Summary

As I expected, WWDC 25 was mostly a disappointment. The biggest news was that a new design was coming to Apple devices that makes every OS look like Windows Aero from 20 years ago. Another disappointment was the reveal of a new Apple Watch feature called Workout Buddy. I had high hopes of an impressive AI-powered personalized workout feature, but sadly, the reality is much, much worse.

I Thought Workout Buddy Might Solve My Workout Problems

There are two major problems I’ve found with every workout app I’ve ever used. The first is that even apps that claim to modify the suggested workouts based on your previous data seem to get it wrong a lot of the time. I often find a supposedly tailored workout is either way too easy or far too hard, which is demotivating in either circumstance.

The other problem I have is that there is just too much choice. WithApple Fitness+, for example, I get overwhelmed by the choice of options. If I want to do a HIIT workout, there are a huge number to choose from and the varying lengths mean you can’t necessarily just work through them one at a time. I’ve tried building custom plans, but once again, these have felt out of step with my current levels.

An Apple Fitness+ trainer working out in front of a picture of closed Activity Rings in front of a colorful background.

When I heard rumors about Apple introducing an AI-based coaching service, I thought that there might finally be a way to get customized workouts that are based on my previous data, so that they would be a perfect fit. I was genuinely excited when we got to the Apple Watch portion of WWDC, in anticipation of Apple revealing its incredible new AI coaching system that would do everything that I’d been hoping for.

Workout Buddy Is Far From What I Wanted

Sadly, from what was showcased during WWDC 25 and subsequently added to Apple’s website, it appears that Workout Buddy is not going to solve any of my problems at all. Workout Buddy does make use of your workout and fitness data for personalization. However, it doesn’t use it to select targeted workouts or create tailor-made workout plans.

Instead, it uses this data, in Apple’s own words, to “generate personalized, motivational insights” during your workout sessions. What this actually means is that when you’re doing a workout, you’ll hear an AI-generated voice say things such as “Great job starting your run” and “This is your second run this week, you’re crushing it,” which are not the type of personalized insights I was hoping for, and I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one.

Apple Fitness+ running on an Apple Watch and an iPhone.

There are severe limitations to when Workout Buddy will work, too. It’s only available in a small number of workouts: Outdoor and Indoor Run, Outdoor and Indoor Walk, Outdoor Cycle, HIIT, Functional Strength Training, and Traditional Strength Training. It will also only work if you’re wearing Bluetooth headphones, and it requires that you have an iPhone that can runApple Intelligencenearby. This completely negates the benefits of tracking a run with your Apple Watch without having to lug your iPhone around with you, so if you want to use Workout Buddy, you may regret throwing away that old iPhone arm strap you used to own.

I Don’t Want Motivational Insights Shouted at Me

I honestly couldn’t be more disappointed with what Workout Buddy turned out to be. One of the most painful parts of doing an Apple Fitness+ workout isn’t pushing yourself hard; it’s having to listen to the cheesy comments from the personal trainers. Apple says that Workout Buddy is built using voice data from Fitness+ trainers, so now you can have them be annoying in your ear even when you’re out on a run.

I honestly don’t think I’ve ever pushed harder in a workout or been more motivated to complete one by anything that a personal trainer has said. Someone shouting “you’ve got this!” at me doesn’t make me want to run harder; it makes me want to run away from them as quickly as possible. It seems unlikely that I’m going to like being cheered on by an AI-generated personal trainer any more than I do the real ones.

A large group of personal trainers in front of a Fitness+ logo.

Workout Buddy Is Useless for Most Workouts

The other frustration is that while Apple says the feature is available across some of the most popular workout types, it’s also something that is useless for many of them. For example, I play a lot of badminton, and use the Badminton workout to track my heart rate when I play. It’s useful to be able to see my average heart rate for a game, and to be able to log how much effort each game felt like.

Workout Buddy is essentially useless for this type of workout, because people aren’t going to play sports in headphones. Even if they did, Workout Buddy isn’t available for the vast majority of workouts anyway. Out of77 currently available workout types, 71 of them aren’t supported.

An Apple Watch Series 8 recording a Traditional Strength Training exercise using the Workout app

Even more bizarrely, while Workout Buddy is available for Outdoor and Indoor Run, and Outdoor and Indoor Walk, it’s only available for Outdoor Cycle. I own an exercise bike and often use it with Fitness+ workouts. Workout Buddy would be equally useful motivation for an indoor cycling workout as an outdoor one, but for some reason, Indoor Cycle doesn’t support Workout Buddy.

Apple Has the Data to Make a Useful AI Fitness Tool

This is the most frustrating part. If you use an Apple Watch to track your health data and log your workouts using the Workout app, then Apple has access to a huge amount of data. It knows everything from your resting heart rate andVO2 Maxto your best time for running 5K. Combining that data with the power of AI means that Apple should be able to provide some genuinely useful insights.

For example, if you want to improve your VO2 Max, Apple could theoretically provide you with a targeted workout routine combining low-intensity and high-intensity training and could monitor how your VO2 Max changes in response. It could then tweak the program if you weren’t seeing an improvement, or the training program was too tough.

Logging health data on the Apple Health app.

There is an incredible amount of data that Apple can use, and it should be possible to get AI to do far more than just identify that you’ve done two runs so far this week and congratulate you on it. It feels like Apple has wasted the opportunity to create something truly useful that would make the Apple Watch an even better fitness tool than it already is.

I was hoping that by harnessing the large amounts of data measured by the Apple Watch, Apple would be able to produce a genuinely useful AI-powered fitness coach. I should have known better. I believed Apple when it said that an upgraded Siri was arriving in iOS 18, but now the featuremay not arrive until well into next year. For now, the wait continues for Apple to deliver a fully-fledged AI feature that’s actually useful.