Apple To Launch Activity Challenge For Apple Watch Users On Thanksgiving Day

Apple would like Apple Watch owners to keep busy this Thanksgiving season, so the company has launched a program that would challenge wearers to accomplish certain goals in exchange for “a special achievement.” The Cupertino giant rolled out this feature to Apple Watch owners on Monday.

According to AppleInsider, Apple sent a notification to Apple Watch wearers to inform them of the Activity Challenge. “Activity Challenge: This Thanksgiving Day, November 24th, earn a special achievement by completing a walk, run or wheelchair workout of at least 5K (3.1 mi),” the notification read.

Though the feature has already been prepared as early as Monday, it won’t go live until Thanksgiving Thursday on Nov. 24. The program is the first challenge of its kind from Apple, so it wouldn’t be surprising if this will be followed by other activity challenges in the near future.

So what will wearers achieve when they accomplish the walking and running distance goals that were set for this Thanksgiving challenge? MacRumors said users will receive a special Messages app sticker. Aside from this, they can also earn a unique medal in their list of achievements in the Activity app.

The Activity Challenge is not limited to the Workout app for Apple Watch. The iPhone Health app that records workouts and other third-party apps that sync with HealthKit also qualify for this program.

To check whether or not one has achieved the distance goals set by Apple for Apple Watch wearers, users can view their history of achievements from the iOS Activity app on the day of the challenge.

The sticker functionality was added to the Messages app this year when iOS 10 was launched alongside the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. An upcoming update, iOS 10.2, is expected to bring Unicode 9 emojis to Apple devices.