14 DAY TRIAL // Apple rolled out watchOS 7 earlier this month with much fanfare after the typical iPhone event that was held in September was dedicated entirely to the new Apple Watch.
And while the software update obviously comes with lots of improvements, including sleep tracking, it looks like it also brings a new problem to Apple Watch owners.
It’s related to GPS tracking, which has apparently been broken down after the update. Users complain on Apple’s forums that no GPS information is logged for their workouts.
“I used the Outdoor Walk activity on my Watch, but this time didn’t take my iPhone. When I returned, and attempted to upload the activity to Strava, I received a warning that no GPS/route data was present. I checked the Fitness and Health apps, and sure enough, there was no route on the map – only the starting point,” one Apple Watch owner explains in a thread spotted by 9to5mac.
No workaround just yet
At this point, it looks both old and new models of the Apple Watch are affected, including the Series 3 and the Series 4.
Reaching out to Apple doesn’t seem to make any difference, as support staff doesn’t know what’s happening either and most of the fixes don’t bring things back to normal.
“I spoke to someone at Apple Support and they suggested I turned off/back on a couple of related privacy settings. I have since tried another Outdoor Walk activity, without the phone present, and the problem persists – no GPS/route data,” the same user continues.
While the issue most often affects Strava, other apps seem to be suffering from the same GPS tracking problem too.
The worse thing is that while watchOS 7 appears to be the culprit, downgrading to an earlier version of the operating system isn’t possible, so for now, users are just stuck with this problem.