Good. Peloton sells a very famous stationary bike with streaming workouts, an app and a whole fitness life situation.
Apple sells a very popular smartwatch with heart rate tracking, applications and the ability to sync with fitness equipment on a patented Apple system called GymKit.
The Peloton base bike costs $ 1,895 and does not work with GymKit; the more stylish Bike Plus, which runs on GymKit, costs $ 2,495.
Lots of people bought the more expensive bike to use with Apple watches via GymKit! Yesterday, all those people were dismayed to learn that Peloton had disabled Apple Watch integration for “bootcamp” courses, which combine cycling with strength training. (Integration still works well with regular old cycling, but understand again that Peloton is a whole lifestyle situation.)
Peloton’s statement yesterday strongly blamed this on Apple, a spokesman said The Verge that “Peloton is committed to bringing GymKit integration to all workouts and disciplines in accordance with Apple’s terms and conditions. ”(Our emphasis).
This predictably led to a lot of confusion. Since Apple’s terms of service for GymKit are not public, it was unclear what terms Peloton had violated, and in general, “using your expensive smartwatch to sync your heart rate with your expensive stationary bike” isn’t the kind of thing that should require contract negotiations. between huge companies. And, obviously, Apple is running Apple Fitness Plus, which is a direct competitor to Peloton and does not suffer from heart rate tracking issues based on corporate policy. (And, of course, Peloton just bought Atlas, which is … a smart watch company.)
However, irritating the huge group of rich people who own both an Apple Watch and a Peloton Bike Plus is a bad idea, so Peloton has a new statement today that clarifies what is happening. Here is:
The Apple GymKit is designed to work with equipment-based cardio workouts. However, Peloton recently implemented GymKit with Bike Bootcamp, a type of multidisciplinary class that combines endurance and cardio, which the feature does not support. Members can still use GymKit to sync their cycling workouts only with the Apple Watch from Bike +.
So, practically, the Apple Watch does not accept the transition from cycling to weightlifting, in a single workout. Fair enough. That being said, if people want to use their Apple Watch in stupid ways, without a label, it’s weird that Apple stops them that way, isn’t it? And certainly adding a “bike bootcamp” training mode to the Apple Watch fitness app would be relatively easy for Apple, the company that makes the Apple Watch.
In conclusion, Apple retains control of the iron over its devices and the things that connect to them through its secret accessory contracts, and if anyone would like to send me these contracts, our Securedrop works again.