Apple Fitness+ introduces new workouts, trainers, and Time to Walk guest
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You look at something like Peloton and your natural instinct is to compare it to other equipment manufacturers, but that's wrong. Consumers aren't spending 50% more of Peloton because a Peloton bike/tred is 50% better than their nearest competitor. People are spending that money to be in the Peloton ecosystem. To work out with friends in Peloton.
So I say to people that Apple is Peloton's biggest competitor, and they look at me like I'm a moron. Because they see equipment and I see ecosystems. I believe fitness will be the next "social media" land rush, and most traditional equipment makers are unprepared (they're naively copying Peloton on features without really grasping what Peloton is building).
PS - Phase 1: Social Media Fitness, Phase 2: Gamification of Fitness (apps/games inc. achievements tied directly into equipment, like the "iPhone" of fitness equipment).
I don't quite get it myself, so I am not advocating for one or the other. But it seems to be working for her.
I mostly use Apple Fitness+ when on the rower, but iFit is nice in that it is not restricted to studio workouts. There is a far deeper library on iFit, and more variety. Outdoor workouts, indoor if that's your thing, a "Time to Walk" equivalent before Apple thought of it. I don't know if we'll renew the sub or not, but I think iFit gets it just fine.
Did you just say 'Crossfit' without saying 'Crossfit'?
'Gyms' without saying 'Gyms'?
I agree, these products realize that the physical movement via machine is only one part of the greater whole... if these companies can replicate the rest of the Gym/CF/WE experience, there is a great win hiding in plain sight.
My friends was. It was a grotty thing in the basement. It was primarily about the equipment. It was a lifting gym. The folk that went there would hang out, help each other, and talk plenty. They all had a common interest: lifting. They also thought people like me in my gym above were posers. That’s fine too.
Not everyone uses a gym the same way. Not all gyms are the same.
Perhaps this won’t be replicated in the digital sphere, but the identity behind “leader boards” and physical aspirationals, which I believe these digital offerings still provide, is an effective means to create community and followings.
Heck a couple great friendships began in silence for months, with strict social distancing before it was cool
I've only tried online exercise classes once or twice, but there hasn't been much social interaction - everyone's on mute, and a few feet away from the screen and keyboard to have space for their activities.
Or is it more the Strava-style 'log your exercise and get likes and gamified motivation' asynchronous model?
There's also a talent component. I've done everything from spin, to weight classes, to powerlifting for many years when I was younger, and the Peloton trainers are very good. They are good motivators, and they have taught me quite a few warmup techniques I'm carrying to other areas as life gets back to normal. YMMV.
https://blog.onepeloton.com/peloton-community-features/
Leaderboard: Compete with friends/others.
Tags: Like groups/circles, you can be invited/invite on the basis or compete with people in that tag.
High Fives: A "Like"
Following Friends: Essentially their fitness "stream" showing what they've done/are doing.
Video Chatting: Chat with friends while you workout together.
Plus you'll get alerted when a friend is in a class, encouraging you to join them.
https://blog.onepeloton.com/peloton-sessions/
Schedule workouts with friends, compare each other on the leaderboard.
Seems like Zwift is Peloton's biggest competitor then?
That being said there are apps that bring this up a level and let you connect multiple products and devices. If one of these apps becomes popular then it's less dependent on what device you own.
You're right but I hate that future, to be honest. I don't really want to buy a Garmin phone to talk to my Garmin watch so I can buy into their ecosystem. Apple watches may be fantastic but there are still better dedicated fitness watches out there and frankly the idea of a watch dictating my cellphone choice (as the Apple Watch does) makes me completely reject the idea of buying that watch.
Everyone else is going to the gym because they don’t want to look at another screen, or they want to hang out with other people, or they realise you can’t learn to snatch from YouTube. Etc.
Traditional gyms and activity aren’t going anywhere.
While I generally agree with you, Apple is putting apple tv+ on roku - it's not a stretch to suggest they would use a similar strategy for fitness+:
https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/13/22381067/apple-tv-plus-ro...
