For those not subscribed to the FIT File (it’s free!) via your regular podcast app or on YouTube, here’s a quick post with the highlights from the most recent episode.
In this episode, we chat about the new Galaxy Watch Ultra and Watch 7, Apple’s Training Load and Vitals, the new OnePlus Watch 2R, and the future of WearOS.
0:00 Where in the world is Ray?
1:11 Apple Watch Training Load
8:24 Apple Watch Vitals
12:46 Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra
27:03 No external sensor support…still
32:22 What we really think about the looks
36:59 Samsung’s Cycling FTP Test
42:07 Samsung Watch 7
44:22 Samsung Ring
49:04 OnePlus Watch 2R
52:31 Is this the year for WearOS?
Thanks to Precision Fuel & Hydration, where you can get 15% off your first order. Additionally, check out their free Fuel & Hydration Planner.
And further thanks to The Pros Closet (TPC), where you can get $40 off an order of $200 or more with coupon code: 2024FITFILE40
As a reminder, here’s where you can find the podcast:
And then for the audio-only version, you can find it here:
Thanks for listening!
FOUND THIS POST USEFUL? SUPPORT THE SITE!
Hopefully, you found this post useful. The website is really a labor of love, so please consider becoming a DC RAINMAKER Supporter. This gets you an ad-free experience, and access to our (mostly) bi-monthly behind-the-scenes video series of “Shed Talkin’”.
Support DCRainMaker - Shop on Amazon
Otherwise, perhaps consider using the below link if shopping on Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but your purchases help support this website a lot. It could simply be buying toilet paper, or this pizza oven we use and love.
“Time Check” in TekWar still has you guys beat. :-)
I understand you guys are being flippant here but this incessant narrative that Galaxy Watch Ultra is a derivative of the Apple Watch Ultra so much so Des can’t tell them apart when the bands are orange is, to be polite annoying as ****
i’m so grateful the Galaxy Watch exists not so much because of what is or what it offers, no no.
I’m grateful that it reminds me not to place a lot of weight behind a reviewer’s findings and opinions when I’m cross shopping.
This is less an indictment on you guys as you both cover a more niche albeit growing field of wearable sports tech but I have to say, it’s is genuinely insane to me that someone whose job it is to keep up with the field they cover can hold an opinion like this with such bravado.
It’s a litmus test every single one of guys are failing – badly.
I want to call out Des in particular because he went hard on Samsung for copying apple when HE WAS THE ONE WHO NAME DROPPED THE SAMSUNG GEAR SPORT(1). You know, Samsung’s first foray into squircle shaped watches. Straight from your mouth, it was on your wrist the first time you met Ray. The insinuation that the inspiration came from Apple is asinine and betrays your very own line of thinking. I couldn’t believe my ears as I was hearing this. An impressive own goal I must say.
Watch brands have been using orange (accents) for over half a century now (1967 Doxa). It’s not new nor novel to go with orange. It’s why the extra button and the strap on both watches are orange. It elicits a distinct vibe and it’s bright and legible. If the color is one of your arguments, drop it, it’s dead on arrival. Also, ya know, there are other colors.
If the design of the band and the extra button is your point, then fair point. “Quick button action” is quite blatant and while I could make the argument that extra buttons were always to be expected for this product line, I simply won’t. The band although not Apple’s original invention was tweaked and popularized by them so I’ll happily give you that too
Samsung has been using “Ultra” in their phone and tablet branding since 2020. It’s Apple who borrowed the Ultra nomenclature. Logically the Apple Watch Ultra should have been Apple Watch Pro or Max or Pro Max
also and I feel like a madman saying this considering both of you clearly have iPhones. THE SAMSUNG GALAXY WATCH ULTRA DOES NOT AND CANNOT COMPETE WITH THE APPLE WATCH ULTRA. Both ecosystems are closed. No one who has an iPhone and intends to keep it has this watch on their shortlist and vice versa. The likes of Garmin have more to be worried about than Apple.
It’s crazy to me people who are partial to Apple are going around parroting the Samsung GWU copies Apple WU hot take with their whole chest when large chucks of Apple’s last keynote (WWDC24) could (what I would charitably) be described as “Android’s best hits”. Maddening bravado.
Look, the argument isn’t that Samsung did not shamelessly lift features from Apple. That would be a bold face lie.The argument is that the very existence of this device is and would have always been the next logical step not because I’m a time traveler but because I can fucking read.
I’m not even going to try to make the easy out argument that companies copy each other all the time and we the consumer are better for it. It’s cheap and personally I’ve never believed that. We, the consumer demand and whoever fulfills that demand best pockets the profits. If people like you guys never stopped demanding better GPS, we wouldn’t have double band on the watch7 series.That’s how this works. The EU isn’t forcing Apple to allow people to turn their home screens upside down, people just kept demanding that power.
