Dawn Patrol, the Apple Watch surf tracking app we love to hate, has ruined another feature that almost made it worth paying $28 a year for: they no longer show Surfline wave heights in their surf forecasts. Now, a check of the surf returns a dash with no info (as seen at right).
After thinking it was our fault. We deleted the app, reloaded it. Restarted our phone and watch and still got the dash on the screen. Only after checking in with Dawn Patrol support did we learn the reason.
Before we could show the wave height from Surfline forecasts. However we can no longer do this unless you connect your account with Surfline.
Yes. A feature we had paid Dawn Patrol for has been removed and the only way to get it back is to sign up for an account on Surfline.com and then link it back to Dawn Patrol. Oddly, all of Dawn Patrol’s documentation on the web and in the Apple app store says “Surfline forecasts” are included in their paid “Soul Surfer” feature set. While there is a fix, it does not appear anywhere on Dawn Patrol’s website nor in any of their documentation.
Our experience with Dawn Patrol suggests the developers have a small staff, little funding, and very few people on their team who actually use the app on a daily basis. Because of this the app has had its share of glitches, bad updates, and feature fall out. Yes, it’s hard and tech is complicated. But dropping a paid feature without telling your users about it is pretty weak sauce.
So, about 30 minutes after jumping through all their account linking hoops, the wave height again showed up on our watch. Now, with a “Powered by Surfline” logo in the lower right hand corner. Notice the wind speed that used to be on the bottom right corner? It moved to the upper left to make room for Surfline branding. Is that was this was all about? Creating more Surfline accounts and placing a logo? Looks like it.
Now, after spending three hours sorting this out, please excuse us while we go crush that monster surf that our Apple Watch (and Surfline.com) has finally alerted us to.
