Future of Apple Fitness+ 'Under Review'

[bradman83]

Like Apple Arcade, Fitness+ suffers from trying to appeal to everyone and thereby appealing to no one. It leans heavily towards entry level calisthenics, with gratingly cheerful instructors and cross promotion of annoying Apple Music pop songs. The forced banter and lame jokes between the instructors is particularly annoying.

The clear opportunity is to offer highly personalized and progressive workout programs in different sports (weight training, yoga, cycling, etc) that use Apple Watch and Health data to help you progress. No more pre recorded video knock offs of what was popular on Peloton in 2020. People want real coaching and guidance to reach fitness goals, not phony motivation from plastic instructors. By all means, offer a beginner track for encouraging Joe Q Public to get off his butt and do some jumping jacks, but that can’t be the entire service if they hope to maintain interest and attract enthusiasts.

100% this. I haven't used it in a while but I've found it unintuitive to build workout routines that progress based on skill and increasing fitness. I love Fitness+ for workouts that make sense in an instructor led setting (HIIT, yoga, etc.) but the strength training ones aren't particularly useful. I found myself instead using a third party app (FitBod) that calculates workout progressions for you based on stated goals and user inputs after each workout to measure endurance.

To your point it was great as a starting point to get me off my butt and moving, but comprehensive workout planning would go a long way.

 

[Madmic23]

I use Apple Fitness+ because it’s in Apple One. I wouldn’t pay $10 / month for it on its own. It’s a value added feature, like News+ and Apple TV.

I could see Apple trying to use the Workout Buddy AI feature to replace the Fitness+ trainers. It could give you a unique workout program for your specific goals, and could include more exercises, like traditional squats and bench press. But, that would require improvements to workout buddy. Right now, it just tells me I’m doing a good job for getting my workout in, how many workouts I’ve done this week, and highlights milestones like how many kms I‘ve run this year.

 

[Simmias]

100% this. I haven't used it in a while but I've found it unintuitive to build workout routines that progress based on skill and increasing fitness. I love Fitness+ for workouts that make sense in an instructor led setting (HIIT, yoga, etc.) but the strength training ones aren't particularly useful. I found myself instead using a third party app (FitBod) that calculates workout progressions for you based on stated goals and user inputs after each workout to measure endurance.

To your point it was great as a starting point to get me off my butt and moving, but comprehensive workout planning would go a long way.

I’ve also used FitBod for the last several years. It’s generally good, except the workouts often feel random and the recommended number of sets/reps/weight is occasionally insane. Definitely an opportunity to use Apple Heath data + AI to create workouts that better meet your goals.

 

[matzoek]

I know a hell of a lot of people with Apple Watches who do fitness stuff. None of them use this. I get the feeling there just isn't a market for it at all.

Hi there! Just because you don’t know someone doesn’t mean they don’t exist. What’s the point of your comment?

 

[User 6502]

I’m not sure which one is more useless between this and arcade. They’re both embarrassingly bad services, I’m surprised Apple hasn’t discontinued them already or completely overhauled them

 

[rxp]

I don’t get it. YouTube has tons of follow along content

 

[terry.mac]

Great to do it via TV. But I think it requires Apple TV (hardware) to stream to the TV.

I once did it via iPad. But it's not the same experience. I imagine the experience is not the same via an iPhone.

I think Apple limits its market potential by forcing the TV version only on Apple TV hardware.

 

[DB2k]

I wouldn't pay for it but it's definitely considered as a value add in Apple One - we both use it about once a week for specific activities. If it was removed I'd review if we were still getting value out of apple one. Especially since news really is just click bait trash for the most. its declined so much

 

[Downundermac]

My wife and my youngest daughter use it every day as part of our Apple One premier subscription. Apple Arcade is a weaker offering - they both need more investment.

 

[hans1972]

It's a little too American for my taste. Very polished and a tad creepy how much they all smile during the workouts.

I would have loved to see a passive aggressive British version full of sarcasm, irony and innuendo.

 

[cjsuk]

Hi there! Just because you don’t know someone doesn’t mean they don’t exist. What’s the point of your comment?

I’m a qualified statistician. In a random sample of about 30 people and no one uses it, you ask more questions.

The question I am asking is: does it have enough ROI to break even if they are thinking of canning it. The hypothesis is that they don’t because an insignificant part of the market bought into it.

Sounds like their market research was ****. We left the age of build it and they will come.

Happy now?

 

[JustSomeInfo]

For those on the fence, there is also the $80 a year plan which drops it to $6.67 per month.

 

[turbineseaplane]

YouTube is stuffed with thousands of exercise videos. For free. For someone motivated they can piece together a workout and once you’ve done it a few times, why even watch?

