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?
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'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.
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.
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.
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.