Sweating the Small Stuff in the App Settings

Most of the work that goes into a training app is invisible. New workouts get the press release. A new program or a new exercise type gets the App Store screenshot. The settings screen, the one most people open once and forget about, is where you actually find out whether someone has been thinking about the people who use the thing every day.

We just shipped a refreshed App Preferences screen in the Shadow Boxing App, and rather than walk through every toggle in it, this post is about three small ones that exist because they would have annoyed us if they did not.

Keep last timer settings

If you train the same way most days, you do not want to dial in 10 rounds of 2 minutes with a 1 minute rest every single session. With Keep last timer settings turned on, the free boxing timer opens with whatever you used last time and you press start. That is it.

This is also the kind of thing that can feel wrong for people who use the timer for very different sessions. One day you are running 3 minute championship rounds with a partner, the next day you are doing 30 second sprint rounds. In that case the auto fill becomes friction, because you have to clear it every time. So it is a toggle. Pick the behaviour that matches how you actually train.

Adjust how warmup and mobility work

Most workouts in the app open with a guided warmup before the boxing starts. Arm rotations, hip mobility, light shadow boxing, jumping jacks. We rebuilt that part of the app a while back and wrote about why in the revamped guided warmup piece.

But not everyone wants the same warmup. Some people have a routine they have done for years. Some have specific mobility work their physio gave them. Some are already warm because they walked to the gym. The Include warmup setting lets you pick whether warmups happen always, never, or only on workouts where they make sense given the intensity. Skip warmup mobility is a separate toggle for people who want to keep the cardio part of the warmup but cut the slower mobility work because they have already done it elsewhere.

There is no version of “always do the full warmup” that is correct for everyone. So you choose.

Use technique names instead of numbers

Boxing has two languages for combinations. There is the numbering system, where 1 is jab, 2 is cross, 3 is lead hook, 4 is rear hook, 5 is lead uppercut, 6 is rear uppercut. That is what most gyms call out because it is fast to say and fast to hear in the middle of a round. The app uses that system by default and we cover it in detail in the technique catalogue.

But not everyone learned that way. If you are new to boxing, “Jab, Cross, Lead Hook” is much clearer than “1, 2, 3”. If you trained in a gym that did not lean on the numbers, the numbering is foreign. Use techniques names switches every callout from numbers to the actual punch and defense names. You see “Jab - Cross - Slip Left” on screen instead of “1 - 2 - Slip Left”.

It costs almost nothing to support both. It makes a real difference to people who think in one system or the other.

The rest of the screen

A handful of other settings fall in the same category of “you will notice if it is wrong.” Continue workout in background controls whether the round timer keeps going when you switch apps to change the music. Use YouTube routes tutorial videos through YouTube instead of the in app player, which matters if you are training somewhere with a restricted network. Hide quick start button is for people who prefer browsing the workout library over the quick start generator. Track heart rate connects to AirPods Pro 3 for live heart rate, which a fair number of people had asked for.

None of these are headline features. They are the kind of thing that gets noticed when they are missing and almost never gets noticed when they are there.

Why this matters

Boxing training is already physical work. The app between you and the workout should not add friction. If you have to fight the timer every time it forgets your last settings, or sit through a warmup you do not need, or translate “1-2-3” into “jab cross hook” in your head while trying to keep moving, that is friction. The point of these small toggles is to remove it for people who would otherwise hit those small annoyances every session.

We try to do this everywhere in the app, not just in the settings menu. The combo creator lets you build your own callouts, the custom workout builder lets you assemble your own session, and the technique catalogue keeps both numbered and named references for every punch. The goal is the same in all of them. Nothing between you and a good boxing session.