I Used Workout Buddy Today

I went for a walk a couple hours ago and decided to try out the Workout Buddy feature with Apple Workouts. Here’s how Apple describes the feature:

Workout Buddy is a first-of-its-kind fitness experience powered by Apple Intelligence that analyzes a user’s workout data and fitness history to deliver personalized, spoken motivation throughout their session, based on data like heart rate, pace, distance, Activity rings, personal fitness milestones, and more. To offer meaningful inspiration in real time, Workout Buddy analyzes data privately and securely, with Apple Intelligence. A new text-to-speech model then translates insights into a dynamic generative voice built using voice data from Fitness+ trainers, so it has the right energy, style, and tone for a workout.

When I started my workout, I instantly received a voice update rooting me on for my walk, telling me how much time I needed to close my workout ring in the Fitness app, and what song was currently playing. It was a nice touch, but I think next time I’ll start a workout with the song “Pepper”, just so I can hear the trainer’s voice say “Butthole Surfers”.

Later in my walk, I was informed I reached 200 miles for walking workouts this year. Shortly after that, I reached my mile split and was told my pace and heart rate. At the end of my walk, it congratulated me on my workout and told me my pace was faster than my yearly average. All pretty good information and the kind of thing that would motivate me.

Overall, I like this feature. It’s not groundbreaking by any stretch, but I definitely like the approach for sure.