Apple might have accidentally outed watchOS 8's new Fitness+ Audio Meditations

How to save and back up your Health data on Apple Watch (Image credit: Joseph Keller/iMore)

What you need to know

Apple appears to have a new Fitness+ Audio Meditations feature planned for Apple Watch.
The new feature was outed in a WWDC State of the Union video that has since been altered to remove it.

Appe might have accidentally outed a new watchOS 8 feature ahead of time, according to a report. A new Apple Watch Fitness+ Audio Meditations feature was shown during the Platforms State of the Union video despite it having not been formally announced.

As MacRumors points out, that video has now been removed with a different uploaded and put into its place. The new video doesn't show the same Apple Watch image.

Apple has now attempted to hide its plans for Fitness+ Audio Meditations by uploading a wholly new Platforms State of the Union video that removes the implicating image, replacing it with a generic image of the Mindfulness app. MacRumors was able to verify that Apple revealed the feature in the original video.

However, at the time of writing Apple has yet to make the same alteration to the American sign language version of the same video, although that will likely change soon enough.

It's likely the Audio Meditations feature would join the existing Time to Walk feature, allowing users to take part in guided meditations using their Apple Watch and AirPods. It isn't clear why Apple has yet to announce the feature, or why it's being so secretive about it. It also doesn't seem available in the current watchOS 8 beta that's in the hands of developers, either.

Apple will make watchOS 8 available to the public this fall so there's plenty of time for Audio Meditations to make an appearance. In the meantime, why not check out the best Apple Watch deals we could find so you're all set for watchOS 8 later this year.

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.