Garmin starts rolling out long-awaited update to Connect Mobile app
Garmin has started rolling out a new version of its Connect Mobile app. Long overdue for an update, the upgraded software features a new dashboard along with a few other features.
The company’s app is the same across all its devices. Garmin has been developing its software for a while now but its fair to say the changes have been incremental. While not always easy to find, look hard enough and you will probably find the piece of information you are looking for – whether its in the app, on the website or on the watch itself.
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Its fair to say, the current Mobile app provides a comprehensive set of features. There is a social aspect and various online groups and virtual rewards to celebrate milestones. More recently Garmin has introduced ‘Insights’, which provide interesting bits of information on trends related to your activity.
The app is, however, lacking in user friendliness and simplicity. Its not so much to do with the content and features, but more with presentation. In recent months, its only a lucky few that were asked to trial the public beta version of the software. But now the new features are rolling out to everyone.
If you’ve been upgraded, you’ll notice a new pop-up message with a summary of changes.
“The new MyDay provides an easy, at-a-glance view of your health and activity from today, yesterday and the past week. Tap cards to dive deeper or swipe to dismiss” it reads.
As shown from the screen-shots, the change in presentation is quite significant. The tab at the bottom of the display is exactly the same as in the old app, but the start-screen has benefitted from a complete redesign.
You still get a snapshot of your activity, but it is all much more intuitive now. Everything is arranged in separate tabs. Where appropriate, a progress bar at the top of the tab shows how close you are to meeting that particular goal. A green tick bar will appear in the right hand corner of the tab when you meet that goal. Your daily resting heart rate and high will also be shown along with a real-time heart rate reading.
The tabs are also dynamically arranged. So if, for example, you’ve been swimming today, the activity will be shown towards the top. Clicking on most tabs will take you to a new screen with more detailed daily and weekly stats. The screen is also more colourful – much more colourful!
Because everything is now on a single page, you just scroll down instead of swiping between screens to see your daily data. Which is a nice improvement and a time-saver.
All in all, Garmin seems to be on the right track. The software is long overdue for a visual update, so lets hope its not too long before it makes its way to everyone.
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