Apple is looking to add Fitness+ Audio Meditations to the Mindfulness Apple Watch app, according to a now-removed image from WWDC.
Apple's Platforms State of the Union video featured a brief image of a collection of devices running the company's various new operating systems, and the Apple Watch in that image showed the Mindfulness app with a Fitness+ Audio Meditations feature.
Apple has now attempted to hide its plans for Fitness+ Audio Meditations by uploading a wholly new Platforms State of the Union video that removes the implicating image, replacing it with a generic image of the Mindfulness app. MacRumors was able to verify that Apple revealed the feature in the original video.
At the time of writing, Apple has kept the original video with the image showing Fitness+ Audio Meditations live for the American sign language version of the Platforms State of the Union.
Apple already offers an Apple Watch-exclusive Fitness+ experience in "Time to Walk." Time to Walk is an Apple Watch feature for Apple Fitness+ subscribers that plays audio stories from influential people while completing a walk workout. Fitness+ Audio Meditations appears to be the next Apple Watch Fitness+ audio experience.
Fitness+ Audio Meditations may allow Apple to begin to compete with popular existing guided meditation apps such as Headspace, and could help users learn to meditate through spoken instructions and sound.
In watchOS 8, Apple has renamed the Breathe app "Mindfulness," refocusing it around short meditation practices, tips, and thought-provoking themes. The app has been overhauled with new animations and visualizations, a new summary screen, and other general improvements.
Given the fact that Apple has hastily attempted to remove the first look at Fitness+ Audio Meditations, it is likely that the feature is being kept back for a formal announcement at a later date, perhaps prior to the public release of watchOS 8.
(Thanks, Jake!)