The ultra nomenclature, the gear sport, the flip flop between the pro and classic line that accompanies the regular, the preexisting software and hardware features like sapphire glass and wrist based gestures.Everything you can rely on to break down the copy accusations is right there but why bother? It’s not like you’ve experienced and reviewed these products before or something.
Did you honestly think the next variant was going to be another classic when the last watch was a Pro and the FE just came out? Or were you not paying attention because that’s worse
I’m only causally following this field and it was at the very least distinctly clear Samsung was going to skip the classic line this year.
Check this out, I’m going to make a bold prediction because I can read, the next Garmin watch will have an amoled sapphire squarely targeting Apple and Samsung’s Ultra Watches. Let’s see if the discourse will be about the color of the bands.
I didn’t even know this was boiling up in me, this podcast was the last straw for me I guess
Thank you for allowing me to vent.
(1) link to dcrainmaker.com
This is arguably one of the craziest comments I’ve seen in a long-long time. But moreimportantly, how scattered the rant is. Hyper-focused on some elements, but then completely ignoring others.
Look, there’s no real disagreement here that the Galaxy Watch Ultra aims to copy many elements of the Apple Watch Ultra. Literally, almost nobody actually disagrees with that except the most hilarious of Reddit rants.
To your own points on naming, why on earth would Samsung have switched from their big chunky more-battery watches being called “Pro” to now being called “Ultra”? After all, Apple seemingly went out of the way in 2023 to name theirs Ultra, since Samsung had previously called their big unit “Pro”. The most logical name for Samsung would have then been, you know, what they already called it “Pro”.
The orange thing is funny too, with people trying to tie it to dive watches being orange. Except, most actually aren’t. Most are yellow accents. And there’s literally no mainstream dive-focused (e.g. actually tracking depth) watches with orange accents these days…until Apple Ultra did it. And further, none with a rotating digital crown that’s orange. And speaking of which, why on earth would Samsung have added a rotating digital crown that’s now randomly orange (like Apple), except…umm…it doesn’t do anything when rotated (just pressed). Why rotatable then?
As for bands, only the fanboys try and dismiss that too. Literally, no band looked like that Macaroni and cheese style band, called “Ocean”. Then Samsung makes a near identical one, and calls it “Marine”. Apple’s other option is called “Trail”, and again, Samsung calls theirs “Trails”. Again, nobody in the mainstream sports tech watch industry called that soft strap “trail” before Apple. It was usually called some various of “performance” or comfort or whatever. Point is, there’s a million other terms Samsung could use, and they chose to use the exact same ones?
Apple Watch Ultra added an emergency siren that nobody else had. So did Samsung.
Apple Watch Ultra added dive features. Samsung tried, except while the marketing and keynote show it, it’s actually not diving certified/viable in the fine print. So…yeah.
The funny thing here, is that you’re really upset about us calling out all the copying. Yet, what you missed is that neither of us actually care about it. As I said in my initial coverage of it, I don’t really care as long as the Samsung Galaxy Watches finally get better. And in many ways, it is better than any other Samsung before it. But pretending it’s not a copy is silly. Just like I point out on the watch side when Apple copies features from Garmin/Fitbit/Google/etc… I don’t cover phone stuff, so I don’t make note of Apple’s copying from Google there since I don’t talk about it either way.
Likewise, we’ve both noted numerous times in the past that Samsung and Apple Watches don’t exactly directly compete due to ecosystem lock-in, the reality is the companies do compete indirectly. It’s the ‘rising tide’ aspect of it. As we noted in the podcast, both of us are getting better battery life on the Galaxy Watch than Apple Ultra.
This is arguably one of the craziest comments I’ve seen in a long-long time. But moreimportantly, how scattered the rant is. Hyper-focused on some elements, but then completely ignoring others.
yea not my proudest wall of text, formatting and diction definitely have been better
I just kept watching and reading hot takes about how derivative the watch is and it really bothered me. Watching Dave from Chase the Summit spend a good chunk of his unboxing video talking about two different bands to make his argument about Samsung copying Apple while ignoring the litany of differences between the two devices and then tuning into the Fit File podcast broke me I guess
Look, there’s no real disagreement here that the Galaxy Watch Ultra aims to copy many elements of the Apple Watch Ultra. Literally, almost nobody actually disagrees with that except the most hilarious of Reddit rants.
yea we don’t disagree, I straight up never did. I’m pretty sure I categorically stated anyone who disagrees is a bold face liar. in fact, if you made this same argument about the Buds3, I’d be backing you hard. that was copying, I mean straight up abandoning your design language for another. Haven’t dove deep into Reddit yet concerning the GWU and AWU; my experience with motorsports subreddits and inference from your comment tells me I’ll need a hazmat suit. thanks for the heads up!
