iPhone “Strength” Ad Shows off Fitness Apps & Accessories

In an effort to raise awareness of just how much the iPhone can contribute to your daily exercise regimen, Apple aired a new ad during the first game of the Stanley Cup finals last night that features the odd track called “Chicken Fat” from Robert Preston.

The ad is of typical style that we’ve seen in past Apple ads, but this time around Apple is showing off a handful of health & fitness apps and accessories that you can use with your iPhone.

Fitness has been one thing that many technology companies and app developers are taking advantage of, and one of Apple’s biggest competitors (Samsung) took things to the next level with the Galaxy S5. This includes a new app called S Health, which is focused on getting people to get up off the couch and focus more on their health and fitness.

This new ad from Apple is the company’s attempt at getting its users to focus on health and fitness as well, proving that there’s no excuse for iPhone users to be sitting on the couch all day.

https://youtu.be/xTjejvnBJfU

The “Strength” ad quickly goes through a number of apps and accessories that you can get for the iPhone, including some well-known products like the Nike+ running app and the iPhone 5s’s very own slo-mo video recording feature in the Camera app.

However, the ad also features other apps and accessories that you may not have heard of before, like the Misfit Shine activity tracker, Wahoo Fitness, SprintTimer, Adidas’s miCoach connected soccer ball, and Health Mate, which is an app that you can connect to a Withings Bluetooth scale to track and record your weight over time.

The ad even features nifty accessories, like the Zepp golf sensor, which we featured recently in a roundup of the best golfing apps and accessories for iPhone. Zepp includes a motion sensor that you mount to your glove, and it helps you analyze and improve your swing using the accompanying app.

All you do is attach the sensor to any golf glove (no special glove required) and you’ll get instant feedback after your swing. You can even view your swing in 3D from any angle on your iPhone.

The sensor tracks various aspects of your swing, including club head speed, swing plane, hand path, tempo, backswing position and hip rotation, so you’ll get massive amounts of data for every swing you take.

Earlier this week, Apple announced iOS 8, which comes with a handful of new features, including a new app called HealthKit, which aims to be iPhone users’ one-stop shop for all of their health-related information.

HealthKit acts a centralized app to view all of your health data, like your step count, heart rate, calories burned and even data on how well you’re sleeping throughout the night.

Apple has also partnered with a handful of healthcare providers, and HealthKit will allow these providers to receive and transmit reading data from patient checkups.

As for other new iOS 8 features, Messages is getting an overhaul with location sharing and the ability to record short audio or video messages and send them to friends and family. On top of that, iOS 8 comes with improved notifications, allowing you to quick reply to text messages without needing to switch to the Messages app.

Furthermore, the iOS keyboard has gotten a revamp as well, coming with a new feature called QuickType that is essentially predictive typing like we’ve seen with SwiftKey and the Google Keyboard on Android.

Apple says that iOS 8 will arrive at some point in the fall, with a specific release date still under wraps, but multiple beta versions will most likely release over the summer for developers to try out.