While the glow of Apple Intelligence and Siri – visually and functionally – largely stole the show during Apple’s opening keynote at WWDC 2024, improvements to iOS 18, iPadOS 18, watchOS 11, macOS Sequoia and tvOS were reported during the unveilings. Apple Services. 18.
Things like the addition of walking and hiking routes in Maps or the fact that you can tap your iPhones together to quickly and digitally send money were also teased during the tvOS 18 debut. A new design for Fitness Plus was also revealed, and we finally have some more information about it.
New ways to find lessons
A redesigned Fitness Plus format will arrive later in 2024 on tvOS, as well as iOS and iPadOS, helping you find the perfect workout from a library full of thousands of options.
The list of workout types – meditation, strength, HIIT, yoga, core, pilates, dance, kickboxing, cycling, treadmill, rowing and mindful cooldown – will be replaced with new categories aimed at helping you find the right type of class. curating the experience a little more.
For you, Discover, Library and Search (shown as a simple magnifying glass icon) become the new top bar for Fitness Plus. The first section, For You, presents a number of lessons centrally, which serve as a starting point based on previous training you’ve completed, but below that you’ll see additional choices, broken down by lesson type and length. For example, if you often cycle, do yoga, and row, you’ll likely see these in the mix.
Explore will show specially themed content based on the time of year or possibly a new Artist Spotlight series that has been released. You can also find new workout types and new classes. The final new tab, Library, is self-explanatory but is a way to see all available classes and can be organized by workouts, your favorites, and custom plans you’ve created. To search for a class by instructor, workout type, or even music genre, click the search icon.
Naturally, this new layout will take center stage on tvOS or iPadOS, where Fitness Plus has its own application, but on the iPhone you get this new experience within the “Fitness” app. Regardless of how you get it, this update will help you find more classes and give you easier access to instructors and class types you like.
In addition to the Fitness Plus improvements on the Apple TV, tvOS also introduces new screensavers that look a bit like an iPhone when in StandBy mode, a new, improved dialogue feature that mutes background noise and improves voice clarity, as well as a new InSight mode that is quite similar to Amazon Prime Video’s X-Ray functionality.
A Venmo replacement?
‘Tap to Cash’ on iPhone could lead people to ditch Venmo or Zelle for quick cash payments with the promise of being able to pay someone back or easily split a meal by tapping two iPhones together. It looked pretty neat when it was demoed during the keynote. You can select a cash amount and, like NameDrop for exchanging contacts, send an Apple Cash payment to a friend.
Another improvement is viewing rewards on a credit or debit card, and discovering payment plans in the Apple Play window when you check out. This should make it easier to complete a payment in an online checkout. It also positions Apple Pay as a more convenient competitor to other POS systems.