Ordered!

OK so I placed my order this morning at 8:01 (actually the UK site wasn't live until a little after that) via Apple.com for an Apple Watch Series 3 GPS + Cellular 42mm Gold with the Pink Sport Band. I wanted the gold casing, and the Pink Sport band was the only combo that would be delivered next week so that was what I ordered. I'll be handing my Apple Watch 2 over with a midnight blue strap to my son who lost his on holiday (rock jumping while on a Kayaking trip!), but he has a spare metal strap so we'll have to work out who get's what in terms of straps. I like the new Sport Loops - but they all seem to be 2-3 weeks delivery currently - I can see myself wandering into a store in the coming weeks to pick one of those up though.

Why Apple.com and not EE direct?

EE are the only providers in the UK that will support the Cellular connection for the watch, at £5 a month (which seems good value compared to the States which appears to all be $10 a month, though still frustrating that it can't just use your current allowance at no extra cost - perhaps when others enter the market, the competition will force this to change).

However on the EE site you have to buy a 2 year contract at £25 a month. with a £29.99 up front fee giving a total of £629.99 over 2 years. So compared to buying directly from Apple at £429 and paying £5 a month (a total of £549) that's not such a great deal. So long as you can afford to pay upfront for the watch you are saving just over £80 by buying direct

Yesterdays 10K run

I went for an easy pace 10k run yesterday with both my Apple Watch 2 and Forerunner 935 on. By the way 80% of my exercise over the next 3 months or so will be aerobic at zone 1/2 mostly because I'm loosely following the 80/20 approach from Matt Fitzgerald and because I have 15kg of weight to lose! You can see all my training (well at least the stuff I make public) on Strava - feel free to follow me - in fact I'd love it if you did!

Here's the Strava log from the run (look at that perfect 10K distance! I used the new Course Routing on Garmin Connect to plan that so that is a win for them). This was recorded via the 935 and synced over automatically from GC.

A perfect 10K distance, though HR was high for that pace for some reason

Viewing the Apple Activity below, you can see that they are in the ballpark but definitely some differences in pace, heart rate, and other data like calories. I'll be digging much more deeply into these in upcoming posts when I have the Apple Watch 3.

In the ballpark compared to 935/Strava and GPS route looks good, but lots to investigate...

One of the first challenges of Apple Watch is getting the data off the phone and into other platforms for analysis. Here's what I get if I click the share button within the Activities app - well done Apple - that's about as useful as a barbershop on the steps of a guillotine

You get a different view by looking at the Activity data in the Health app on iOS 11:

There are some mangled solutions to getting the data out which I will be taking a look at in an upcoming post. Drop me a line or leave a comment if you want any tips ahead of that.

What Next?

Remember this run is using Apple Watch 2 and the focus of this blog will be Apple Watch 3. That is arriving next Friday 22nd for me, so from that point on it will be the watch I use (though I will still compare against the 935)

Here's my rough plan of items I intend to blog on (not in order)

Unboxing and set-up
Everything you want to know about using the built in Workout App
iPhone Activity & Health App Deep Dive inc Data Export
Apple Watch 3 Reviews review
AW3 Data Accuracy
Connecting Sensors inc ANT+ conversion
Security & Stability
Smart Trainer Use
Battery life
Touch Screen use (especially when sweaty)
Running App reviews
Swimming App reviews
Cycling App reviews
Triathlon App reviews (are there any?)
Breathe App and other Meditation apps
All Day Heart Rate Monitoring
VO2Max and Fitness Levels
Stuff you could use on an Activity (Music Control, Apple Pay, notifications etc)
Developer articles (some sample code)
Event reviews when using Apple Watch 3 (Tri's, Sportives, Marathon Swims etc)

Let me know if there is anything else you want to hear about in comments.

Cheers!