Fitness

LiveRings updated for iOS 13, animates the Activity app icon’s rings

If you take advantage of the standard fitness features that ship with your iPhone and Apple Watch, then you might use the native Activity app to view daily progress. As you proceed, the rings inside the app slowly complete a 360–degree circle, an achievement commonly known as ‘closing rings.’ My only gripe with this is that you have to open the app to see any details.

Thankfully, a jailbreak tweak called LiveRings by iOS developer CPDigitalDarkroom lets you view a summary of your activity directly from the Home screen without even launching the Activity app. That’s because the tweak animates the Activity app icon itself to depict ring-closing progress.

How to use Apple Watch with gym equipment

Your Apple Watch and cardio machines inside gyms can talk to each other. Using your Apple Watch with gym equipment like treadmills, ellipticals and indoor bikes gives you a better, more complete set of metrics such as heart rate, distance, speed, elevation and so forth. iDB lays out ways to use Apple Watch with gym equipment, including how to pair your Apple Watch with cardio machines and how to start and end a workout on the gym equipment.