Apple Fitness+

Apple’s subscription fitness service kicks off 2025 with its most extensive programming lineup yet, featuring new Apple Fitness+ workouts in strength training, pickleball conditioning and a collaboration with popular fitness app Strava.

“Fitness+ is designed to support everyone’s unique fitness and wellness journey,” said Jay Blahnik, Apple’s vice president of fitness technologies, in a press release Friday. “From workouts that can boost power and precision for pickleball, to breath meditations that help relieve stress, along with Artist Spotlight sessions featuring iconic hits and an exciting collaboration with Strava, Fitness+ has something to inspire, motivate and help everyone feel their best in 2025.”

It’s the new year! If you haven’t given up on your New Year’s resolution already, I have three apps that’ll help you through it. (I won’t hold you to it if you’ve slipped up in the first week.)

Whether you’re trying to exercise more, work more efficiently or change your daily habits, these three apps will help you make a better 2024.

The Apple One subscription bundle lets users save money on Apple’s subscription services like Apple Music, Apple TV+ and iCloud+ storage. The company offers three Apple One configurations. Check pricing on Apple One’s three tiers — Individual, Family and Premier — and find out what you get for your money (and, most importantly, how much you can save).

Before Usher plays the Apple Music Super Bowl LVIII Halftime Show on Sunday in Las Vegas, Apple made sure everyone knows all about the R&B superstar Monday with word of a press conference coming on Thursday and a host of Usher tunes and information available now on Apple Music, including the artists “My Road to Halftime” playlist.

Apple Fitness+ brings fresh ways for users to stay active and mindful in the new year with new activities starting January 8, Apple said Thursday.

You can try a new sound meditation theme, a workout program with golfer Rose Zhang, an Artist Spotlight series tied to the Apple Music Super Bowl LVIII Halftime Show, Time to Walk episodes available on Apple Podcasts for the first time and more.

Apple CEO Tim Cook took a moment to congratulate a man who wrote to him and tweeted an inspiring story of using Apple Watch and Fitness+ to lose more than 100 pounds over several months.

Nate Gorby told his story in his tweet, below, saying Apple’s tools changed his life. Cook’s direct reply was just one of many responses.

Although Apple announced iOS 16 at WWDC22 and released it on September 12, not all promised features made their way into the first public build.

With iOS 16.1, which just became available Monday, Apple delivered many such promised features. Once you install it on your iPhone, check out the five iOS 16.1 features you should try right away.

Apple Fitness+ will finally become available to iPhone users starting next week. The subscription service, which offers an array of recorded workouts for a wide range of health levels, previously focused on Apple Watch, showcasing users’ performance metrics in real time.

The expansion to iOS handsets is not the only move in the works to make Apple Fitness+ more mainstream. Music by Taylor Swift is also coming to Fitness+, with workouts focused on the artist’s new album, Midnight.

Gotta dance? You do if Apple Fitness+ has anything to say about it. Leading up to International Dance Day on April 29, the app is highlighting a new Dance Collection of workouts, a limited-edition award and Artist Spotlight sessions with hit songs and dance moves from artist videos.

In recognition of Heart Month, aka February, Apple is rolling out a series of new activity challenge and heart-health resources to support users’ efforts to stay healthy.

Also toward that end, the company hopes you’ll learn a thing or two from preliminary trends shown in the Apple Heart and Movement Study.

If your New Year’s resolution is to get in shape in 2022, Apple Fitness+ provides the perfect solution. Tightly integrated with Apple Watch, it offers hundreds of excellent video workouts you can do at home right now. But the question is, will you?

As the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Subscribing to Fitness+ is all very well, but it’ll be a waste of money if you lose interest after a week.

Unfortunately, sticking to a New Year’s resolution isn’t easy. That’s probably why almost 50% of them fail in the first year.

If you want to smash your fitness goals in 2022, you need to start by getting your head in the right place. And that’s where well-formed outcomes can help. They are goals that meet certain essential criteria identified by psychologists in the 1980s using a technique called neuro-linguistic programming, or NLP.

Well-formed outcomes provide a framework that can massively increase your chances of achieving your goal. And all you need to do to turn your resolution into a well-formed outcome is ask yourself these six questions.

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: New renders give us an even better vision of what Apple’s mixed-reality headset might look like. We’re still not convinced we’ll be wondering around with these things strapped to our heads — especially if they cost $3,000. However, we must admit that the concept art by Ian Zelbo does look pretty cool.

