Compassionate activity tracker Gentler Streak has been crowned Apple Watch App of the Year.

The app, from startup Gentler Stories, which was founded in 2021, was created by the four co-founders: Katarina Lotrič (CEO); Jasna Krmelj (CTO); Luka Orešnik, a senior developer; and UI UX designer Andrej Mihelič.

Gentler Streak was designed to track users’ activity, offer exercise suggestions and support rest days to offer a more intuitive approach to training. This is in contrast to mainstream athlete-tracking apps, such as Strava, which encourage users to push themselves physically, compounded by the pressure of a mass online community.

“Studies show that the social dimension of fitness apps can improve, but also damage our wellbeing, leading to a maladaptive perception of exercise and burnout in the long run,” said Lotrič. “When those apps serve social recognition, the individual is more prone to develop a compulsive relationship with sports and suffer higher stress levels.”

The motivation to develop a less intensive activity tracker came after two members of the team experienced burnout through overtraining and injury.

"With the endless chase of the ‘higher, stronger, faster’, while experiencing negative effects on a physical and mental level, we decided to build that solution," said Lotrič. “Gentler Streak helps recognise and transform maladaptive fitness behaviors into viable lifelong habits. There is no pressure to complete endless day-to-day activity goals, which often ignore the fact that we are human and everything that comes with it.”

Apple Watch features include real-time heart rate zones, activity stats (duration, distance, pace, and so on), tracking over 100 different activities (some non-conventional like paddle boarding, CrossFit, roller skating and dog walking); and tracking distance for sports, such as football, basketball, rowing and cross-country skiing).

The iOS app nourishes a user's healthy, balanced lifestyle with all activities tracked in one place, progress charts, workout summaries, support for rest days, activity suggestions, actionable insights through one-minute expert reads and a status for when you’re sick, injured or taking rest days.

The team are planning new releases for the app in 2023 that include richer workout summaries to make the app feel like a workout journal and the launch of Brazil-Portuguese, German, French and Italian versions – currently it supports English and Spanish.