Apple offers special badge, iMessage stickers for Apple Watch owners during Heart Month

AppleInsider

To mark American Heart Month, which promotes cardiovascular health, Apple is launching a special Activity Challenge for the Apple Watch, which comes with a badge and three animated iMessage stickers for whoever completes it.

Image Credit: MacRumors.

Earning the badge requires closing the Exercise ring every day between Feb. 8 and Feb. 14 -- Valentine's Day. The iMessage stickers pulsate, and in fact are the first animated stickers being awarded for any Activity Challenge.

Apple regularly runs Activity Challenges to promote causes. Internally the company is using the Watch to run annual fitness competitions, with special rewards for people who achieve "gold" status. This year's prize is a custom Activity-themed Watch band.

During Thursday's quarterly earnings call, Apple said that the Watch had managed 50 percent growth in both units and revenue for a fourth consecutive quarter. This was aided by the launch of the Apple Watch Series 3, the first model to offer cellular support.

eightzero

These things sure would be interesting if they actually worked as advertised. I've gotten February's award already, just like my wife got January's on about 1/3. I was promised a challenge award that I met - it even showed it as completed, but greyed out on 1/31, but then two days later it simply disappeared. 

More Apple QC woes. 

fbicking

Would have to agree with Eightzero comment. The Activity App is one of the worst coded apps I have used. It is riddled with bugs.

stevedownunder

Just to give the opposite perspective from the 2 comments above. I wear my Apple watch (S2) every day and closely monitor the Activity App for health reasons. I've had it for nearly a year, never seen a single bug...flawless

Anilu_777

I haven’t seen errors either. Although I’m disappointed that some of these challenges aren’t available in Canada. 

fastasleep

They should go for negative reinforcement as well so if you don't complete the goals, you get an animated sticker of a struggling, plaque-lined heart.

rattlhed

fbicking said:

Would have to agree with Eightzero comment. The Activity App is one of the worst coded apps I have used. It is riddled with bugs.

Agreed.  The workout app on the watch isn't much better.  Although the GPS on the watch is outstanding and gives very accurate distance measurements, the heart rate monitor is constantly way over my actual rate.  Several times during a 10 mile run I can look down and it's telling me my rate is 185-190.  Not true as I'll stop and take my own pulse and it's right where it should be at ~150 bpm.  I make sure I wear the watch nice and tight against my wrist.  

And forget 'other' exercises built in like 'stair master'.  I do my stair master 2-3 times a week and for a 1 hour workout it tells me I've burned about 180 active calories.  This is with my hear rate at around 110 bpm, hell, I can tell I'm working hard (sweating, heart rate up, etc).  Plenty of research I've done shows I'm burning about 400 active calories per hour on the stair master.  

Other times I'll go for a walk with the dog, say for 45 minutes, and it only give me 20 minutes of exercise.  Hm...the timer is going the whole time, and it's a 'workout' on the app, so why cut my exercise in half?

If they're going to have a native app on the watch designed specifically for active people, then they need this thing to work flawlessly.  They're not even close.  At least I still love my watch for all the other things it can do.  

macgui

I've had no problems earning the achievements. I have had a few instances of not getting credit for some Stands, even though I take extra care to see them register.

Overall, I've been very happy with the performance of both the Activity and Workout apps.

eightzero

When I saw the Apple Watch announcement, I decided to buy one. I like it, and use it all the time. I initially didn't pay much attention to the fitness stuff, as that wasn't important to me. I admit I rather got hooked on it, but now I kind of wish I could turn it all off. I didn't have any dramatic results from going for a daily walk, or standing every hour. One thing I did notice is that logging a workout drains the battery really fast. At one point, a 30m workout was eating 30% of my battery. I think Apple got it fixed, but in days where I log a workout, it costs me 2-3 hours of battery life. 

As I feared, the battery is dying too. I suppose it is unrealistic to expect forever electronics, but it is still disappointing. My AW is no where near "all day battery" now. Given my experience with this, I'd really like to buy a new model of AW that had none of these fitness features. The HR thing isn't particularly accurate, and it just eats battery. 

At one of the Apple events, they touted the "breathe" app. Most. Annoying. App. Ever. That got turned off really quickly.

fastasleep

eightzero said:

When I saw the Apple Watch announcement, I decided to buy one. I like it, and use it all the time. I initially didn't pay much attention to the fitness stuff, as that wasn't important to me. I admit I rather got hooked on it, but now I kind of wish I could turn it all off. I didn't have any dramatic results from going for a daily walk, or standing every hour. One thing I did notice is that logging a workout drains the battery really fast. At one point, a 30m workout was eating 30% of my battery. I think Apple got it fixed, but in days where I log a workout, it costs me 2-3 hours of battery life. 

As I feared, the battery is dying too. I suppose it is unrealistic to expect forever electronics, but it is still disappointing. My AW is no where near "all day battery" now. Given my experience with this, I'd really like to buy a new model of AW that had none of these fitness features. The HR thing isn't particularly accurate, and it just eats battery. 

At one of the Apple events, they touted the "breathe" app. Most. Annoying. App. Ever. That got turned off really quickly.

Try removing apps you don't use, or at the very least turn off background app refresh for the ones you don't need it for. My Watch usually goes back on the stand with 30-40% or so left each night.