- The Apple Watch turns 10 in April
- Apple’s VP of fitness has revealed one of the biggest findings about its users since it was launched
- Apple expected sporty users to embrace exercise, and less sporty users to ignore it, but the opposite was true
Ahead of the Apple Watch’s 10th birthday in April, the company’s VP of fitness technologies, Jay Blahnik, has revealed what might just be the biggest misconception Apple had about its users ahead of launch, and one of its biggest findings over the last 10 years.
In an interview with The Independent, Blahnik talked about the different features and upgrades Apple has added since the inception of the Apple Watch in 2015, right the way through to its best Apple Watch, the Apple Watch Ultra 2.
He talked about well-received features like new metrics and training views, as well as new Apple Fitness Plus workout programs introduced for 2025.
But it’s Blahnik’s confession that Apple had a very different idea about how Apple Watch customers would approach exercise and fitness that’s really worth a second look.
Was Apple wrong about fitness on Apple Watch?
Blahnik revealed that the biggest finding the company had made about the Apple Watch in the 10 years since its launch was a misconception about how people who were more or less sporty would approach using the Apple Watch’s exercise features.
“In the beginning, we may have thought that people who were less sporty might be focused on their day,” he says, while more sporty people would be focused on workout features.
“What we’ve been delighted to see is that for every athlete that loves their workout, they’ve become really conscious of having a more active day as well,” he explains. In contrast, he says “And for every person that might have said that they don’t really focus on workouts, we hear from someone that says that getting exercise credit and filling rings was the thing that made me start tracking my walks – and then I decided to run, and then I went to the gym.”
Blahnik says the company was “delighted” that its activity app and workouts had encouraged elite athletes “to make their days healthier” while encouraging beginners to take up fitness for the first time, exactly the opposite of how Apple thought it would go.
In recent years Apple has added more wellness features like rest days and training loads to Apple Watch to focus on a more holistic approach to health and exercise, a reflection of this transitioning mindset.
Indeed, when the Apple Watch first launched it was positioned as a communication device, with very little focus on health. Now, health is absolutely the cutting edge of Apple Watch and something the company looks set to focus on even more in 2025. Reports indicate that both the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and Series 11 will feature high blood pressure detection that will function in a similar vein to its sleep apnea feature. Beyond that, the company is still trying to crack the holy grail of wearable tech, non-invasive blood glucose monitoring.
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