This Week's Sponsor:

FastMinder

A Simple, Lightweight, and Clutter-Free Intermittent Fasting Tracking Experience


Is Apple Collaborating with Nike to Deliver a Fitness Center App?

Apple & Nike already deliver the Nike + app to iPhone and iPod owners, and they consistently collaborate in improving the experience with a sports sensor and connectivity to cardio equipment. As Apple penetrates the gym with the iPod touch and iPod nano, Apple may take the gym experience a step further by offering a Fitness Center App. Focused on building relationships at the gym (to actually get you off your butt and go have fun), the health culture Apple wants to curate will revolve around being able find local fitness centers, finding classes that are right for you, joining friends, and getting motivated to keep up the hard work.

Nike currently offers the Nike Training Club and Boom apps on the App Store, which offer a series of cardio and endurance based work-outs to get lean and cut. Imagine the approach Nike and Apple cloud take in regard with these workouts to a Fitness Center, where trained professionals could help improve your form. Apple’s Fitness Center app could help give people the ability to get access to the equipment and trainers needed to better themselves, all while providing feedback on calories burned, whether you’re improving, and how to use unfamiliar equipment. One thing fitness centers are good at is discouraging people (especially someone’s who has never lifted weights before) from using what looks like complicated machinery, and an app that contains information about what’s available at your local gym could alleviate some of those problems. Asides from bettering your lifestyle, such an app brings an opportunity to sell iTunes tracks. Hear a power-song you’d like to work out too from this evening’s class? Similar to Starbucks integration, the local gym’s playlist could be offered for download on iTunes.

The good news is that Apple has been working diligently on this new app for several years now. That’s a great sign that they’re working with a number of the larger gyms around the country and consulting with their fitness partners like Nike to get it right. While one can’t predict when a patent will come to life, what we can extrapolate from this application is that this fitness center app project is close to wrapping up.

Patently Apple claims that this collaboration has been in the making for a long time, and that the app itself is reaching its conclusion and could be available on the App Store soon, or will be available as part of the next iOS. If there’s one thing Apple’s good at, it’s including or offering applications on their systems that revolve around or approach a lifestyle. Perhaps Apple could lead the way in promoting physical fitness in your daily lives by putting it front on center on your iPhone, and we’re very excited to see what Apple has coming down the pipe.

[via Patently Apple]

Unlock More with Club MacStories

Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for over six years.

In that time, members have enjoyed nearly 400 weekly and monthly newsletters packed with more of your favorite MacStories writing as well as Club-only podcasts, eBooks, discounts on apps, icons, and services. Join today, and you’ll get everything new that we publish every week, plus access to our entire archive of back issues and downloadable perks.

The Club expanded in 2021 with Club MacStories+ and Club Premier. Club MacStories+ members enjoy even more exclusive stories, a vibrant Discord community, a rotating roster of app discounts, and more. And, with Club Premier, you get everything we offer at every Club level plus an extended, ad-free version of our podcast AppStories that is delivered early each week in high-bitrate audio.

Choose the Club plan that’s right for you:

  • Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with app collections, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, a Club-only podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;
  • Club MacStories+: Everything that Club MacStories offers, plus exclusive content like Federico’s Automation Academy and John’s Macintosh Desktop Experience, a powerful web app for searching and exploring over 6 years of content and creating custom RSS feeds of Club content, an active Discord community, and a rotating collection of discounts, and more;
  • Club Premier: Everything in from our other plans and AppStories+, an extended version of our flagship podcast that’s delivered early, ad-free, and in high-bitrate audio.