This Week's Sponsor:

Incogni

Put an End to Spam, Scams, and Robocalls on Your iPhone


New Year’s Activity Challenge Coming for Apple Watch Users

Last month Apple encouraged Apple Watch owners in the U.S. to get out on Thanksgiving in exchange for an activity achievement and iMessage sticker. This morning Apple notified Watch users that a second activity challenge will be taking place at the start of the new year.

This new activity challenge, unlike its Thanksgiving counterpart, will take place worldwide, and completing it will take longer than just a single day. From the Activity app:

Earn this special achievement when you close all three Activity rings each day for any full week, Monday through Sunday, in January. You’ll also earn special stickers in the Messages app.

Since the challenge keeps track of your Activity progress from Monday to Sunday, the official start of the challenge will be January 2nd, and the earliest it’s possible to earn the achievement will be the 8th. But if you’re unable to complete all three rings each day of that first week, you’ll have three more chances: the weeks of January 9th, 16th, and 23rd.

Personally, I appreciate Apple’s efforts to encourage greater health and fitness in life. watchOS 3’s addition of activity sharing fostered healthy competition between my wife and I, and last month’s Thanksgiving challenge led us both to get out and complete a 5K on the holiday, which we otherwise wouldn’t have done. We’re both already eager to score this new achievement trophy together.

Access Extra Content and Perks

Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for nearly a decade.

What started with weekly and monthly email newsletters has blossomed into a family of memberships designed every MacStories fan.

Learn more here and from our Club FAQs.

Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with apps, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, early access to the MacStories Unwind podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;

Club MacStories+: Everything that Club MacStories offers, plus an active Discord community, advanced search and custom RSS features for exploring the Club’s entire back catalog, bonus columns, and dozens of app discounts;

Club Premier: All of the above and AppStories+, an extended version of our flagship podcast that’s delivered early, ad-free, and in high-bitrate audio.