Apple celebrates Heart Month with new Apple Watch Activity Challenge, more

Apple Heart Health
Apple Heart Health (Image credit: Apple)

What you need to know

  • Apple has announced the ways it's celebrating Heart Month in the United States.
  • A new Apple Watch Activity challenge is available through February.
  • Preliminary findings from the Apple Heart and Movement Study have been shared.

Apple has announced that it is celebrating February's Heart Month with a new Apple Watch Activity Challenge and more.

In a new Newsroom post, Apple announced that it is making a new Apple Watch Activity Challenge available with a new batch awarded to those who successfully complete it.

To help Apple Watch users stay motivated, Apple is offering a new Heart Month Activity Challenge to help people of all fitness levels put their health first by completing 30 minutes in their Exercise ring on February 14 to earn a special award. Also starting February 14, to help users earn the award and stay active, Fitness+ will feature a special section of 30-minute energizing workouts that will motivate users to get their weekly minutes of exercise.

Alongside the new challenge, Apple is also highlighting a collection of apps that are built to help people improve their heart health. The new collection will be available in the App Store.

Apple has also made some preliminary analysis of activity data shared from the Apple Heart and Movement Study available The analysis is based on more than 18 million workouts that have been logged by Apple Watch wearers during the pandemic, the Newsroom post says.

In a new preliminary analysis of activity data shared from the Apple Heart and Movement Study, researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital, in collaboration with the American Heart Association and Apple, found that after analyzing more than 18 million workouts logged using Apple Watch during the pandemic, study participants relied on getting their activity minutes in by walking, cycling, and running the most. They also found that participants ages 65 and older were actually more likely than their younger counterparts to stay on track, meeting their goal of at least 150 minutes of activity per week.

Apple also points people to Apple Fitness+ as a way that people can try to improve their fitness both overall and specifically heart health.

More of a reader than a runner? Apple Books is also offering a collection of titles that are focused on heart health.

Apple Books is offering a collection of titles that focus on heart health, including books on heart science, emotional well-being, and healthy eating. For viewers, the Apple TV app is featuring a collection of movies and shows on heart disease, heart science, and healthy living. And on Apple Podcasts, listeners can find a curated group of popular podcasts on the Browse tab featuring medical experts that help listeners learn more about their health and the steps they can take to improve overall, fitness, mindfulness, and well-being.

Apple recently announced two more Apple Watch Activity Challenges related to Black History Month and the Lunar New Year.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.