Sunny Santa Monica, Los Angeles is arguably the fitness capital of the world. Home to the legendary Muscle Beach, this neighborhood is where you’ll find another fitness giant: the home of Fitness+, Apple’s fitness video streaming service.
Tied to the hugely popular Apple Watch, Fitness+ releases weekly workout videos on almost every type of exercise: strength, high-intensity cardio, rowing and running, dance, and even meditation sessions. (Users need a watch to activate Fitness+ and can follow guided workouts on iPhone, iPad or Apple TV, or on the watch itself if they’re on the go.) The service launched in December 2020, but so far its headquarters, a Santa Monica landmark that Apple turned into a fitness factory, has operated in a COVID-safe bubble. Its doors are finally open to journalists, and Apple couldn’t be more excited to show it off.
Until now, Apple’s Fitness+ headquarters in Los Angeles operated inside a COVID-19 bubble. It recently opened its doors to journalists from all over the world.
Inside, Fitness+ HQ looks exactly like you’d expect from Apple: modern, clean, top of the line, absolutely stunning. The tech giant wanted to make sure the space was “beautifully designed, and really curated and designed in a way that people could tell it was Apple,” says Jay Blahnik, Apple’s vice president of Fitness Technologies.
The centerpiece of Fitness+ is the spacious, warmly lit studio where trainers film their workouts in front of a small army of robotic cameras. Moving through the rest of the building, I am led through rehearsal spaces where trainers collaborate to perfect their workouts; production suites that support the publication of up to 35 new exercise videos per week; and a walk-in closet stocked with carefully labeled Nike gear in every color and pattern.
If you like to exercise, going behind the scenes at Fitness+ is like visiting Disneyland. And if you’re into digital content production, the scale of this operation is simply unbelievable. “It’s much more than coaches and some cameras,” says Apple COO Jeff Williams in an interview with Apple. Sydney’s morning herald Y Age. “[It’s] experience in many, many disciplines.”
That experience is compounded into a valuable service (Fitness+ subscriptions start at $14.99/month) that elevates Apple Watch above competing smartwatches: Probably Fitness+’s closest competitor, Fitbit Premium doesn’t match its breadth of content.
Fitness+’s biggest rival is not another product, but changing lifestyles. Its launch was perfectly timed with the pandemic, when getting to a gym was impossible. During Sydney’s lockdown in 2021, I used Fitness+ at home almost every day. their coaches felt like my friends. But my gym IRL is reopened and now it’s so busy it’s almost impossible to use it at peak times. If Australians exercise too much at home, does that bode badly for Fitness+?
Look at other big players in fitness tech, and the future of virtual workouts looks cloudy. Take for example the next-generation Peloton exercise bike, a pandemic darling whose share price and customer base soared in 2020. In 2021, it launched in Australia to great enthusiasm. In 2022, its value has plummeted. The death of Mr Big at the hands of Peloton in the sex and the city rebooting seemed like a harbinger of his fate.
