Apple has found a way to encourage users during workouts, but it may not be suitable for everyone.
Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference has finally revealed what new upgrades its operating system will be equipped with.
Several announcements proved previous expectations true, as the company focused on Apple’s unified interface redesign, featuring “Liquid Glass.”
The company also confirmed previous speculation that Apple would open its AI models to developers under the Foundation Models framework.
During the event, the company presented new features for each of the renamed operating systems, including iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, and visionOS 26.
Among those features, Apple announced Workout Buddy, which will be available on watchOS 26. This AI-powered tool is supposed to provide users with personalized, spoken motivation.
According to the company, the feature provides users with insights based on their data, such as heart rate, pace, distance, personal fitness milestones, and more.
During the presentation, the company demonstrated how this actually works by showing a woman running and receiving information via AirPods.
While the video looked aesthetically pleasing and quite motivational, as an occasional runner myself, I tried to imagine how this feature would work in the real world.
Apple says that Workout Buddy will give you a “personalized pep talk,” which I immediately thought should be very annoying, remembering all the times when I was in mid-workout and sometimes couldn’t even be bothered to smile back at another runner waving at me, with the only actually motivating thing on my mind being the end of the workout.
Wanting to know whether I’m the only one who found the presentation far from reality and who has disabled any voice alerts, I went to Reddit, where a discussion on the topic was already taking place.
I soon found like-minded people, who wrote, “I want these insights but on the Fitness app, not in my ear."
Another user noted, “It did feel like an extremely obnoxious noise, tbh.”
The pep talk in your ear feature also didn’t sit well with another netizen who stated: “This would annoy the heck out of me when trying to focus.”
“Workout buddy to me: run fatty, run,” joked one user online.
Apple Unveils AI-Powered 'Workout Buddy' for Apple Watch at WWDC
byu/exjr_ inapple
When it comes to the feature details, one user noticed that for it to work, “this requires your iPhone to be connected and for it to support Apple Intelligence. That makes it pretty useless for those of us who leave our phones at home when out running.”
Some users noticed that giving users insights into their workout isn’t a novelty, as the Nike Run app already does the same.
“This is what everyone in this thread misses because they don’t use Nike Run Club. It’s a pretty cool feature. If the AI could do a lot of that and more it’s a huge win,” wrote a Redditor.
Some netizens expressed their general disappointment in what all these fancy new AI features actually offer to users.
“This feels like an SNL sketch about how annoying all of this AI bullshit has become. Can we just focus on stuff like making pictures 3D?” shared one.
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