Also on The CultCast:

• Your Apple Wallet might get you on a plane next year.
• An AirTags Christmas miracle.
• An unfortunate darts disaster.
• More picks for Gear of the Year!

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video livestream, embedded below.

If you sweat a lot when you work out — and if your Apple Watch bands barely stand up to the torrent — rejoice. Twelve South rolled out its new ActionBand Thursday. The company designed the soft, absorbent, wide band to keep up with the hardest workouts and resulting perspiration.

Apple Fitness+ added group workouts and meditation sessions Monday, letting users communicate in real time with up to 32 other people. The new capability taps FaceTime’s new SharePlay feature, which works on iOS devices now and comes to macOS Monterey later this fall.

“It’s a really fun way to connect with friends and family, even trade some words of encouragement or friendly smack talk, while also making progress toward closing their rings,” said Jay Blahnik, Apple’s vice president of fitness technologies, in a press release.

Some new features really stood out when Apple revealed the next versions of all its operating systems during Monday’s Worldwide Developers Conference keynote. Users of iPhone, Mac and iPad, and Apple Watch, too, can look forward to welcome improvements this fall.

We picked out the best of these to make sure they don’t get overlooked.

We got our first glimpse of the OS that will be gracing everyone’s wrists this fall when Apple showed off watchOS 8 during Monday’s WWDC keynote.

This update looks like more of an evolution than a revolution. Text editing gets a little easier.  And we’ll get various small enhancements for the apps we already know and love, like photo sharing and a redesigned Music app.

Apple Fitness+ added screen legend Jane Fonda to the Time to Walk feature for Earth Day. She discusses her life as well as the fight against climate change.

Time to Walk promises interesting and encouraging audio stories to liven up walking for exercise. It’s part of Apple Fitness+, a $9.99-a-month subscription workout service built around Apple Watch.

Apple Fitness+ will introduce new workouts geared specifically toward pregnant women and older adults next week, the company said Thursday. There will also be new Yoga, High Intensity Interval Training and Strength workouts for beginners coming soon to Apple’s subscription fitness service.

Apple will highlight the contributions of women to society in many ways during Women’s History Month, including suggesting relevant outstanding books, podcasts and apps. It also plans virtual Today at Apple sessions led by female creators.

Plus, there’ll be an International Women’s Day Apple Watch Activity Challenge for March 8, and there’ll be other ways of observing this day.

Starting Tuesday, Apple Watch users can install watchOS 7.3. This adds support for the recently announced “Time to Walk” audio feature for Fitness+ subscribers. There’s also a new Unity watch face. Plus, the ECG app will be available in four additional Asian countries.

Continue reading

Time to Walk, a new Apple Watch feature for Fitness+ subscribers, promises interesting and encouraging audio stories to liven up walking for exercise.

2020 was rough. However, the pandemic gave Apple a chance to show its true colors. From fantastic new products to altruistic accomplishments, the company found many ways to excel.

Read Leander Kahney’s recap for an informed look at Apple’s incredible year. Then read Ed Hardy’s predictions about what to expect from Apple in 2021. And, if you’re ready to achieve your fitness goals, read Graham Bower’s piece on how to make your New Year’s resolutions stick with Apple Fitness+.

It’s all in this week’s free issue of Cult of Mac Magazine. Download it now to read on your iOS device, or get the links below.

Apple Fitness+ makes it easier than ever to get in shape. So you should have no problem smashing your New Year’s resolution. Right?

Wrong. The sad fact is, despite the best of intentions, most New Year’s resolutions fail. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I know from personal experience as someone who went from a middle-aged slob to the proud owner of six-pack abs for the first time in my life. Now I’m a qualified personal trainer and I write about fitness for Cult of Mac.

So what’s the secret? Why do some resolutions succeed where others fail? Here are my top five tips for how you can use Apple Fitness+ to get in shape in 2021 and stay that way.

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through Apple Park
All the shutters were drawn and the offices dark.
The lunchroom was empty, the desks were all clean
All were working from home due to COVID-19.

Between AirPods Max and Apple Fitness+, this was one big week for Apple. The company continues to expand its sprawling, intertwined empire of hardware, software and services — and these new entries look like winners.

Read our dueling reviews for insight into how the high-end headphones and the subscription fitness service compare to rivals. You’ll find them, along with a load of helpful Apple how-tos and the week’s top news stories, in this week’s free issue of Cult of Mac Magazine. Download it now for your iOS device. Or use the links below to get to the stories on the web.