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How Apple supports runners in optimizing their health

A new report by the brand describes the evolution of the brand's mission to promote healthy lifestyles since introducing the Health app and Apple Watch

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Apple Watch is a sophisticated and popular tool for recreational runners. With recent updates to the Workout app, runners can keep track of the time, their mileage and enjoy multiple other activities, not to mention cross-training, strength training and myriad sports and other recreation activities. But the brand is very interested in positioning itself in users’ eyes as strongly committed to supporting healthy lifestyles (of which running is a part), which goes well beyond simply tracking your runs. To enable users to take full advantage of the technology available, Apple recently published a report detailing its commitment to helping users take full control of their health via tools like Apple Watch, iPhone and other devices–from the Fitness+ virtual workout platform, to monitoring specific health indicators and providing tools for encouraging healthy habits (such as Watch’s Activity rings), not to mention supporting vital health and medical research. 

“Our vision for the future is to continue to create science-based technology that equips people with even more information and acts as an intelligent guardian for their health, so they’re no longer passengers on
their own health journey,” says Apple’s chief operating officer, Jeff Williams, in the report’s introduction. “Instead, we want people to be firmly in the driver’s seat with meaningful, actionable insights.”  

The report serves as a summary of the brand’s accomplishments with respect to helping its users prioritize their fitness and health over the eight years since the introduction of the Health app in 2014 and the Apple Watch in 2015.

It’s fair to say that many, if not most, runners choose running as a way to stay healthy and fit, as opposed to simply running as an enjoyable hobby (though they do that, too). This may be the key to the popularity of Apple’s health and fitness tools. Introduced in 2015, Apple Watch is capable of tracking all of your daily fitness activities (including running, yoga, tennis, and whatever other sports you enjoy), plus giving insights into your heart health, mobility, sleep, menstrual cycle (for people who menstruate) and more. Its fall detection capability has even saved people’s lives.

But the brand also supports its users’ health in many other ways, most notably by supporting developers in creating tools such as Nike Run Club, Calm and other apps that leverage users’ health information stored in the Health app (with their permission only, and with full privacy), which may also be used to support runners’ relationships with their healthcare providers.

Specifically, the report details how Apple products can help give users better knowledge about their overall health, including (but not limited to) their fitness, via articles and explanations in the Health app. (The Activity rings are just one example.)

The brand stresses that it is guided by two fundamental principles when it comes to health: a firm grounding in scientific validation, and privacy. All users’ health and fitness data in the Health app and in the Cloud are encrypted when an iPhone is locked with a passcode, Touch ID or Face ID, and data is never shared with any third party without the user’s permission.

To read the full report, or for more information on how Apple supports users’ health, click here

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