AppleInsider Staff
Building on the launch of Apple Fitness+ on Monday week, fitness club chain Life Time and retailer Best Buy this week announced promotional tie-ins with the Apple Watch-powered workout product.
Life Time, an early adopter of Apple technologies like GymKit, on Monday announced plans to include Apple Fitness+ in its gym memberships. It is the first U.S. health & fitness club company to make such an offer, the company said in a press release.
"We are rapidly expanding the way the world connects to Life Time through technology - with the same high-quality experiences our brand has been recognized for delivering at our athletic resorts for nearly 30 years," said Bahram Akradi, Life Time founder and CEO. "Apple Fitness+ brings additional best-in-class content and variety to the ever-growing digital and omnichannel wellness programs, services and content we provide our members."
Fitness+ will complement Life Time's existing training and fitness programs and be offered at more than 150 clubs across North America.
Members will be able to access the Apple service for free starting on Dec. 19.
Separately, Best Buy is now offering a two-month Fitness+ trial to all comers in the U.S. through its website. Previously, the big box retailer announced a promotion that gave customers who purchased an Apple Watch after Sept. 15, an extra three months of free access. "My Best Buy members" who bought a Watch prior to that date get an extra month free. Apple provides a three-month trial gratis with new Watch purchases.
Apple Fitness+ launched alongside iOS 14.3 and watchOS 7.2 on Monday. The subscription service enables Apple Watch owners to stream workouts from professional trainers and view synced health data on iPhone, iPad or Apple TV.
The service normally sells for $9.99 a month or $79.99 per year, and is included with the Apple One Premier bundle.
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
Chip Loder
Malcolm Owen
4 Comments
Unable to use Pay at checkout (Best Buy), most likely due to the fact that there is a amount of $0.00 being charged at checkout.
“Life Time”? So far I can’t find any exercise apps for 60+ people. (not those Yoga / Tai Chi ...)
Thankfully I hadn’t signed up yet, so I took Best Buy up on their extra free month. Cool. It wasn’t totally smooth sailing, however, as the link that Best Buy sent me led to a site that said “server not responding”. After retrying it unsuccessfully several times, I went to the redeem gift card section of the Apple Store App and pasted the code there. That did the job! So, anyone experiencing similar issues might find success doing it that way.
How do you guys feel about Apple acquiring a gym equipment company or a gym chain? I don't want GymKit to experience the same level of resistance and piggybacking from knockoff companies like Samsung that ApplePay experienced.