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]
