Apple’s new ‘Time to Walk’ feature puts Shawn Mendes and Dolly Parton on a walk with you



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“Especially in the last few weeks, I’ve started my day walking around, clearing my mind and leaving my phone,” he says. “Sometimes I get a little courted and touch the plants.”

Mendes says that walking for about 25 minutes a day not only serves as a meditation practice, but also to “let the sound of my ears go down,” so he’s more present with the people he loves. When he remembers the pressure of being in the studio, a photo appears on my Apple Watch of Mendes holding a guitar.

Mendes keeps me company on my walk as part of Apple (AAPL)the new Time to Walk audio program for Apple Watch. The unscripted series, where celebrities like NBA player Draymond Green, actress Uzo Aduba and country star and Moderna vaccine hero Dolly Parton, present personal stories as they stroll through their neighborhoods.

New episodes of Time to Walk, which launched on Monday, will appear in the Workout app every Monday until the end of April. (The timing of potential future episodes after “this season” has not been announced.) For Apple Watch users who use a wheelchair, Time to Walk becomes Time to Push, which tracks “ride” goals instead. steps.

It’s Apple’s latest move to add exclusive content to attract new users to its fitness products and compete with companies like Peloton.

Last month, Apple launched Fitness +, a monthly Apple Watch subscription service for $ 9.99 with workout videos, such as yoga, dancing, and strength training, accessible from an iPad, iPhone or iPad. an Apple TV. User data, including calories burned and heart rate, is displayed on the screen in real time. For years, Apple has strived to transform its watch into a health and wellness center, allowing users to monitor daily vital signs, but also to log data for studies related to diabetes, Parkinson’s and dementia.

For me, walking has always been my favorite way to move: low impact and free. Having familiar voices walking at the same time feels like a custom spinning of a podcast (although Apple never uses the p word). I even hear Mendes take a deep breath like me.

In Parton’s sessions, I hear the background sound of birds as she talks about her farm in Tennessee. “Meanwhile, Covid and all that, I know a lot of you can’t go out and walk like you normally do, and I’m sure a lot of you are feeling confined,” Parton says. “But I know how important it is to be able to walk. So even though we can’t go out and walk all the places that we would like to date and time. … I can still take you on a walk on the memory path I hope that with us walking together we will feel a little more freedom.

She tells me that she writes a lot while walking and the backstory to her famous song “9 to 5”; I listen intently to her typing her own acrylic nails to make it look like a typewriter for the beat in the background, something I didn’t know until today.

When NBA player Draymond Green recalls how the Golden State Warriors celebrated a championship win, it was Drake’s “Big Rings” who brought him back to the locker room. It’s one of three songs he introduces and plays on his episode, which also includes a great story about a walk he took after failing a class and having an argument with his mother. He talks about the sounds of the Malibu waves in the distance and the cars on the highway nearby.

While Time to Walk isn’t a substitute for a walk with a good friend, the intimate storytelling is a welcome change from walking alone.

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