To your own points on naming, why on earth would Samsung have switched from their big chunky more-battery watches being called “Pro” to now being called “Ultra”? After all, Apple seemingly went out of the way in 2023 to name theirs Ultra, since Samsung had previously called their big unit “Pro”. The most logical name for Samsung would have then been, you know, what they already called it “Pro”.
I disagree here Ray, Samsung has been calling their phones and tablets and laptops Ultra for years now. There was one Galaxy watch named Pro: the Galaxy Watch5 Pro, that’s it, a single product. There are no other “big chunky more battery watches” from Samsung called Pro, where did you come up with this take?
You could make the argument that Samsung took the Pro nomenclature from Apple – it would be stupid considering the XCover Pro series and Galaxy Book Pro series exists but I won’t stop you, go double or nothing.
Throwing “seemingly” in there to undermine the argument is tacky, the fact of the matter is Samsung’s Ultra nomenclature predates any single Apple product thus lending more credence to the point that Apple deviated from their own nomenclature. I don’t even know what we’re arguing about here, Samsung is not obliged to call the second chunky watch that accompanies the regular Pro especially when if you’ve been paying attention that second chunky watch flip flops nomenclature. It unarguably makes far more sense to call it Ultra to fall in line with their nomenclature than it was call it Pro – a name they’ve only used once for a watch released almost two years ago. This argument makes as much sense as smugly asking why it wasn’t it called Classic when you know well and good the classic line is reserved for the rotating bezel – it’s the one thing those watches do different.
You’ve ‘seemingly’ given Apple a pass for borrowing a naming convention from someone else for a new product line and have then turned around and are questioning said person for using the exact same name they’ve been using for other product lines for years – years preceding Apple’s inspiration. Do I really have to explain how insane this take is?
The orange thing is funny too, with people trying to tie it to dive watches being orange. Except, most actually aren’t. Most are yellow accents. And there’s literally no mainstream dive-focused (e.g. actually tracking depth) watches with orange accents these days…until Apple Ultra did it. And further, none with a rotating digital crown that’s orange. And speaking of which, why on earth would Samsung have added a rotating digital crown that’s now randomly orange (like Apple), except…umm…it doesn’t do anything when rotated (just pressed). Why rotatable then?
I never tied it to dive watches, you moved the goalpost to dive watches. If you do a find for the word dive, the results start with your reply. I said “watch brands” have been using orange (accents) for over half a century and used the oldest one I could personally remember as an example. Stop putting words in my mouth Ray. My entire argument was that as someone whose (smart)watch tastes and use cases are platform agnostic, the orange accent is not new nor novel nor random. It has precedence in both traditional and smart watch history. It doesn’t belong to Apple nor Doxa nor dive watches – most of which, like you said are yellow. I said it elicits a vibe and that it’s bright and legible – you made this about dive watches, you did that. You call me out on being hyper focused on somethings while ignoring others yet here you are hyper focusing on dive watches and ignoring the entire argument I made. The orange accent color predates both these watches – that’s what I said. I have no concrete idea why the “digital crown” does nothing when rotated. My disappointment was immense when I found out about that. My leading hypothesis right now is that if it scrolled, it’d kill the Classic line? Arguably same reason why there’s no rotating bezel when Gear Sport had one but eh, I think they’re distinct enough to co-exist. The addition of the rotating crown is copying – never said it wasn’t – I remember calling it blatant. Again, my argument was about the color of which unlike Apple, you aren’t stuck with just one. Samsung’s offerings even reduce the orange to just the buttons on the side.
As for bands, only the fanboys try and dismiss that too. Literally, no band looked like that Macaroni and cheese style band, called “Ocean”. Then Samsung makes a near identical one, and calls it “Marine”. Apple’s other option is called “Trail”, and again, Samsung calls theirs “Trails”. Again, nobody in the mainstream sports tech watch industry called that soft strap “trail” before Apple. It was usually called some various of “performance” or comfort or whatever. Point is, there’s a million other terms Samsung could use, and they chose to use the exact same ones?
We agree Ray, I explicitly say word for word: “Look, the argument isn’t that Samsung did not shamelessly lift features from Apple. That would be a bold face lie” I also say “If the design of the band and the extra button is your point, then fair point. “Quick button action” is quite blatant and while I could make the argument that extra buttons were always to be expected for this product line, I simply won’t. The band although not Apple’s original invention was tweaked and popularized by them so I’ll happily give you that too” Did you read what I wrote Ray or did you, say it with me “hyper focus on one thing and ignore another”?
