(Pocket-Lint) – Apple Fitness + joined the multitude of fitness apps for the home in December 2020, competing with companies like Fiit. Peloton and also like individual trainers Joe Wicks and Bradley Simmonds.

The subscription service offers a range of studio style workouts for different types of activity, although unlike others, it is specially designed the Apple Watch.

While it offers good basics, it lacks features compared to the competition. The following is missing in our opinion and is keeping it from the size.

Ability to filter workouts by target area

Apple Fitness + This option allows you to choose a workout type: HIIT, Yoga, Core, Strength, Treadmill, Cycling, Rowing, Dancing, or Mindful Cooldown. Then you can filter the trainer, time and music. You can do all, some, or none of them.



By Roland Moore-Colyer
February 4, 2021

What if you could filter on the area of ​​the body you want to focus on, the way you can? Fiit? For example, some days we want to do a lower body HIIT session, and other days we want to do an upper body stretch. We want to see the option to filter by target body area or part. There are days when we just don’t want to crouch.

Training programs and challenges

There aren’t any workout programs or challenges within Apple Fitness + that will bring you back day in and day out. Nothing prevents you from doing one Fiit workout one day, Joe Wicks another, and not all Apple Fitness + workouts.

Training programs or challenges would change that. Apple makes the monthly awards challenge for Apple WatchB. Complete 20 workouts in February to receive the February prize. So why not have a challenge like 15 HIIT sessions on Fitness + this month and get an award badge for that too?

Or do you have a two week yoga plan or one month core challenge like the one Joe Wicks is currently doing for February 2021?

Apple

Stripes

This function follows from the training plan and the challenge. The competitor app Fiit tracks the number of consecutive days and weeks you exercise with it, notifies you, and encourages you to do more.

We’d like to see something similar on Fitness +. There may be days when a workout is really the last thing you feel like doing, but the streaks become a game, like closing those Apple Watch rings. We don’t know about you, but we don’t like to break our flow when we’re on a roll.

Statistics area

Fitness + is a single tab in the fitness app. So while you can scroll down and get different sections such as: For example, if there are new workouts this week, there are no other tabs in the Fitness + area to switch between. To see your completed workouts you will need to go to the Summary tab and step away from Fitness +.

We’d like to see a statistics section and a workout history section somewhere. The most logical place would be your picture in the top right corner of the Fitness + tab. For now, you will only receive gift card options and your name and email address.

Instead, we want to see a list of the workouts you have done here, the total number of workouts, the total calories you burned in the Fitness + workout, the average heart rate during the workout, and the number of workouts you have done, for example . Lots of options that could make the profile area more exciting.

Workout feedback or review option

Have you ever started a workout, got it halfway through and just absolutely hated it? Maybe the trainer was just too excited for you, or maybe they don’t explain things the way you’d like. Or you just don’t like the style.

We want to be able to provide feedback on the Fitness + workouts that we do when we have finished. Not that we can be mean to the coaches, but we know if to avoid this style, this workout, or this coach in the future and the More of What You Do section is adjusted accordingly. Fiit is asking for a rating of the workout, followed by a rating of the trainer and the music among other things, and we’d love to see something similar on Fitness +.

Apple

More trainers

There are already some trainers at Fitness + – 21 to be precise – but there could be a lot more. For example, if you choose HIIT or yoga, there are only three trainers available. Fortunately, strength is six, but our point is that some areas are weaker and there is definitely room for expansion.

We’d love to see more coaches for a change. We like Jamie-Ray, but we probably don’t want to do all five of our weekly workouts with him.

Live workouts

On-demand workouts are great. There’s a lot to say when you can get a 20-minute workout in your living room before lunch and just tap play and do it anytime. It leaves very little room for excuses and if you’re anything like us that’s a good thing.

However, live workouts have something going for them. Perhaps the responsibility or need to be ready for a period of time and know that other people are doing it with you at the same time. We would therefore like to see live workouts on Fitness + at some point, preferably with a list of the best with a description.

The Burn Bar shows you how you are doing in relation to other people who have previously attended this workout, but it would be extra motivation to have a live leaderboard wouldn’t it?

Time to run

Apple has a feature called “Time to Walk” in Fitness + which is basically an audio workout with a specific celebrity like Shawn Medes and music talking to each other per episode. Then there are treadmill workouts as a separate function.

We’d like to see a run form of Time to Walk that includes what’s offered in the treadmill workouts but only audio so you can use it for an outdoor run.

Apple

Heart rate zone information

Fitness + is based on the Apple Watch, so it has an edge over competitors because it knows what devices are being used by users. During a workout, you can see your rings along with your heart rate and focal bar if you want to keep them visible.

At the end of a workout, the data collected is moved to the “Summary” section of the Fitness app rather than the “Fitness +” tab. You can then tap the individual workout to view more information. However, it will show you active and total calories, your average heart rate, a heart rate graph, and a heart rate recovery graph. However, there is nothing to be said if you have actually worked hard enough to do this.

We’re not beginners so we know our heart rate really needs to be above 140 bpm for us to be considered working, but there are beginners who may need more guidance. Apple could request more information (it may already be there if you paste it into the Health app) such as: B. Your height and weight Fitbits and Garmins of this world, so we would like to see an expansion of the data, for example heart rate zones.

Casting skills

Well, this one is highly unlikely, but we thought we’d add it anyway. Fitness + will likely not be compatible with Chromecast, Amazon TV or Sky Q like Fiit so you can stream it on your TV that way but we can only dream, hey?

Currently – although it will soon change – the only way to Get Fitness + on your canvas If you have an Apple TV 4K or Apple TV HD that is running the latest version of tvOS. The iOS 14.5 software update – currently in beta – will add support for AirPlay 2 compatible TVs, which makes things a little easier even though the metrics are not showing. AirPlay is better than nothing as it really is a lot easier to watch a workout on your TV than yours iPhone or iPad, but we would like to see wider casting support in the future.

Letter from Britta O’Boyle.