Apple Fitness+ – Future Uncertain

Apple’s Fitness+ service is one of the company’s weakest digital offerings and is understood to have a high ‘churn rate’. Its future is now officially ‘under review’ by new management, and here’s what the company might do to save the service—including a possible Peloton acquisition.

Fitness+ — the company’s app-based Peloton rival — remains one of its weakest digital offerings. The $9.99-a-month service suffers from high churn and offers little revenue upside. Still, Fitness+ has enough loyalty from its small fan base that Apple can’t simply shut it down without a backlash. And given how inexpensive it is to operate, there’s little incentive for a nearly $4 trillion company to pull the plug — especially if such a move would generate negative headlines.

That said, the future of Fitness+ is under review. The division is getting new management, with Apple health head Sumbul Desai adding Fitness+ to her portfolio. Both she and that group will now report to services chief Eddy Cue. With that new arrangement in place, the service will be under fresh pressure to improve results. [Gurman, Bloomberg, 9 November, 2025]

Fitness+ is a good service, or at least I thought so when I used a couple of free trials. Like many of you, I didn’t see the value in actually paying $9.99/mo. As a result, even as far back as 2021, I had suspicions it didn’t have stellar performance.

The service features high-quality instructors leading well-produced exercise videos in an upscale studio setting. I’ve always wondered how much money it made for Apple, and I suppose my darkest suspicions might soon be shown to be true. Whilst the service looks and is high quality and expensive, as Gurman says, in relative terms, it’s probably cheap for Apple, costing millions of dollars a year to run rather than tens of millions.

As Gurman suggests, the service must have a loyal core base that loves it. Perhaps they get it bundled in with an Apple One subscription, or maybe they prefer to work out at home rather than in a gym and just happen to be heavily vested in the Apple ecosystem. There are likely other customer types and use cases as well, but not many of them.

The Peloton Acquisition

Stories about the future of Apple Fitness inevitably raise the spectre of Apple acquiring Peloton, both for its service revenue and hardware business, not forgetting an impressive, captive user base.

Peloton would be an excellent fit for Apple, but I suspect that, in the absence of any other buyers or an IPO, Apple will wait for the company to falter and jump in and snap it up for a knockdown price. Maybe.

Other In-House Changes Signal Something Will Happen

We’ve seen a rebranding of Apple TV (from Apple TV+) and a rumoured new logo for Apple One. Apple is clearly mixing up its offering, and no doubt soon we’ll find out the true direction it plans.

One enticing option is that Fitness+ becomes Fitness… i.e., free… at least for a few years while Apple builds its user base.

If it were free or if my family got Apple One (which we’re considering), we’d use it. Would you?

Last Updated on 29 January 2026 by the5krunner

the5krunner

tfk is the founder and author of the5krunner, an independent endurance sports technology publication. With 20 years of hands-on testing of GPS watches and wearables, and competing in triathlons at an international age-group level, tfk provides in-depth expert analysis of fitness technology for serious athletes and endurance sport competitors.