I’m not a ‘fanboy’ I use what I want to fulfill the needs I have. I daily an iPhone and an Android. My home is littered with Windows laptops and I’m about to pull the trigger on an iPad after getting tired of waiting on the A5X2 from Supernote. I’m currently paying attention to the ultra-book space as the Arms race – pun intended – heightens. I’m leaning towards an M3 Macbook but Snapdragon just made a very compelling case and AMD’s Ryzen AI chips just dropped. I’m wearing a traditional watch for now and I’m researching withings as an option. I am a fanboy of no one. When I said i didn’t care about companies copying each other I meant it. I use what I want to do what I need. I’m platform agnostic. My rant isn’t and wasn’t in defense of Samsung – I just got tired of the copycat comments when they just rest on a crown, color, and a band. No, I’m not giving you the siren, it’s been there since the watch4 for SOS and fall detection. When I had a watch4 I distinctly remember this. It’s just been expanded for the quick action button or whatever Samsung is calling it. same with the wrist based gestures, I flicked and flipped to dismiss active notifications on my wrist when I briefly had the watch5.
Apple Watch Ultra added dive features. Samsung tried, except while the marketing and keynote show it, it’s actually not diving certified/viable in the fine print. So…yeah.
Yea this sucks massive balls, seeing improved water resistance in bold letters and then scrolling down to see but only for ten minutes in tiny text was a dick move. I didn’t expect them to make a compelling app, that’s the beauty of android, someone else would have done it better and published it but the ten minute hard cap sucks.
The funny thing here, is that you’re really upset about us calling out all the copying. Yet, what you missed is that neither of us actually care about it. As I said in my initial coverage of it, I don’t really care as long as the Samsung Galaxy Watches finally get better. And in many ways, it is better than any other Samsung before it. But pretending it’s not a copy is silly. Just like I point out on the watch side when Apple copies features from Garmin/Fitbit/Google/etc… I don’t cover phone stuff, so I don’t make note of Apple’s copying from Google there since I don’t talk about it either way.
I didn’t ask you to pretend the GWU is a unique product. I asked you to stop being flippant about it.
My argument is that calling it a copy is a massive disservice to what the product is. Treat this the exact same way you did when Watch0S 9 starting taking activity tracking seriously and providing advance and richer metrics. You made mention of other products that had these features, then moved on to review the actual metrics and how they stack up to the competition. You did not reduce Apple’s efforts to copycat, you didn’t pretend you can’t tell the difference.
Just do what you’ve always done well. Tell me about the Galaxy Watch Ultra, what it does well and what it’s terrible at, what it could improve -> this is how we got dual band and to a lesser extendt sapphire glass – and how it stacks to the competition. Not whether it shares the same color, band, and a crown with a watch it barely competes with.
Why can’t the GWU just stand on it’s own especially when you can trace it’s evolution within it’s own stack? Why is the headline and url and subject matter Coypcat??? Did you do this when Stride Length, Ground Contact Time, and Vertical Oscillation came to WatchOS? no.
that’s my point ray, I just have a hard time believing the “neither of us actually care about it” part of your comment.
cheers!
…. I think both of you probably have a rough day / late night. Let’s call time out on this. Not everyone will see eye to eye (reviewer and reader alike). Shall we agree to disagree. Disengage and get some beer. A ranting match in a public forum is not the way.
Sorry, I think I am going to quote yourself “I didn’t even know this was boiling up in me, this podcast was the last straw for me I guess Thank you for allowing me to vent.”
I think it’s clear that disparaging dcrainmaker on his forum is something you see as somewhat therapeutical, and clearly not something that you have asked if you are allowed to do (you simply stated it and put ray in a spot where he has to be defensive / on the attack.
However, I think it’s better form to either 1) rant on with your friends 2) provide a few concise criticism and potential ways you could see things improve 3) Stop reading dcrainmaker / des or simply ignore all reviewers
To clarify, when I said “disparaging”, I am merely referring to how the first few paragraphs come very close to being an direct attack of a somewhat personal nature pointing to lack of journalistic integrity. That might not be intended. But it’s how I read it.
These are all fair points Steven
I returned to apologize
Thanks for giving me the grace and opportunity to do so.
My sincerest apologies to Ray/Des and TedP below me, I can’t take back what I said but please know that I do regret how I went about this
I’m more than happy to agree to disagree on this. Again, my apologies, this was reductive and unproductive. I intend to learn and be better.
Cheers!
Oh boy. A lot of coping going on with this poster. Kinda like the rider following a leader up a climb and watching them zig zag all over the place. All fair in competition but Samesung got that moniker for a reason.
Personally, I’d like Apple to bring the yellow ocean band back over the orange.
how was any of that “coping”?
can you read Ted, I don’t even own a Galaxy watch or phone and I even go as far as calling some examples explicitly blatant
If you’re going to dismiss my argument at least apply some iota of reading comprehension before shitting out a reddit-esque non sequitur hot take.