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Strava abruptly ends 3rd party data sync to Apple Health
- exabrial 5y agoAll of the (Garmin, Strava, Apple, and Google [who is trying really hard but failing]) want a monopoly on your health data. Garmin is the only one I actually trust currently, as they've shown 0 willingness to monetize your health information. The Strava/Garmin relationship is an interesting one: Strava has the social network, Garmin has the best devices [for serious Athletes, not casual users]. Garmin Connect is pretty cool in it's own right, but the Social features never really took off, which is where Strava plays and has a de-fact monopoly. Strava can't survive without Garmin, and Garmin benefits from Strava's content. Garmin has pulled some 'power moves' in the past though with people it doesn't like... A competitor: Wahoo, who made cycling GPS computers, was cut off from inserting data into Garmin Connect and it left a lot of users out in the cold. Most serious cyclists will use Garmin devices, not an Apple watch, to track their rides as it seamlessly integrates with ANT+ sensors: power, cadence, wheel speed, heart rate, chainring and cog positions sensors. Interesting to see Strava cut off Apple... I'm guessing it has to do something with preventing them from developing an alternative to the Strava social network.
- js2 5y ago> Garmin has the best devices [for serious Athletes, not casual users]. I’m a happy Garmin user but I know a lot of distance runners that have switched to Coros. They love the battery life w/o sacrificing GPS accuracy.
- oneplane 5y agoStrava isn't cut off from Apple. Instead, Garmin/Fitbit etc. would send their data to Strava, which then would forward it to Apple for them. The part where Strava takes the data from non-Strava apps is the one that got disabled (presumably by strava and not by garmin, but either could have).
- usrusr 5y agoReally surprising to see Strava actively avoiding the central switchboard role that would be such a powerful retention feature. I wouldn't be surprised to see it come back very soon, with some low level UX polisher receiving that talk about power and responsibility.
- sulam 5y agoGarmin couldn't directly disable this, once Strava has your data they can do with it whatever they want, licensing permitting. Which is a segue into - while I have no specific knowledge of this case, I do think it's somewhat tricky to take data from a third party and then hand it on to another third party. Presumably all of this was mediated by the user, and user's desires should be paramount here, but it's an example of why I believe OAuth is fairly broken and what we should all be giving permission to is capabilities, not access.
- verisimi 5y agoI'm still shocked and amazed that anyone would willingly share their health data with corporations. Why? What could go right? I say that acknowledging your point that this is possibly one of the better corporations out there. > Garmin is the only one I actually trust currently, as they've shown 0 willingness to monetize your health information. What about the concern that the company is bought out in the future? Or that it may be sharing data already, with government agencies, etc? Or companies that it works with? I honestly can't even imagine the criteria whereby a corporation could be 'trusted' with personal information! It boggles my mind, that people think about this - and plainly you do - but come to the judgement that its ok for corporations to have this personal data!
- mulmen 5y agoI prefer the corporations not have the data at all. The problem is Apple is simultaneously the best and also pretty bad at stewarding such an ecosystem. In theory all my actual health data would live on a device I own, encrypted, and accessible only by the apps I approve. In reality Apple can't or won't provide those mechanisms. Every other corporation wants to collect and sell my data. Apple had a chance to make on-premise data storage a thing. They had AirPort, which combined with a Mac Mini could provide full iCloud functionality from the home. iCloud itself could have simply been an encrypted offsite backup, like Tarsnap with no options. Instead Apple built a system that still puts clear user data within their reach.
- frogblast 5y agoWhat you wish for is exactly what HealthKit is. All app access is gated by ACLs that require per-app and per-record-type user approval, and always encrypted when transmitted off of your device. This is a quote from the Apple Health Privacy Policy: > When your device is locked with a passcode, Touch ID, or Face ID, all of your health and fitness data in the Health app — other than your Medical ID — is encrypted and inaccessible by default. Additionally, if you are using iOS 12 or later and turn on two-factor authentication, Apple will not be able to read your health and activity data synced to iCloud. The two factor authentication is the mechanism for key distribution such that HealthKit data can be synced and migrated between your own devices, without being decryptable by apple.
- rodgerd 5y ago> All of the (Garmin, Strava, Apple, and Google [who is trying really hard but failing]) want a monopoly on your health data. Garmin is the only one I actually trust currently, as they've shown 0 willingness to monetize your health information. I guess their huge data breach that they didn't notify and spent weeks fixing doesn't phase you, but it punted me out of their system.
- samschooler 5y agoNote: this restriction is limited to THIRD PARTY data, so: Strava -> Apple Health, still works Garmin/Fitbod/3rd party app -> Strava -> Apple Health, no longer syncs. IMHO this is better for me because now I don’t have duplicates in Apple Health and can sync to both services. But to each they’re own I guess.
