How Simple Walker finds your walks
No start button, no workout to remember. Here is exactly what the app does with the steps your iPhone already counts.
Your iPhone already counts
Your iPhone counts your steps all day and keeps them in Apple Health, together with distance and the floors you climb. If you wear an Apple Watch, it adds your heart rate. Simple Walker reads those, on your iPhone, and never writes anything back.
What counts as a walk
Simple Walker looks at your steps minute by minute. A walk is five minutes or more at walking pace, about 60 steps a minute or more. Short stops, like waiting at a traffic light, don't end a walk: up to two quiet minutes are allowed inside one.
We checked these numbers against weeks of real walking. Moving about the house sits well below 60 steps a minute; walking sits well above it.
Fast walking
A minute of about 100 steps or more counts as fast walking: breathing harder, still able to talk. That is the pace research uses for moderate-intensity walking. More on fast walking
Whole-day numbers and walk numbers
Steps, distance, floors and energy count your whole day, so they match the Health app. Minutes walked, fast walking and heart rate count your walks only. On the day strip, walks are black and the moving about in between is light grey.
Your usual, and good news
Your usual is the middle value of your last four weeks, each day measured up to the same time of day. At 10:00 you aren't compared with a whole day, only with a usual morning. When today beats it by a clear margin, the walker celebrates.
If you turn on good-news notifications, Apple Health wakes the app at most once an hour when new steps arrive. It sends at most one notification a day, and only good news: never "less than usual".
While the app is open
Today's steps update live as you walk, from your iPhone's motion sensors.
What it doesn't do
It needs your iPhone with you: steps your phone didn't count can't show up. It doesn't record where you walked, and it isn't a medical device. Everything stays on your iPhone.