If you're speaking about just the apps and not hardware, again, I don't think they're direct competitors. Peloton's app sans Peloton hardware is basically just YouTube videos... There are dozens of content producers that cater to everyone's style or form of working out. Why pay Peloton $13/mo. just to get into the ecosystem? An ecosystem that was designed from the ground-up for people who make +$100K/yr., so the average American probably doesn't have friends who are using Peloton's app. Apple Fitness+ on the other-hand is designed to work in tandem with your cheapish Apple Watch. The fusion between hardware and software is where the magic happens. Peloton doesn't have that unless you have a spare bedroom + $3,000 to spend on fitness upfront.
first, the market opportunity is much smaller. everyone listens to music (and has a phone nowadays). that's a huge reachable market. only the well-off will pay for fitness+, so you're looking at <20% of everyone to start.
second, music was already in the transition from physical (cd's) to digital (mp3's) to streaming (just waiting for high-speed internet penetration). the fitness market is not in that same transition. it's still constrained by the physical world, no matter how 'social' it gets.
third, peloton's hardware is what makes the ecosystem, not the other way around (which is apple's strategy). it creates a halo of influence around the purchaser through price and product that apple simply can't replicate with just an apple tv, a watch, and a subscription. (i don't like peloton personally, but the market dynamics here are recognizable)
i'd be surprised if fitness+ really takes off. it has narrow appeal, a relatively high price, and little cachet or differentiation. zooming out, apple's "plus" strategy overall strays away from their strength in hardware-based consumer products, and i'm skeptical they can differentiate enough to retain that business long term, whereas homekit, carkit, and the like couch very neatly into that strength, and likely represents durable future expansion.
Fitness+ comes with one of the tiers of Apple One. That makes it "free" to the user. Let's say you only wanted Music, TV+, and the storage (especially useful if you have multiple iDevices in your family and you want cloud backup):
Music - $9.99 individual, or $14.99 family
TV+ - $4.99 (already at $20 for a family here)
2TB Storage - $9.99 (now we're at $30)
So Fitness+, News+, and Arcade are "free" additions if you get Apple One Premier. Of course, you need an Apple Watch to use Fitness+ but you can use it with any garage sale treadmill, bike, rowing machine, yoga mat, dumbbell set, etc.
And if you have the Apple Watch you've already been able to drop things like Runkeeper and Strava for tracking running and cycling.
That's where they end up making money anyways, 75% or so of their revenue is from device sales (computers, phones, tablets, watches, etc.). The services help to keep people within that hardware ecosystem which gets people onto the upgrade cycle or to consider a second or third Apple device instead of just having one.
apple has historically targeted the mass premium customer segment, able to command a higher price and still entice the broader public to buy. fitness+ (and apple one) has the higher price but not the broader appeal. it's just not differentiated enough.
a personal anecdote: i've had apple tv+ for free for the past year and have watched it maybe a half dozen times. the shows are so overproduced to be tone-deaf. they're now trying to buy their way into the market via awards, so we'll see if that turns into any compelling content and moreover, more subscriptions.
apple tv+ is just not robust or differentiated enough from netflix, hbo, disney+, or anything else to be a thing. disney+ goes all-in on family, while hbo goes all-in on adult. netflix has the all-you-can-eat buffet model where you'll be comforted to find something, anything, to watch in a pinch. apple tv+ has nothing like that. there's no brand or identity to form a memorable market segment around.
Avoiding this is why Apple made the iPod compatible with Windows.
Spotify is thriving on Apple platforms even though Apple has had its own music products for longer than Spotify has been around.
Some portion of Spotify's success, I'd argue, is that they were the first successful entrant in the streaming space. The product isn't particularly remarkable compared to other options and in fact has some notable downsides (such as its ever-changing-for-unclear-reasons UI) but it's what people know and thus what people use.
It having a free ad-supported plan is also a massive factor, but I suppose that would fall under "lowering the bar".
It is not that Spotify is exceptionally good, it is just the others are comically bad.
We definitely saw this with Nike+ back in the late naughts [0]. Then Strava in the mid-teens, and now Peloton.
Competitive people want to compete with their friends, not just against themselves.
Also Corona: Outdoor sports is one of the few accepted social activities, at least in some parts.
I am hopeful Apple pushes hard on GymKit in retail equipment otherwise I think Peloton’s ecosystem will prevail. It just works.
I went from hating the treadmill to loving it because of Apple Fitness+. Scott Carvin is the instructor I use the most and he's amazing. I also use Anya for rower workouts and she's amazing too.
I'm wondering if a startup will come along to turn this concept into a creator-instructor marketplace that ties into Apple Watch, etc.
