Issues with getting directions from calendar events

arin.failing

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Oct 21, 2010
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So, over this last weekend, I noticed a flaw within the calendar app on Apple Watch, which I figured was just overlooked during the building of Watch OS. When attempting to get directions to a location for which you have added an address to a calendar event, you are only able to get directions once you receive a notification "at start of travel time". No other notification, nor by navigating to the calendar event, via the app, will allow you to see how long it will take to get there. This is a problem, as the travel time option, when creating such an event, is not dynamic - if you set up travel time from "Home" and you decide to stop at Costco before heading out to your work potluck at a banquet hall to which you've never been, your travel time stays at 30 min, when Costco is 10 min closer to the event's location. You are unable to look ahead at your new travel time if making an unexpected stop; that's the issue. The good news, though, is that it may just be a weird bug, at the moment, as I was able to play with some future events to create simple workarounds. Let me break down the two issues (as I've noticed them), and their workarounds:

1. Required to use an iCloud calendar if you want directions - workaround: use iCloud for calendar events
2. Cannot get directions prior to start-of-travel-time notification (using iCloud) - workaround: re-save the location AFTER you've paired the Apple Watch to your iPhone (unfortunately, this was required for all of my added-pre-Watch-pairing events)

Apple should take a look at this bug, because it caused some frustrations this past weekend for my wife and me, as we ended up being late for two events in the same day - both of which were previously set up with addresses and early travel time alerts (being former military, I HATE being late). My phone was unavailable, as I had accidentally left it downstairs as we were getting our family ready upstairs, and the second time, we were at an interim stop along the way.
 

Bigeric23

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Aug 17, 2010
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There are several nagging issues Apple needs to correct with the OS and applications. . . . My advice: since this is a 1.0 product, do not rely on the Apple Watch for anything extremely important.
 

arin.failing

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very true. what bothers me about this, specifically, is that it's an extremely small issue, yet it's a glaring misstep in its advertised functionality.
 

Just_Me_D

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So, over this last weekend, I noticed a flaw within the calendar app on Apple Watch, which I figured was just overlooked during the building of Watch OS. When attempting to get directions to a location for which you have added an address to a calendar event, you are only able to get directions once you receive a notification "at start of travel time". No other notification, nor by navigating to the calendar event, via the app, will allow you to see how long it will take to get there. This is a problem, as the travel time option, when creating such an event, is not dynamic - if you set up travel time from "Home" and you decide to stop at Costco before heading out to your work potluck at a banquet hall to which you've never been, your travel time stays at 30 min, when Costco is 10 min closer to the event's location. You are unable to look ahead at your new travel time if making an unexpected stop; that's the issue. The good news, though, is that it may just be a weird bug, at the moment, as I was able to play with some future events to create simple workarounds. Let me break down the two issues (as I've noticed them), and their workarounds:

1. Required to use an iCloud calendar if you want directions - workaround: use iCloud for calendar events
2. Cannot get directions prior to start-of-travel-time notification (using iCloud) - workaround: re-save the location AFTER you've paired the Apple Watch to your iPhone (unfortunately, this was required for all of my added-pre-Watch-pairing events)

Apple should take a look at this bug, because it caused some frustrations this past weekend for my wife and me, as we ended up being late for two events in the same day - both of which were previously set up with addresses and early travel time alerts (being former military, I HATE being late). My phone was unavailable, as I had accidentally left it downstairs as we were getting our family ready upstairs, and the second time, we were at an interim stop along the way.

All you have to do is long press on the address listed therein to get the Watch to switch over to navigation mode.