Apple Weighing Future of Fitness+ App

Apple reportedly wants to determine whether Apple Fitness+ is still a good fit for Apple.

As Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman wrote in his weekly column on the tech giant, the future of the app-based fitness platform is now under review, with Apple health head Sumbul Desai taking over management of that division. She will report to services chief Eddy Cue.

“With that new arrangement in place, the service will be under fresh pressure to improve results,” Gurman wrote.

He argues that the $9.99-a-month service is saddled with “high churn” and “offers little revenue upside.” At the same time, the offering costs little to run and has a loyal enough group of fans that Apple can’t just pull the plug without negative public relations, the column added.

A separate report by 9to5Mac noted that Apple Fitness+ hasn’t changed much since its debut five years ago. Its price has been fixed at $9.99 per month (or $79.99 for a year), and it has seen only a few new features added over the years.

The news comes weeks after a report that Apple was planning to move its health and fitness divisions and place them under Cue’s leadership. This year also saw reports that Apple was working on an artificial intelligence (AI) agent capable of dispensing health advice, marking perhaps its strongest push into the health field.

During Apple’s third quarter earnings report in July, the company said the revenues from its wearables, home and accessories category, which includes Apple Watch, dropped 9% to $7.4 billion, while services revenue climbed 13% to $27.4 billion.

In other fitness news, Peloton said last week it was issuing a recall of some of its older bikes, one month after introducing its latest product line.

The company said it recalled certain Peloton Original Series Bike+ (model number PL02) models manufactured from December 2019 through July 2022 for sale in the U.S. and Canada. This came after it got three reports of a seat post breaking on these models.

Peloton noted the recall at the start of an earnings call, saying it expected the move to cost $16.5 million.

“This recall does not impact any other equipment models, including our new Cross Training Series Bike and Bike+,” Peloton CEO Peter Stern said during the call.