I'm not trying to degrade anyone here, I am genuinely curious. Is Apple+ more than that? Is there some magic sauce I'm missing?
One thing I do like about it is the monitoring of the Apple Watch with the fitness app. If you have an Apple TV for example they have the ability to see in real time your heart rate and cardio burn. Maybe down the line there are AI instructors? Idk.
Compared to a VHS tape that's static.
Kinda, but what's wrong with that? We didn't leave fitness tapes behind because they were bad, we left them behind because we moved to streaming. Also, in general, it can be hard to hold yourself truly accountable in the middle of hard workout... I know, anecdotally, that I absolutely end up pushing myself harder following an instructor (IRL, livestream, or taped) than I would if I was totally on my own. Not only the verbal motivation, but the reminders of posture and so on. I also had a personal trainer in a gym for a while, same deal... he helped me with my form, my diet, and I could always dig a little deeper when he was pushing me during a workout.
>Is Apple+ more than that? Is there some magic sauce I'm missing?
It's how you use it. Without an Apple Watch, your vitals are tracked and you can get an idea for how much impact your workouts are having on your health. The Watch also gamefies the whole thing with rings and awards... low extrinsic value, sure, but people love it.
I bought an Echelon bike, but switched to the Apple Fitness bundle when it came out
I use the same bike, it doesn’t matter which one I use because the watch tracks my heart rate/calories. It doesn’t track distance and I’m not racing anyone else , but I didn’t have any friends on Echelon either.
The watch is with me when I go walking, running, hiking. It prompts me to move when I sit around a lot - gamifying my workouts to keep the streak going, etc
The experience is transformative. A simple touch interface to find the exact workout you want, plus a recommendation engine.
There is some window dressing on the workouts, showing your metrics in real time on the screen, plus logging the data for historical tracking purposes.
I've loathed working out. I'm not a gym sort of person. I tried watching Netflix and YouTube, and listening to Spotify, etc on the treadmill and always had poor results.
I use an iPad to watch the Fitness+ instruction and tying that to my Watch is just what I need.
There's some gamification where you can see your effort relative to other users during a workout (the "burn bar"). The HIIT workouts (maybe others) come with modifications and they also make a point of giving sign language instructions. The on-screen display basically mirrors the watch workout screen, but it's nice to have it there vs having to look at your watch. Lastly, it's just nice to have a bunch of workouts of consistent quality/intensity + clear instructions and no ads.
Honestly all of these features just solve some minor annoyances with home workouts. But it's hard to get motivated to exercise, and every little friction counts. You don't have to flip through YT to find the right video, the burn bar is more motivating than a simple calorie count, and you can follow the modifications if you get tired/are unable to perform a movement, instead of just giving up.
Lastly, the cost itself can be motivational. I used to pay $200 a month to go to a fancy gym, to lift weights available at any gym. IMO it was worth it because the cost and nice environment helped motivate me to go.
Both of them let you workout with a trainer via video and track the workout in the Activity app. It’s just that for NTC you need a separate app to start workouts, but the data is still aggregated in the same Health app.
They can adjust the voice to background music volume ratio to make it even better, but it's acceptable. The experience is completely different on a >55" TV vs anything else, imagine that the trainer seems real life size. Streaming on Airplay compatible tv is supported with 14.5 and beta.
I really like it. I'm super excited for a new Apple TV because I want to play audio through the homepods but it's ok.
Some improvements I would like to see across the system:
- ability to rewind
- history of workouts within the Fitness+ app, not normal app
- group workouts, now both of us has to start the same workout at the same time, the phone is just muted in on the table while dance in front of the TV
- some focus on making sure moves are done correctly, I would love some intro videos where it takes 30 minutes to show, repeat and help me (overall) understand some basic moves, some very basic intro series
- overall more basic workouts or at a slower pace
- live classes
- muscle categories listed in a user friendly way, I would like to combine 2 strengths workouts that focus on different categories
Maybe apple can actually build the forever rumored tv & include some of their location tracking stuff, kind of like kinect to be able to track your limbs, posture etc. Add in some AI assisted improvement or hell even deepfake a person or just speech to say legs up higher run faster {{first_name}}!
Keep telling myself I’m going to add a 10 minute core...
Thought gamification of fitness was silly at first. I appear to be as susceptible as everyone else.
Same here.
I'm on my 12th straight week of closing my rings.
