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Tim Cook congratulates grateful Fitness+ fan

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Nate Gorby wrote to Tim Cook and tweeted his tale of life-changing fitness and weight loss.
Nate Gorby wrote to Tim Cook and tweeted his tale of life-changing fitness and weight loss.
Photo: Nate Gorby

Apple CEO Tim Cook took a moment to congratulate a man who wrote to him and tweeted an inspiring story of using Apple Watch and Fitness+ to lose more than 100 pounds over several months.

Nate Gorby told his story in his tweet, below, saying Apple’s tools changed his life. Cook’s direct reply was just one of many responses.

5 iOS 16.1 features to try right away

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iOS 16.1 new features
iOS 16.1 packs plenty of useful features.
Image: Cult of Mac

Although Apple announced iOS 16 at WWDC22 and released it on September 12, not all promised features made their way into the first public build.

With iOS 16.1, which just became available Monday, Apple delivered many such promised features. Once you install it on your iPhone, check out the five iOS 16.1 features you should try right away.

Apple Fitness+ hits iPhone on Oct. 24 with Taylor Swift in tow

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Apple Fitness+ hits iPhone on Oct. 24 with Taylor Swift in tow
Apple Fitness+ is coming to iPhone, along with a dedicated solo Artist Spotlight on Taylor Swift.
Image: Apple

Apple Fitness+ will finally become available to iPhone users starting next week. The subscription service, which offers an array of recorded workouts for a wide range of health levels, previously focused on Apple Watch, showcasing users’ performance metrics in real time.

The expansion to iOS handsets is not the only move in the works to make Apple Fitness+ more mainstream. Music by Taylor Swift is also coming to Fitness+, with workouts focused on the artist’s new album, Midnight.

Apple Fitness+ gets footloose with new Artist Spotlights and dance workouts

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Apple Fitness+ gears up for International Dance Day.
Apple Fitness+ gears up for International Dance Day.
Photo: Apple

Gotta dance? You do if Apple Fitness+ has anything to say about it. Leading up to International Dance Day on April 29, the app is highlighting a new Dance Collection of workouts, a limited-edition award and Artist Spotlight sessions with hit songs and dance moves from artist videos.

Apple pushes new activity challenge and resources for Heart Month

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Apple celebrates Heart Month across an array of products and services.
Apple celebrates Heart Month across an array of products and services.
Photo: Apple

In recognition of Heart Month, aka February, Apple is rolling out a series of new activity challenge and heart-health resources to support users’ efforts to stay healthy.

Also toward that end, the company hopes you’ll learn a thing or two from preliminary trends shown in the Apple Heart and Movement Study.

How to make your New Year’s resolution stick with Apple Fitness+

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Make 2022 the year you achieve your fitness goals
Make 2022 the year you achieve your fitness goals.
Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac

If your New Year’s resolution is to get in shape in 2022, Apple Fitness+ provides the perfect solution. Tightly integrated with Apple Watch, it offers hundreds of excellent video workouts you can do at home right now. But the question is, will you?

As the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Subscribing to Fitness+ is all very well, but it’ll be a waste of money if you lose interest after a week.

Unfortunately, sticking to a New Year’s resolution isn’t easy. That’s probably why almost 50% of them fail in the first year.

If you want to smash your fitness goals in 2022, you need to start by getting your head in the right place. And that’s where well-formed outcomes can help. They are goals that meet certain essential criteria identified by psychologists in the 1980s using a technique called neuro-linguistic programming, or NLP.

Well-formed outcomes provide a framework that can massively increase your chances of achieving your goal. And all you need to do to turn your resolution into a well-formed outcome is ask yourself these six questions.

About those Apple VR headset renders … [The CultCast]

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CultCast podcast: About those Apple VR headset renders ...
Looks pretty slick, but would you wear one?
Image: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: New renders give us an even better vision of what Apple’s mixed-reality headset might look like. We’re still not convinced we’ll be wondering around with these things strapped to our heads — especially if they cost $3,000. However, we must admit that the concept art by Ian Zelbo does look pretty cool.

Also on The CultCast:

  • Your Apple Wallet might get you on a plane next year.
  • An AirTags Christmas miracle.
  • An unfortunate darts disaster.
  • More picks for Gear of the Year!

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video livestream, embedded below.

New Twelve South ActionBand absorbs even your sweatiest Apple Watch workouts

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The new Twelve South ActionBand is a full-on sweatband.
The new Twelve South ActionBand is a full-on sweatband.
Photo: Twelve South

If you sweat a lot when you work out — and if your Apple Watch bands barely stand up to the torrent — rejoice. Twelve South rolled out its new ActionBand Thursday. The company designed the soft, absorbent, wide band to keep up with the hardest workouts and resulting perspiration.

Apple Fitness+ adds SharePlay for motivation and ‘smack talk’

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SharePlay makes Apple Fitness+ workouts more personal by letting you communicate with friends in real time.
SharePlay makes Apple Fitness+ workouts more personal by letting you communicate with friends in real time.
Photo: Apple

Apple Fitness+ added group workouts and meditation sessions Monday, letting users communicate in real time with up to 32 other people. The new capability taps FaceTime’s new SharePlay feature, which works on iOS devices now and comes to macOS Monterey later this fall.

“It’s a really fun way to connect with friends and family, even trade some words of encouragement or friendly smack talk, while also making progress toward closing their rings,” said Jay Blahnik, Apple’s vice president of fitness technologies, in a press release.

9 things that blew us away at WWDC 2021

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Apple CEO Tim Cook wraps the WWDC21 keynote on June 7, 2021.
Apple CEO Tim Cook wraps the WWDC21 keynote on June 7, 2021.
Photo: Apple

Some new features really stood out when Apple revealed the next versions of all its operating systems during Monday’s Worldwide Developers Conference keynote. Users of iPhone, Mac and iPad, and Apple Watch, too, can look forward to welcome improvements this fall.

We picked out the best of these to make sure they don’t get overlooked.