Whip yourself into shape by using this Apple Watch feature to compete against friends and family

“The Apple Watch is already one of my favorite tech products — I wear one every day — and I recently started using a feature that’s made it even more fun: Activity Sharing,” Todd Haselton reports for CNBC. “It’s even helping me move more throughout the day.”

“You probably already use the Activity app on your Apple Watch. It’s the app where you try to close all of the colored rings,” Haselton reports. “When you close the red ring you’ve met your daily calorie burn goal. When you close the green ring you’ve exercised for 30 minutes, and when you close the blue ring you’ve stood up once an hour throughout the day.”

“Activity can be a whole lot more fun if you compete with people,” Haselton reports. “It’s a feature that I only learned about recently. You can share your progress as you close the rings throughout the day, and see how close your friends are to doing the same thing. It pushes you to move more. You can see when friends finish workouts, when they earn awards for working out multiple days in a row and even smack talk with them.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: It’s definitely good extra motivation, but, alas, not everyone has an Apple Watch, yet.

So…

Along with Apple Watches on our left wrists, we wear simple Fitbit trackers (Fitbit Flex 2 bands) on our right wrists because we like to compete with our friends who wear Fitbits.

If we could find an Apple Watch band with a holder for our Fitbit Flex 2 units, we could stop wearing those Fitbit bands on our right wrists. (Hello, enterprising Apple Watch band-makers?!)

If an Apple Watch app existed that displayed our Fitbit steps, we’d be all set with Flex 2 units in our Apple Watch bands and the data displayed on Apple Watch’s display. (Fitbit’s app unsurprisingly does not offer an Apple Watch component.) Of course, even better would be for Fitbit to recognize Apple Watch steps and allow users to incorporate them into the Fitbit data, including allowing that step data to count in challenges (even though our Fitbit steps never match our Apple Watch steps). Yes, we know that will never a happen (unless Apple bought Fitbit for their user base, legacy data, and social network).

Lastly, we do understand that if Fitbit allowed the Apple Watch to display Fitbit tracker data, everyone would immediately buy the cheapest Fitbit since their Apple Watch display is unmatched by anything Fitbit offers or plans to offer before the company folds. — MacDailyNews, July 1, 2017

SEE ALSO:
Apple Watch: 46 million sold, user base likely 40 to 43 million – Horace Deidu – May 3, 2018
Apple Watch, not phones, powered Verizon’s subscriber growth – April 24, 2018
Ming-Chi Kuo: Apple Watch sales could top 40-50 million units within next three years – March 27, 2018
Apple Watch dominates smartwatch market – March 1, 2018
Apple’s line of smartwatches outsold the entire Swiss watch industry last quarter – February 12, 2018
Apple Watch sets new all-time record for wearables shipments; ‘Apple has won the wearables game’ – analyst – February 7, 2018
Apple Watch sales momentum is growing; unit sales now rival those of Macintosh – January 23, 2018
Apple Watch Series 3 shipments predicted to rise to 23-25 million in 2018 – December 14, 2017
Apple Watch: The war for wearables is over, and Apple won – December 12, 2017
Canalys estimates Apple shipped 3.9 million Apple Watch units in Q317, despite strong demand outstripping supply – November 14, 2017
When Apple Watch surpassed iPod – November 8, 2017
Beleaguered Fitbit’s first smartwatch plagued by design flaws, delayed – April 11, 2017
Apple Watch sales hit all-time high while Fitbit stumbles – March 2, 2017
The Apple Watch is winning – March 2, 2017
Apple Watch had massive holiday quarter; took nearly 80% share of total smartwatch revenue – February 10, 2017
The Apple Watch ‘WOW’ moment – February 3, 2017