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Apple, Give It a Rest, Will Ya?

Nobody should be exercising every day!

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The image shows a digital award displayed on a smart device screen. The award is hexagonal with a design featuring a lightning bolt in three colors: pink, green, and blue, set against a white background with a gold border. The text below the award reads “Perfect Week (All Activity)” followed by a description indicating that the award has been earned 146 times for reaching all 3 Activity goals every day of a single week.
Personal screen shot

I love my Apple Watch. I can control my podcasts and my music from it while I go for a walk. It can set reminders and alarms, it tracks my sleep. It helps track my health and how much I exercise. It encourages me to exercise and rewards me with digital trophies if I work out regularly.

That last one is where I have a bone to pick with Apple. Do you see the award I put in the picture here? Did you notice that I have almost three years worth of “perfect” weeks? That means that I have met all my exercise goals every single day over all that time.

Wow! Quite the athlete!

Nope. I cheated, sort of. When I needed to rest or was sick, I cut way back on my goals. Nobody should be exercising hard every day, and definitely not for months on end. That’s not healthy!

But the watch is tracking my health. Why is it letting me, even encouraging me, to do unhealthy things?

It shouldn’t be doing that. A very simple change would fix this. Well, it’s conceptually simple; I do not know how much code would have to be ripped out to make this change. Assuming that Apple wanted to do this, the change would be to set weekly or monthly exercise goals instead of daily goals.

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Anthony (Tony/Pcunix) Lawrence đź‘€
Anthony (Tony/Pcunix) Lawrence đź‘€

Written by Anthony (Tony/Pcunix) Lawrence đź‘€

Retired Unix Consultant. I write tech and humor mostly but sometimes other things. See my Lists if your interests are specific.

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