Apple Watch 'Close Your Rings' page revamped with stories from athletes & others

Perhaps looking to attract new iPhone owners in the aftermath of Christmas, Apple this week updated its "Close Your Rings" marketing page for the Apple Watch, featuring four more stories of how people use the Activity app.

One comes from Haley, a swimmer on the U.S. National Team, who says she likes competing with others, and that she tries to double her Move and Exercise rings every day. A second athlete, Lucy, is described as the world's best junior golfer, using her Watch during tournaments to figure out what she needs to improve. She also uses the Activity app for conditioning and swimming with friends.

The other two examples come from an orchestra conductor, Jason, and a yoga instructor, Natsumi. Both suggest that the Watch helps them live overall healthier lives.

When Apple first launched the Watch in 2015 its marketing was broader, positioning the product as a general-purpose wearable and a fashion accessory. Since then its focus has increasingly turned towards health and fitness, pitting Apple in direct competition with the likes of Fitbit and Garmin.

The Apple Watch Series 4 even includes electrocardiogram technology, which was finally enabled with last month's watchOS 5.1.2 update. U.S. owners can load the ECG app to check for atrial fibrillation, a potential warning sign of a stroke.

10 Comments

spice-boy 8 Years · 1450 comments

About 5 years ago

Help us Apple please, we should all compare ourselves to those that make a living with their perfectly fit trained bodies. Oh now I feel bad, I guess if I just buy a new Apple Watch at least I'll feel like I'm doing something right.

cgWerks 8 Years · 2947 comments

spice-boy said:

Help us Apple please, we should all compare ourselves to those that make a living with their perfectly fit trained bodies. Oh now I feel bad, I guess if I just buy a new Apple Watch at least I'll feel like I'm doing something right.

You can actually do it w/o an Apple Watch, or any worry about closing rings. So long as you don't just sit on the couch 24-7, starting to take some steps to a better dietary change will have far more impact than closing rings, and it's incredibly easy to do.

gutengel 7 Years · 363 comments

Well, it seems that apple keeps making the AW holiday awards disappear little by little, no 'Thanksgiving day' challenge, no 'Ring in the new year' challenge, no innovating challenge recently. Besides they deleted a bunch of medals i got from different workouts like snowboarding and others. One of the reasons I continued using the AW was because of collecting the awards, its fun and competitive. The monthly awards are pointless and at this point the watch just tell me that i need to close my 3 ring everyday for 28 days which is boring. I couldn't care less if they have whoever wearing the watch on an ad.

DAalseth 6 Years · 3067 comments

spice-boy said:

Help us Apple please, we should all compare ourselves to those that make a living with their perfectly fit trained bodies. Oh now I feel bad, I guess if I just buy a new Apple Watch at least I'll feel like I'm doing something right.

A bit sarcastic, but I can't disagree too much. I want to see how I'm doing. How some steroid junkie is doing is irrelevant to my health.
One note: The ECG sensor was activated FOR US USERS ONLY. It won't be coining to us here in Canada or people elsewhere in the world, until who knows when. It's one of the reasons I held off getting an AW4 last year.

GeorgeBMac 8 Years · 11421 comments

spice-boy said:

Help us Apple please, we should all compare ourselves to those that make a living with their perfectly fit trained bodies. Oh now I feel bad, I guess if I just buy a new Apple Watch at least I'll feel like I'm doing something right.

Actually, I have found it to be just the opposite: Where it motivates regular, non-athletic people to move just a little more.
The Stand ring merely pushes you to stand (not sit or lie) for a few minutes in each of 12 hours throughout the day.
The Exercise ring asks you to get your heart rate up to that of a brisk walk for 30 minutes each day.
The Move ring asks you to burn 200 calories via movement throughout your day (but you can increase it).

None of those is something an elite, competitive or pro athlete would have any trouble completing. Not even close. The rings are quite obviously designed to motivate ordinary, non-athletic people to sit less and move more.
Frankly I'm surprised that serious athletes (the first two) would rate it so highly. I would figure that they would be well beyond what the rings encourage. But, perhaps they're no different than mere mortals: They sometimes need a little encouragement to "just do it".