Samsung announced the Galaxy watch 5 Pro earlier this week. It’s Samsung’s most durable smartwatch ever. Apple also revealed that watchOS 9 will feature a ton of new running metrics.

Apple and Samsung have relied on touchscreen navigation on their smartwatches. That’s fine for casual exercise, or for the average person who is n’t traversing all sorts of terrain with extreme temperatures.

The Pro is a bigger, hardier version of the watch 5. It’s not easy when the humidity is thick enough that it feels like you’re swimming in soup.

You have to swipe up or scroll via the digital crown to view all the new stats. I’ve had to stop to successfully swipe through multiple menus.

If you work out year-round, it’s an even bigger issue in the winter when you have to wear gloves. If you’ve had plenty of’touchscreen-compatible’ gloves before, but they’ve never been reliable on my phone or on my smaller smartwatch screen.

Physical buttons are n’t thwarted by moisture or gloves. When you get used to them, you can flip through menus without having to look down until you absolutely need to. Some even use a combination of touch and button controls.

Apple and Samsung are both aware of athletes prize battery life, in-depth metrics, and durability. It’s less clear if either company has really thought about why so many outdoors enthusiasts and triathletes would rather give up a fancy touchscreen than physical controls.

Spread the AI news in the universe!