And there’s a lot of folks making absolute bank on YouTube from this.

Really, Apple could bring a variety of folks onboard and pay them even better, but Apple is being cheap I guess?

There are too many things they stick their nose into, but don’t invest into enough to make them really takeoff. I don’t understand the approach.

 

[flyingshark]

I would be really bummed if they got rid of this. I like being able to have decent workout routines without having to navigate something like YouTube and have ads jammed down my throat. If they cancel it, I sure hope they let us retain access to the archived workouts.

 

[jdavid_rp]

I liked it but I would prefer to be motivated in my native language

 

[xizdun]

Don’t you dare pull the plug on my Fitness+ Rowing workouts, Apple.

I row with Josh, Anja and Bakari on an almost daily basis.

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

Didn't the guy who ran this get sued for sexual harassment?

 

[turbineseaplane]

Didn't the guy who ran this get sued for sexual harassment?

He was trying to close rings he shouldn't have been trying to close.

His behavior contributed to decisions by more than 10 workers to seek extended mental health or medical leaves of absence since 2022, about 10 percent of the team, these people said.

When confronted with Mr. Blahnik’s behavior, Apple moved to protect him after an internal investigation. The company settled one complaint alleging sexual harassment by Mr. Blahnik and is fighting a lawsuit by an employee, Mandana Mofidi, who said he had bullied her.

Apple Fitness Chief Accused of Toxic Workplace Culture and Harassment

Workers say the executive was volatile and retaliated when they cooperated with an investigation. Apple denies the claims.

www.nytimes.com

Alt Link https://archive.is/5CGru

 

[hagar]

I wonder why… the Health and Fitness apps are the worst two apps ever built by Apple. Confusing as hell.

 

[kurtfoster]

It would be of more interest to me if I could switch off the music and just listen to the instructors. I sent that as a suggestion many years ago.

 

[ipedro]

The service apparently suffers from high churn

Welcome to the gym business, Apple.

People start working out in a fit of motivation, then give up when it proves hard to keep it going.

Fitness+ is one of my favourite services, it actually got me to stick with it and I'd be really sad to see it go.

One point of failure is that people try to workout without the nutrition that is a critical pairing to any fitness journey. You can't keep working out if you're not eating right. You'll break down sooner or later. If Apple releases a nutrition app like MyFitnessPal or integrates it into the Health app with Visual Intelligence for quick logging, they'll see their Fitness+ use go up and remain more consistent.

 

[milhaus]

I do three or more workouts on AF+ daily. Core, Strength, and one or two of HIIT, Cycle, Row, and treadmill. I would pay $29 monthly for this service, but if they get rid of it, there goes my Apple One subscription.

But let’s be honest - Apple wont give a **** about us when deciding to shutter the service. Realistically, what are our alternative options here? With connected metric preferably, and a variety of exercises?

 

[bluecoast]

It’s not bad, but needs a little work. Wife and are I big into yoga and use it to supplement our regular yoga sessions. Said classes have no levels other than active or relaxed, and can be too easy for anyone looking for higher or advanced levels. Glo, which we also have, does levels 1-2 up to 4-5. Basically the whole AF+ service seems to stick to entry-level. Dice was on Glo before Apple fitness, for example, and you see the difference in levels watching him on both.

Apple Fitness Plus doesn't replace a gym, and we still keep or ymca memberships, and I with one at a climbing/bouldering gym...Perhaps if you never use the larger equipment at a gym, it might. Doing bench presses, for example, without a spotter or a smith machine isn't safe.

They also need to offer in a One package other than premier!

Agreed, the service really needs graded exercise types.

I've subscribed to it on and off and whilst it's very slick, with fantastic instructors who are obviously at the top of their game, the lack of graded exercise is puzzling.

One time, you might get a far too easy workout, the next it might be a quite challenging one, with no way of knowing.

Following from this, more fitness programmes would be good i.e. here's how you get great at yoga etc.

Finally, a price cut would be very good. If the rumoured Health+ is happening, that seems an idea time to create a great value bundle of Health+ and Fitness+.

 

[Hank001]

Listen to this instead, amazing workout guided by Arnold, and you will be laughing.

No need to listen in order to laugh, the little head on top of the big body did it for me already. (many pics from 1983 do)


Seriously, the amount of positive feedback is quite astonishing. I've never seen so many people to like a service from Apple, at least for the past decade or so, to want to take a look at this Fitness app. Unfortunately, not available in my country. I could switch to my US account, but already got enough feedback from others that it's not worth the hassle.

 

[stevec618]

I hope they don't bin it. I use it every day. It works really well with the Apple TV/Apple Watch integration.