iOS 14.4 beta suggests guided audio walking workouts coming to Apple Watch

As spotted by Khaos Tian on Twitter, there’s an interesting new setting in the Workout app for Apple Watch. Named “Time to Walk”, the setting describes a feature where walking workouts are downloaded to the watch when connected to power and the iPhone is nearby.

This toggle appears on the watch itself and in the companion Watch app on the iPhone. Combined with evidence from 9to5Mac code investigations, it seems that guided audio workouts from Apple are coming soon to the Watch.

This feature doesn’t yet appear to be functional so we can’t try it for ourselves just yet; it likely depends on server-side changes.

The “Time to Walk” branding aligns the feature with the classic “Time to Stand” reminders, which encourage users to stand up and walk around a little once an hour. So perhaps when this feature is rolled out, there will be targets to go for a walk once per day.

Based on the fact these special workouts need to be downloaded and automatically deleted when completed, it follows that there is an associated audio track with these sessions.

This heavily suggests that Time to Walk workouts will resemble guided audio workout sessions. 9to5Mac code findings back this up, with references to ‘WORKOUT_GUIDED_WALK’ found in the beta source code.

Apple’s latest service, Apple Fitness+, currently does not feature any outdoor workout types. A guided audio workout offering would certainly make sense for the service, but it’s not yet clear if Time to Walk will require a Fitness+ subscription. Source code strings show that the Fitness app will feature these new audio workouts, but we haven’t been able to determine if they will be available to anyone or if they will be behind the Fitness+ paywall.

In concert with Time to Walk, the code references indicate that Apple is also working on “Time to Push” workouts for people who have physical disabilities and are unable to walk. This is similar to how the Apple Watch already offers Time to Roll alerts as an alternative to Time to Stand reminders, for wheelchair users.