Or perhaps allow the apps to stay loaded on the watch and deprioritize the watchfaces. I find that I infrequently use apps and they often get offloaded and then when I need them.
One example of this is when I find myself away from my phone and use my Pebble to set the timer. I do this infrequently, and often find that the app has been offloaded and is no longer available to me. I can’t download it at the time because I’m away from my phone. Choosing to be able to pin the timer app would solve this problem.
Another example is a battery tracker app. I rarely open it, but I want it running in the background always. If it offloads that will ruin it’s ability to track battery when I want to see it in a few weeks.
I don’t think it ever “offloads” or removes apps without being told to.
You should be able to find the app list on the device (short press middle button, by default).
If this is some specific timer app, which one ? I’d expect timers to work by adding an event to the time line, so work if the app is “on front” or not.
I’ve not tried this with anything other than the built in “alarm” app however.
I’ve experienced this as well with my PT2. Not that I’m necessarily away from my phone, but sometimes I hit my quick launch for a timer app (I have one for counting up and one for counting down) and it has to re-download. Same goes for watch faces, but I don’t mind that as much.
If I look at the app list on the device, I can tell which apps have been offloaded because they don’t show the app logo:
I didn’t realize this wasn’t expected behavior. If I could pin some favorites to prevent them from offloading, that would be great! Or is there a way to see how memory is allocated? I wonder if I have one app or watchface that’s gobbling up all the on-watch memory and is forcing other apps/watchfaces to unload.
Offloading unused apps is, in fact, expected behavior. It’s annoying and not even really necessary since the newer watches have a lot more storage than the old watches. My understanding is that the behaviour is the same between the old watches and the new watches though.
So does that mean that whatever algorithm decides what apps/faces to unload and when isn’t taking the watch model into account? Seems like that would be one way to address the issue of infrequently used but highly preferred apps being offloaded. Alternatively, the suggestion that @ebodes had of pinning or marking certain apps/faces as priority would also be useful.
Wow ! I have several apps, and none have this “not there” icon.
So when do things get removed ? What’s the criteria ? I don’t think it’s surfaced in the companion app, based on a look just now.
Aside: One thing I think Core is missing an actual user guide, that’d have things like this in. Like, there’s nothing in the ‘getting started, never had a watch’ that even explains how navigation is meant to work…
