Emily Abbate, GQ:

After nine months of pandemic life, I’ve tried what feels like every streaming workout and app there is, and I’ve gotten picky. But as you would expect from the company, Fitness+ is an incredibly slick app, where users can choose workouts from nine different categories: HIIT, yoga, core, strength, treadmill, cycling, rowing, dance, and “mindful cooldown.” The studio used for filming is gorgeous, and the quality of the videos is top notch.

And:

Whether you’re using the app at the gym on an iPhone or in your living room with an Apple TV, you’ll get cues and vibrations on your wrist that synch up with the workout, and the watch will beam biometric stats like heart rate and calories burned to the screen.

This last bit is a critical feature of Fitness+, that tight integration between Apple Watch and Fitness+. And you can add Apple TV to that mix as well. If you are brand new to Fitness+, you can register yourself by just holding your Apple Watch near your Apple TV and your Apple TV will add you to its list of Fitness+ users. All this interaction works really well, seamlessly.

One morning, as I went to go scroll through the service to see what class I should take on later that day, I hit an “unavailable” screen just because my watch was turned off on the charger. (Apple says subscribers will get a workaround for this in case they—for example—head off on a business trip and forget their watch behind.)

The Apple Watch is a critical part of this infrastructure.

As to the instructors:

The surest sign that Apple is taking direct aim at Peloton’s business, though, is the lineup of 21 trainers you can take on-demand classes with. It’s a compelling and diverse bunch, many whom you might recognize from Instagram or other fitness platforms. Anyone who’s spent time with a Peloton knows that service is not really about the bike, or hitting your numbers—what keeps you coming back about developing a relationship with your favorite trainers. Apple clearly hopes they can replicate that parasocial magic. It’s obviously early, but they have some work to do before that happens. There will presumably be room for each trainer to develop their own personalities and show a little more vulnerability as the platform matures, but right now it’s a little upbeat motivation—it can feel a little robotic.

Agreed. Early days still. It takes time to build those relationships and for instructors to develop their on-screen personalities. Peloton has this down to a science.

Beyond music, the cueing across the classes is just excellent. You can expect smart, well-timed recommendations for exactly how to move your body—bracing your core to safely execute a movement or relaxing your shoulders in chair pose. These guys know their shit. They have obviously also taken pains to make things extremely accessible. Whether you’re tackling a 30-minute run or a 10-minute yoga session, there’s always one person off to the side scaling the workout, modifying the moves for different skill levels.

This is a huge benefit. Peloton handles this by grading all of their workouts. So I can filter Peloton workouts to only show me those at my level. Apple is trying a more universal approach here, making every workout for every fitness level. A tricky thing to make work.

One thing I’d like to see Fitness+ add is a stretching category. Peloton has that category and I find it very helpful, but as warmup for specific exercise types (running or lifting, say) or as a cooldown after a specific exercise type (post running and lifting stretches can be very different for me).

Another issue is an apparent incompatibility with AirPlay. If I’m traveling and I have access to a TV that supports AirPlay, I’d love to be able to beam my fitness workout to the TV without an Apple TV connected. If this is true, will this change over time? Is this Apple ensuring tight control over the experience? Or purely early days experience.

As is, Fitness+ has a pretty great rollout experience.