The Apple Watch health app is an incredible tool for all levels of fitness
Apple has been pushing an increased emphasis on health since this year's WWDC event, but the Health app for its Apple Watch is officially their biggest move yet. The app's goal is to motivate people to be more healthy and active, regardless of what level of fitness you're currently at. Accordingly the app is designed both for users who just want to track what they're doing during the day or who are using it to build the best body they can.
To meet this goal they app has two modes, Fitness and Workout. Fitness monitors your day to day health and activity on three fronts using three "rings." You can track your progress based on how close to becoming a full circle each ring is. The Move ring measures how many calories you burn during your normal day to day activities. The Exercise ring tracks just your brisk activity, from a brisk walk or above. The ring will close out when you meet your recommend 30 minutes of activity a day. Finally the Stand ring shows how often you take a break from sitting. The ring will close when you reach a full minute of standing for each hour of the day.
Workout mode is designed to work as an all-in-one fitness app/sports watch in one. It includes an accelerometer to measure body movement, tracks your heart rate, and utilizes your GPS to track distance. Not just quantity of movement, but the quality.
You can select workouts from a list of popular activities, then set goals for that activity -- when you want to work out, calories, or distance. See at a glance how long, how far, and how hard you've been working out. When you're done, it will give you a summery of your session. There are even rewards or achievements for meeting goals. The app stores all your data on your iPhone allowing you to track goals and see your progress. Your data can also be shared with the Health app where it can be used with third party health and fitness apps.
Over time the watch gets to know you, and delivers intelligent reminders and offers goals based on your progress. In theory, this means that if it knows you're willing to run one mile a week, it will eventually start upping your goals to encourage you to work harder.
This Fitness app is truly exciting. We can't wait to get our hands on an Apple Watch to test it out.
