Has anyone tried this service yet? If so how is the experience so far. I was quite excited to try and get some stats via my Apple Watch. Then the disappoint hit me that you can’t airplay the workout from your phone to a TV. You need to have an Apple TV for this to work. It’s a bit strange that they didn’t include airplay capabilities for a service like this, they didn’t even consider people who have a SMART tv and potentially would never get an apple TV
It’s a bit tough to watch a workout on your phone and try to emulate the steps.
That’s a bit disappointing. I do have an old ATV but I’ve always found AirPlay quite patchy.
As I can’t convince myself/justify a Peloton, I am considering just getting a normal bike and Apple Fitness and then some sort of mount for my iPad I suppose would be easiest.
I just signed up to the trial after getting a 3 month free offer on my watch.
I wish there was a way to Chromecast things too - watching stuff on a tiny screen is not ideal - if I could cast it to my TV that would be fab - like you I’m not likely to get an Apple TV either.
The Spin studio I used to go to has just launched a similar thing - and they have the same issue in that it’s not chrome-castable.
On the plus side, they do have a huge library, so at least I can keep entertained for the duration of the trial.
yeah it’s very annoying and probably the only thing that’s stopping me from getting it. I think otherwise with the workouts they have and how it integrates with apple watch seamlessly, it would be great.
They could have at least added a section in Apple TV+. I mean most people have one iCloud account which they use to pay for Apple TV+ which means ideal scenario is if you have Apple TV+ on your smart tv or via some dongle to subscribe to the service through that instead of either owning an Apple TV box or an iPad
I do have an iPad at home but it’s my sisters not sure if the attribution would work easily from her iPad to my apple watch as the iCloud account details will be different
This is a good shout, I’ll try this. I’ve got this one cable solution thing with my Samsung TV. Just pulling that box out every time I need to workout seems a bit tedious, but first world problems really. Your suggestion works best till they implement this feature via a software update or something
This issue is very similar to the Hue light strips. They are selling the strip and the sync box for a ludicrous price but they don’t work with smart tv. Not many people buy tv boxes anymore and they seem to forget this. they should make things work with smart tv, chromecast and plug and play dongles which enable streaming
Some SMART TV’s have Apple TV application or are able to install, not sure if or how it works with Airplay.
I have had a little bash as have Apple TV 4K, love how it auto syncs with the watch as both the wife and I have apple watches and obvs separate Apple accounts, so the system also asks you who is training and then you have to confirm on the watch.
The option to not allow AirPlay is a decision by Apple.
For those of you thinking you can plug a Lightning to HDMI connector in, you can’t, it won’t work.
There are 2 options to getting it on a TV - USB-C to HDMI cable with USB-C iPad, or an Apple TV.
The people on Reddit think the limitation is down to Apple’s want for the quality of service to be high. The latency with watch/workout metrics being sent etc, would be sub-optimal. It might change in a future release, who knows. Or if could be (more naively) a choice by Apple to get more people to buy into it.
As an aside, I’ve got the trial, I’m doing workouts every day, and absolutely loving it.
Only when doing an exercise in particular. I’m more likely (probably 'cause I’m a glass half-full person) to think it’s down to a bandwidth/Quality of Experience reason that Apple did it. But I’m hopeful we’ll see it change in the future.
But yea, you can’t output Fitness+ from an iPhone on anything other than the phone.
You would, I might. But then you’ll get people moaning that it’s not. Which impacts on Apple’s experience for its users. This is Apple being Apple. If they can’t do something right, they won’t do it at all - see AirPower.
(Yes, there are some exceptions to this - like charging a mouse from the base)
I’ve used it every day since launch but I have a big screen iPad so haven’t needed to launch it on my TV.
The service itself is really good as it’s so easy to pick the workout that suits my mood/energy on any given day. The trainers seem really nice and I have my favourites already. Dustin is an awesome yoga coach, Jamie Ray’s HIIT classes are great and Greg doing strength is so calm and fun. Kim is also nice and her proper LAAAAHNDAN (London) accent is my favourite.
One thing I’m wondering about the service is whether there are workouts that aren’t too jumpy. I live in a 3rd floor flat with creaky floors so jumping jacks and bouncing makes a lot of noise (I hear others that have tried it and don’t want to add to it…!)
- like charging a mouse from the base)