- Gigachad 5y agoI think this can make sense. The recording devices ideally should have their own integrations with Apple Health so the source pushes to all the data repos rather than repos chaining the data along.
- artdigital 5y agoWonder if this includes third party sensor data that’s tracked with Strava. Like if I use a chest strap and record into Strava, will the exported data include the sensor data or is that considered “third party”
- stingrae 5y agoWhy not let users chose to enable/disable?
- micromacrofoot 5y agoyeah strava (understandably) wants to upsell you on premium features in the app, they don’t just want to be some middleman for your Garmin app
- Gigachad 5y agoI wonder what is going on at Strava. It feels like peak Strava was some time around 2018. Since then, it seems like features have only been getting disabled, hidden behind opt in flags, or moved to the paid plans. I completely understand the decision to move things to paid since their service does cost a lot to run and the subscription isn't expensive, but where are all the new and cool features that should have come out over the last few years? And I wonder if the article is correct in that they are pivoting away from segments. That seems strange since segments seem like the most compelling feature.
- outside1234 5y agoThere is no business here that scales sadly. In fact, it gets more expensive for Strava to operate the longer you are a subscriber And it apparently isn't valuable enough to charge more for ($5/month)
- KindAndFriendly 5y ago>> it gets more expensive for Strava to operate the longer you are a subscriber What are you referring to? That Strava has to store&compute more and more data from a user the longer they are using the platform?
- outside1234 5y agoYes - they pile up ride and run data over years for me - but get the same $5/month.
- usrusr 5y ago> And I wonder if the article is correct in that they are pivoting away from segments That's not what DCR wrote, that part was clearly about user perception: Strava has grown into something bigger than just that app that declares you KOM when you go really fast.
- pedalpete 5y agoFrom discussions I've had with people at Strava, they're trying to be more focused on implementing a few key features really well. When the original founders returned in 2018 or 2019, the app had a ton of features that had been half integrated, couldn't be found in order to be used, etc etc. They paired back things that weren't working, moved to focus on revenue (as they weren't going to be able to grow into the social network for all activities like they tried). I think it's the right strategy, but this move makes no sense. It's very easy for them to manage duplicate data, and I'm surprised to see them suggest users set-up their garmin device to connect directly to Apple. This essentially makes it easier for strava to be cut out of the loop in the future if the social aspect isn't working for you.
- whimsicalism 5y agoSad to see this happen to Apple, a strong crusader for open standards across competing systems.
- outside1234 5y agoamen
- CoastalCoder 5y agoHonest question, is that comment meant at face value, or is it sarcastic? My impression of Apple has been that it's a mixed-bag for privacy, etc., so I'm actually not sure.
- dc-programmer 5y agoApple’s garden (orchard?) is famously walled. This just means they intentionally make their hardware incompatible with other hardware/software. Presumable so you have to buy more Apple stuff
- asdff 5y agoNot really the case for their computers imo. OS X is like a linux distro but with paid maintainers.
- whimsicalism 5y agoTry getting Siri to use google maps :)
- asdff 5y agoI consider Siri like some mold from iOS that has spread and polluted OSX, rather than a fundamental part of OSX.
- dc-programmer 5y agoIt’s more of an aspirational wall. If they could get away with it, 3rd party software on the Mac would go the way of the headphone jack
- mdoms 5y agoGarmin Connect is so much better than Strava it's not even close. The only reason I could possibly imagine preferring Strava is if I desperately need my social circle to be aware of my every workout. For those of us who do this for ourselves and not the approval of our peers Strava is miles behind.
- adam-_- 5y agoMaybe it’s just what you know but every time I’ve used Garmin Connect it’s felt like a dumpster fire compared to Strava. Even for route planning (years ago) which I would not say Strava is fantastic at, it still seemed worse. YMMV
- asdff 5y agoAre any apps at all actually good for route planning especially on a bike? It seems like that this is something in software that just sucks. I don't even bother anymore, I open up a topographical map and figure out routes by hand. No more turning left across six lanes from a stop sign. No more route thats "mostly flat", aside from the 400ft of undulating terrain that saps you. No sharing the road with semitrucks that go 50mph and are actively trying to force you off and into riding on the sidewalk. No more surprises. All this planning turns things into a homework assignment, but its worth the investment for points of interest you regularly are going to.
- jamincan 5y agoI use ridewithgps.com, but rely heavily on my own local knowledge to avoid problem areas.
- Doctor_Fegg 5y agohttps://cycle.travel/map https://cycle.travel/map Disclaimer - my site. It’s very focused on quiet routes, so will generally prefer a hilly road if the alternative is a traffic-infested one. Europe/North America/AU+NZ only at present.
