iOS 26 Finally Gives the iPhone a Real Fitness App

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With the launch of iOS 26, Apple has added a bunch of new features to the Fitness app—features that it has been sorely missing. Finally, you can track a workout from your phone without an Apple Watch, and you can pair a bluetooth heart rate monitor to your phone to get heart rate data. And though it seems like a small change, Apple Watch users will love the fact that you can now create and edit custom workouts on your phone.

How to get the new Fitness updates

The new features in the Fitness app are part of iOS 26, which comes out today. (That’s the version with the controversial “liquid glass” look, but you can turn it off if you hate it.) To install it, go to Settings, General, and then tap Software Update. 

Once you've, you’ll find that the Fitness app has a new tab at the bottom, labeled Workout. This is where you’ll find the fun stuff. 

How to track a workout from the Apple Fitness app (with or without a watch)

In the Workout tab, you’ll see a variety of workout types that you can start just by tapping the play button. Outdoor Run, Outdoor Walk, Outdoor Cycle, and Hiking are available for everyone. To access the other workout types, like Indoor Run, Indoor Cycle, Yoga, High Intensity Interval Training, and Traditional Strength Training, you’ll need to pair a heart rate monitor. 

(The idea seems to be that the app needs some kind of data to track. If you run outdoors, GPS data tells the app how far and how fast you’re running. If you’re on a treadmill, it’s got nothing to go on—unless it has a device telling it your heart rate.) 

So what counts as a heart rate data source? I had success with: 

• An Apple Watch (of course)

• Powerbeats Pro 2 (with the heart rate feature enabled—check your Powerbeats settings if yours isn’t showing up)

• A third-party Bluetooth heart rate monitor (specifically my trusty Coospo)

I did four short runs today: three testing each of the above, plus one with just the phone by itself and no heart rate monitor. Each of the four tracked my speed and distance, made a map of where I’d been, and (if there was a heart rate monitor paired) recorded my heart rate data. I was able to view these workouts afterward from the Sessions card on the Summary tab, where Apple Watch-only workouts would normally be found.

To be clear, the three workouts I did without the Apple Watch did not require the watch at all. I left it behind in my car, and was able to track these workouts just fine. 

How to mirror your workouts from Apple Watch on your phone

The new mirrored workouts just work. You can start a workout from the Fitness app, or from your phone, and either way you get a Live Activity on your phone’s lock screen. Tap that, and you’ll see a screen in the Fitness app that shows the same data you see on your watch.

This can be handy for cardio machines especially—set your phone in front of you, and look at that instead of having to take your hand off the handlebars and turn your wrist to see how many seconds you have left in your interval.

If you don’t see the workout view on your phone, swipe right from the workout screen on your watch and select View to enable it. 

How to create custom Apple Watch workouts on your phone

The Apple Watch already had a feature where you could create custom workouts, or set yourself a goal for a workout (like running for a certain amount of time, or racing your past self on a favorite route). Now, that’s all available in the fitness app. 

To find it, go to the Workout tab of the Fitness app. instead of hitting the triangle play button on your phone to start a workout, tap the timer icon. This takes you to the screen with routes, goals, and custom workouts. 

I had never before bothered with the custom workouts since they were so annoying to access on the watch, but today I created a short interval workout and ran it as part of my testing. (One thing to know: You need to create a work interval and a rest interval before creating a repeat loop—some apps have you do this in the opposite order, which tripped me up.) 

In total, these new features make the Apple Fitness app a lot more useful. You no longer need a third-party app to use a Bluetooth heart rate monitor or to track a simple run around the neighborhood. It's now a real workout app, rather than just something you open to check how many times you’ve closed your rings.