Apple Watch, Fitness+, and … My Wife (Premium)

I watched and wrote about yesterday’s Apple event in real-time, and then I watched it again. And then I asked my wife to watch it too.

Well, not all of it, I’m not a sadist. Just the Apple Watch and Apple Fitness+ parts.

Why would I do such a thing? Two reasons. I’ve been on the fence with regards to switching to Apple Watch for much of the past year, thanks to its health and fitness tracking prowess, and the new announcements only strengthen these advantages. And because my wife writes professionally about health, fitness, nutrition, and wellbeing, and she interviews doctors, researchers, and others literally every week. She’s no less well-educated on these topics than Michael Pollan or Gary Taubes, or any other author you care to mention, and I conveniently happen to live with her.

Her reactions to this event were interesting.

As Tim Cook started rhapsodizing about the Apple Watch, she asked, “I assume this old white guy is some uppity-up at Apple?”

I paused the remote. We were about 10 seconds in. Seriously?

Um, yeah, he’s the CEO of Apple. She laughed. “He still doesn’t seem like the right choice for this.”

Hm. OK, sure. Anyway, the presentation commences. There was a comment in the show about “closing the rings,” so she asked what that meant. She had never heard the phrase. I couldn’t remember exactly what all three rings were, so I looked it up on my phone and read it to her. I told her about a friend from 30 years ago who I’d lost touch with but had since reconnected on Facebook; he used the Apple Watch to lose over 100 pounds over the past year, I told her, and every day he posted something about closing those rings and what he was eating (low-carb; good man). She said the three rings system seemed excellent and was probably very motivational from a gamification perspective. She approves.

Moving on. The Apple Watch Series 6—a “pretentious name,” she said. “Why isn’t it just Apple Watch 6?”—has a Blood Oxygen sensor. This is an excellent feature, she said. But how much does the Apple Watch Series 6 cost, she asked? “It starts at $400,” I told her. “You can buy a pulse oximeter [which measures blood oxygen saturation] at Walgreens for $20,” she replied. Here we go. “But it’s nice that this is built-in, and it’s smart that it measures your blood oxygen when you sleep.” Ah, good.

She didn’t care about the new watch faces, but I explained why the new solo loop was such a good idea, and I told her about the incredible markets for personalizing Apple Watch with both faces and bands, and, whatever, she doesn’t care too much about that. She didn’t care about the S6 chipset, and she got kind of bored by what she described as “overt marketing.”

But overall, she got it, and agreed with my assessment that the biggest shame about the Apple Watch is that you need to own an iPhone to use one. She’s an Android user and couldn’t care less about Apple or the iPhone. That said, like me, she’s used a variety of fitness wearables—her current device is a Fitbit Versa 2—and the Apple Watch seemed like more of a standalone device than anything she’d used, and she liked that. I told her that was correct, and that the Apple Watch likewise did literally everything that every other wearable combined does; it’s like a superset of the rest of the industry. That’s why I think about making this move. I care about this stuff.

We skipped over the Family stuff, since that doesn’t apply to us anymore, but she liked the idea of it while bemoaning the necessity of buying multiple Apple Watches for the entire family.

And then we got to Fitness+. I should mention at this point my own reaction to this service when I first watched the event: This might be the smartest online service that Apple has yet created because it’s not just a copy of something else and it takes advantage of the unique features of both Apple Watch and its entire devices ecosystem. It’s something that will benefit individuals right now, especially those who need to stay healthy at home because they’re afraid of going to a gym (or literally can’t because of lockdown rules). But I see it as much more than that: In the future, I see Apple partnering with gyms and gym equipment makers to bring this functionality to groups in a gym or individuals on elliptical trainers or treadmills or using other machines. This could grow to be one of Apple’s biggest businesses.

My wife had a similar reaction, but she equated it to the death of Peloton, which sells users expensive $1900 to $2500 (depending on model) bikes that require a $30 per month subscription service. Apple Fitness+ is just $10 per month and it covers much more than just bike riding. Then we did some more math: You could get a decent stationary bike for less than $400, and even the most expensive big-screen iPad Pro costs less than $1000. Put them together with an Apple Watch ($400 or less) and Apple Fitness+ and you’ve got a more versatile superset of Peloton for a much, much lower price over time.

You know you’ve stepped into bizarro world when Apple is the solution that makes more sense and is more affordable, but there we are. (And this isn’t entirely unique: The iPad works this way too.)

Now, is my wife going to get an Apple Watch? No, of course not. She’s sticking with Android. But would she get one if Apple Watch came to Android? Yep. You bet. In a—pardon the pun—heartbeat.

On that note, so would I. But as I noted, I already have an iPhone, and I could get an Apple Watch right now.

I’m seriously considering it.