- 5y ago
- trentgreene 5y agoI’ve rearchitected my data flow for cycling multiple times now, and it’s frustrating to do it again
- bjorn2k 5y agoWhat is the most important data (or strava features) you want to keep? I was actually looking into this myself, and a few parts of strava are not that hard. For me the overview of my rides (including avg speed and distance is important), I quickly implemented a webpage with javascript and leaflet (map viewer), and I could present that data pretty quickly using geojson. I had an offline program which converted gpx traces to geojson, but I'm pretty sure I'm able to read gpx in javascript directly. The harder part is generating the gpx trace (which I used komoot app for), as this involves matching your trace (gps positions) on a map instead of using the data as is.
- notacoward 5y agoThe weird thing is that they claim it's to avoid duplicate activities, but they totally know how to recognize duplicates already. Every so often, there's some sort of glitch in one of my activities getting from Garmin to Strava. If I'm feeling impatient, I download the .fit file from Garmin and upload it to Strava myself, and I never get a duplicate that way. Happened for the first time in a while just last week. Clearly, whenever Garmin does send the data, Strava is perfectly capable of recognizing an activity it already has, and it does the right thing. I'm just not buying that excuse. BTW and a bit OT, I find it very impressive that Strava can retroactively create a leaderboard going back years for a newly created segment, meaning that they must evaluate potentially millions of nearby activities for overlaps, often in just a few minutes. That's a hell of a query. Anybody know of more information on how they do it?
- whimsicalism 5y agoI thought they meant duplicate activities on the Apple Health side. If they can't read what the other services are writing to Apple Health then they have no way of avoiding duplicates.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- notacoward 5y agoDoesn't that suggest that Apple is failing to detect and coalesce duplicates, like Strava and (AFAIK) other similar services like Garmin Connect or old MapMyRun do? That seems pretty damning, and also not Strava's problem.
- whimsicalism 5y agoIt might be substantially easier to detect duplicates coming from the same device (ie. the Strava case) than duplicates that might have been repackaged by any number of N third parties (ie. the Apple case).
- mulmen 5y ago
- ijustwanttovote 5y agoI kept messing with my settings yesterday to figure out why my Strava data wasn't exporting to Apple health. Now I know why, I must've spent an hour trying to get it to work.
- datavirtue 5y agoInstead of fixing shit like the issues pointed out in this post, they spent all their resources fucking up the UX in the app. The new activity save screen is complicated and is very obscure about where the various form data are going to show up in the final post. It used to be intuitive and straight forward. Feels like they were trying to be clever.
- voigt 5y agoIs there any OSS/self hosted alternative to Strava? Where would be the challenges?
- xsmasher 5y agoStrava has: * the database of "segments" created by users * the leaderboard data for each segment * the network-effects of being "the place to record data" If you create a self-hosted Strava then it isn't really Strava; it's just a log of your workouts.
- johannes1234321 5y agoAlso the heatmqps to do routing based on where people actually are riding. Which is useful to identify the good/secure roads. But a self hosted tool still can do a lot for own analysis. For tracking the own progress, the own training plan.
- Gigachad 5y agoI actually spent a lot of time working on one. As usual there isn't a whole lot of special sauce that makes it impossible but its an immense amount to replicate all of the features as well as a rather expensive to run piece of software if you want something like segments and high score boards. And after all this, your user base consists of the people who didn't want to pay for strava.
- asdfadfas 5y agoI built one for myself, sqlite + apache superset. I basically did that because over the years I had switched devices from different companies and I used to use endomondo which was shut down. I wanted to have all my data in once place. It does require me to export data from device and use my import script once a while, however works for me.
- prmoustache 5y agoWell not exactly turn key solution but you can do a lot with a self hosted elasticstack instance. I guess you might be able to do interesting dashboards with grafana.
- saos 5y agowhat the heck?
- rufius 5y agoGuess I’m cancelling my Strava subscription.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Angostura 5y agoI'd never use Strava as my aggregator. I pipe all my Activity into Apple Health and then push the ones I want to be on Strava from there. It seems that Strava agrees with me - which is a bit odd.
- dustingetz 5y agopaid version just gets more and more complicated, all i want is to know how many days per week and miles per week i ran with my times trending up or down, but all the easy to use screens have been removed and replaced by designer mush. it’s like KPIs have gone wrong and they think the rage navigating is engagement. app was fine in like 2017. and then when they make me swipe through some product tour of overcomplicated BS or hunt for the concealed “close ad” button on some stupid year end recap when all i want to do is start my run. i think they have too many PMs competing on vanity metrics to justify their existence