“In walks Jay Blahnik. Apple’s director of fitness for health technologies is wearing black-and-blue Nike Frees, matching black athletic shorts and shirt, and a black-and-gray hoodie unzipped at the three-quarters mark,” Scott Rosenfield reports for Outside. “His movements are precise, and his smile sincere-looking but somewhat practiced in a way that makes you think he’s retired from the track to the studio. When we shake hands, I count to six before he lets go.”
“He’s published a bestselling book on flexibility, consulted with the biggest sports companies in the world, been named an international fitness instructor of the year, helped to create Nike’s social fitness platforms, and was a key voice on the Nike+ FuelBand, the last non-Apple wearable seen on the wrist of his current boss, CEO Tim Cook,” Rosenfield reports. “So, in the summer of 2013, when Apple went on a Watch-related hiring spree, they brought on Blahnik to lead a cadre of exercise science experts in imagining what exactly an Apple fitness device should do.”
MacDailyNews Note: We’ve also finally dumped our Nike+ FuelBands. NikeFuel tallies be damned. Maybe someday, Nike will make an app for Apple Watch that tracks NikeFuel the way the FuelBand did. We got tired of waiting – and of looking like cyborgs with Apple Watches on one wrist and FuelBands on the other. Unsurprisingly, the FuelBands lost that contest. Obviously, Apple wants Apple Watch owners to use Activity instead. Buh-bye, years worth of NikeFuel data.
“Their answer: Silence the noise,” Rosenfield reports. “‘The team really focused on saying, ‘As fitness and activity and trends come and go, what would always be a good recommendation?” Blahnik says. ‘It came down to sit less, move more, and get some exercise.’ That formula became the foundation of Activity, the Watch’s all-day fitness tracker app.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: What we’d give for a screen (or – gasp! – a website; might we suggest iCloud.com) that would allow us to display our total running mileage for the month from Apple’s Workout app. On our iPhones, the mileage total does not change even when we tap month, or day, or week in the Health app. The mileage number just sits there unchanging. We’ve searched a bit for the fix. Nothing helpful, so far. Does anybody know what’s going on? Are we missing something?
Otherwise, you can have our Apple Watches when you pry them off our cold dead wrists.
SEE ALSO:
Apple hires Nike+ FuelBand developer Jay Blahnik – August 19, 2013