Following reports that Apple is unhappy with Apple Fitness+ subscriber figures and it doesn’t know what to do with the service, the company today announced that it’s expanding its fitness program to 28 new markets, while adding dubbed episodes in three new languages. With that, Apple is making the service more friendly to a broader number of customers, while continuing to offer one of the most dynamic fitness programs in the industry.
According to a press release, the service will be available in Chile, Hong Kong, India, the Netherlands, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, Singapore, Sweden, Taiwan, Vietnam, and 17 other countries and regions beginning December 15. Support for Japanese customers is coming early next year.
“Through its seamless integration across Apple devices, Fitness+ has helped inspire users to live a healthier day,” said Jay Blahnik, Apple’s vice president of Fitness Technologies. “From seeing real-time, personal metrics right onscreen with Apple Watch or AirPods Pro 3, to the ability to bring the service with you wherever you go on iPhone or iPad, we’re delivering unmatched motivation to users. We couldn’t be more excited to bring this experience to even more users around the globe with our biggest expansion yet.”
Apple Fitness+ just got its most important update since its debut
Over the past five years, Apple has greatly improved its fitness service. However, starting on December 15, the company is introducing its most important new feature, which is dubbed workout programs. According to Apple, the service is introducing digitally dubbed versions of workouts and meditations in Spanish and German, with Japanese dubbing to follow early next year alongside the availability of the service in Japan.
Apple says the dubbed workouts and meditations will be based on the actual voices of each of the 28 Fitness+ trainers. While allowing more people to make use of its workouts is a positive move, it’s interesting to see Apple go with a Workout Buddy-like approach instead of hiring real people to dub the episodes. After all, over the past few weeks, we’ve seen the company take extra effort to highlight human-made projects instead of using AI, such as the new Apple TV service opening and its new holiday film.
Still, Apple is starting to fix one of the biggest issues with the Fitness+ service, which is only offering subtitles instead of dubbed programs. Besides that, the company says that it will start adding K-pop for workouts as well.