In general people who haven't done it seem to really underestimate the work in releasing a product in different countries. Especially with software, it seems like you don't have to do "anything" but there can be a lot of fiddly things even to figure out what the requirements really are.
This feels like it is solidly aimed at 'older' people, and by older I mean not the same group that those TV ads are after.
"Workouts for Older Adults, trainers, and Time to Walk guest"... and that guest is Jane Fonda.
I cannot find a single reason I would want to share my run times, or that I have run. Any sharing just seems like a very unhumble brag or worse some attempt to shame or cajole others.
The problem with social fitness is (I at least) cannot see it being very sociable - its competitive.
Edit: actually - I am wrong. Find me people at my level, and help us connect for tips and support, then I get it.
I'm not running with any of the friends I compete against, we all live in different parts of the country. But on the days when it would be really easy to just skip the workout for some reason, not falling behind in that month's challenge is incentive to go do it anyways.
Could I have that kind of self control on my own? Sure. But I'm realistic enough to know that sometimes, a little social pressure goes a long way. Wanting to be the first person to hit N miles for the month (or just not be embarrassingly far behind the pack) is a very real motivating factor.
(But FWIW I only feel this way about running because it isn't my favorite athletic activity. When I spend a day throwing down 80+ miles on my bike, I don't use Strava or anything like that, the ride is the reward. But I can't do an 80+ mile ride on a weeknight after work for some quick cardio)
I find it motivating to see other people running - just in the sense that they are getting out there - but also in what they did.
I sometimes go and do the same route they did and doing that really motivates me because it is new ground and gives you that "exploration" kick.
For me its not about bragging or competitiveness - just solidarity and new ideas.
I'm from Lithuania, none of Apple services are localised to Lithuanian (they are all in English), but I'm sure we'll have to wait until service is localised to 10+ languages before we can access it, unlocalised, in Lithuania.
A neighbor gave me a boxed set of Qigong DVDs (which I digitized for easy use) that I spend a lot of time on, but I have allocated some for that time to Apple Fitness+ core strength lessons, and their walking with interesting people material is pretty cool.
Abusing the Settings app to push free trials of subscription services like Fitness+ alongside iOS updates is really frustrating.
It cannot be a Peloton tie in or something - that is like having a concert that only fan club members can come to.
So ... something - independent - like Apple? Is Apple providing the DVD here and someone else needs to record Jane?
That said, admittedly those things don't sell more watches.
It offers enough variety which is perfect to slot in as cross training cardio to supplement my training.
I wouldn't get it on it's own; but as part of Apple One, I will definitely use it.
This lacks gamification, but there are other ways to get the positive peer pressure (Strava, workout Slack channel, etc).
Also, Fitness+ doesn't offer programs (yet?). Programs work great for busy lives because there's no thinking about what you're going to do each day. I just follow the schedule, do the workout and move on with my day.
I used to lose my phone more whenever I went out drinking until I got the watch. That's because I used my phone to tell the time. So it was in-and-out of the pocket. Now, I keep my phone in my bag and I haven't lost one in two years.
That's especially true when it comes to working out. I have a small slice in the day to workout and I don't want to fiddle with stuff.
It could be that I'm feeling residual frustration from attempting to try Fitness+ on an iPad which I never figured out. I just don't understand why I need a watch to view workout videos. I guess that means I'm not the target market. Thankfully there are good alternatives.
I get it though when someone says "I don't understand". I would tell you that it's similar to trying to tell someone they should go to double monitors when they've only ever used a single monitor and don't see any reasons to try a second.
Highly recommend.
I have a series 6. It is my favorite Apple product ever.
1) UV index, temp at a glance.
2) ECG monitor - Has done more for me than 4 holter monitor tests.
3) Can ditch my phone and still pay, call, access calendar, maps.
4) Seamless and fast charging.
5) Track various interesting health parametrs (O2 during sleep, heart rate during the day, activity levels etc). Syncs all of those in a clean interface (Apple health).
6) Tracks my chosen workout with literally just a touch and swipe. Also tracks if or me incase I forget to touch and swipe.
From a health perspective it is freaking amazing.
It's a full body fitness game with hand tracking (built with GodotEngine). You can use the VRHealth Institute app to provide biofeedback to the app and control the difficulty dynamically if you have a heart rate sensor.
Data sharing is completely opt-in but you can also write your own backend to store any data