Apple today launched a new component of Fitness+ designed to get people out of their homes and away from their TVs. Called Time to Walk, it’s the first outdoor component of Fitness+ and opens the service up to a new world of workouts.
Apple seemingly goes out of its way to not call them podcasts, but Time to Walk is a very much in the vein. Each “experience” is an audio-only episode ranging from 25 to 40 minutes that requires an Apple Watch and a pair of Bluetooth headphones. Each episode features a famous guest who recorded their stories while “walking outside or in locations that are meaningful to them,” so it will feel like you’re going on a walk alongside them.
At launch, there are four episodes featuring musicians Dolly Parton and Shawn Mendes, NBA all-star Draymond Green, and Emmy award-winning actress Uzo Aduba. In the short episodes, listeners will share in each guest’s “personal, life-shaping moments and includes lessons learned, meaningful memories, thoughts on purpose and gratitude, moments of levity, and other thought-provoking topics,” as well as “a short playlist of songs that has given them motivation and inspiration, so the listener can continue their walk to a soundtrack intimately connected to each guest.” Listeners will need to have a subscription to Apple Music to download the playlist to their Apple Watch.
Apple says new episodes will be downloaded automatically to the user’s Apple Watch each Monday through the end of April for a total of 18 episodes. Once an episode begins to play, a “Walk” workout will automatically begin to record distance, pace, and calories. For users in a wheelchair, Time to Walk becomes Time to Push and automatically starts an Outdoor Wheelchair Walk Pace workout.
Apple Fitness+ costs $10 month or $80 a year and is available as part of the $30-a-month Apple One Premiere bundle, which includes Apple Music, News+, Arcade, TV+, and 2TB of iCloud storage.
Author: Michael Simon, Executive Editor
Michael Simon has been covering Apple since the iPod was the iWalk. His obsession with technology goes back to his first PC—the IBM Thinkpad with the lift-up keyboard for swapping out the drive. He's still waiting for that to come back in style tbh.