The Apple Watch, which was released on April 24, 2015, wasn’t the first fitness tracker or even the first smartwatch. (Depending on how you define those categories, they had been around for as much as half a century already.) But it did set a new industry standard and shape fitness trackers as we know them today.
When Tim Cook unveiled it, he said the goal was to make the best watch in the world. While “best” is a subjective term, Apple Watch has objectively become the most popular timepiece on the planet, by both present-day market share and all-time number of units sold. But I’m not sure even Cook imagined the impact Apple Watch would make on fitness, where it has become the de facto wearable for anyone looking to measure and maximize their health, fitness, and general well-being.
“When we look all the way back to how it started, we would have never anticipated that the watch would be doing as many things as it's doing to impact people's health,” says Jay Blahnik, Apple’s vice president of fitness technologies, who leads the team responsible for developing fitness features across Apple hardware, software, and services.
But you don’t have to take it from an Apple employee. Take it from me, a veteran fitness editor who has worn an Apple Watch for the better part of its decade-long existence. With core features rooted in behavioral psychology and functionality tempered by the realities of human nature, the Apple Watch is, to me, still the best fitness tracker that money can buy.
It takes a holistic view
Many fitness trackers tout advanced metrics and accuracy but neglect to take into account the user’s general well-being. Fitness can only be built on a foundation of good health, and to ignore this fact is to invite inconsistency, frustration, and even injury.
“The science was indicating, even 10 years ago, that while quantity [of activity] is important, intensity and frequency is also important; just moving around is not enough," says Blahnik. In fact, it was right around the time of the Apple Watch’s 2014 reveal that a landmark study revealed that extensive sitting can counteract the benefits of exercise.
“We really did focus on this idea of how we could help people sit less, move more, and get some exercise. That was sort of our mantra from the very beginning,” says Blahnik. “It inspired the Activity app, and it inspired the notion of the three rings.”
The rings, which track standing, movement, and exercise, serve as the core of Apple Watch’s Activity app. They’ve been baked in from day one, and have become a defining feature of the product, complete with progress notifications throughout the day to keep you on track and celebratory animations to acknowledge wins.
Read on for the four other reasons the Apple Watch cannot be beat as a fitness tracker.
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