So I can open the phone app, find the workout I just did, and easily export a .fit or .tcx file for analysis. I can also export a .gpx file if I want to share my route with a friend, or create a route that I can follow on a future workout. Or I can, of course, upload it to Strava.
This Apple Watch app displays every type of data you might want during a workout, and it’s a steal at a one-time purchase price of $7.99. (It seems all apps tend toward subscriptions eventually, but I’m glad that WorkOutDoors is still a one-and-done purchase.)
For somebody who is on the fence between whether they want an Apple Watch versus a sports watch like a Garmin Forerunner, WorkOutDoors could help narrow the gap. The diehard athletes will probably still want the physical buttons and extra-long battery life of a sports watch, but the lack of in-activity data no longer needs to be an issue.
Shortcuts in the WorkOutDoors app even make up for the lack of a physical lap button, in most situations—something I thought I’d never say of a touchscreen watch. This app gives Apple Watches a lot more overlap with the functionality of sports watches—for a mere eight bucks. I’m truly impressed.